These sermons are entitled to more than common regard. They down, and may be so easily found? There is the track of the apostles by which to steer. Is it from the dread of the imputation of legal preaching, that any are found only glancing on Christian duties? If a minister, from the dread. of that which he has not justly incurred, shuns to declare any part of the counsel of God, and especially that to which the Saviour and his apostles gave so large a place, me of the evidences of Christ within is wanting. Is it from a thirst for popular fame, and the worldly emolument that attends it, that those truths are held back in the preaching of any that stand opposed to the corrupt bias of the human heart, and are calculated to overturn men's ill-founded, flattering, delusive hopes? Tell it not in Gath; publish it not in the streets of Askelon,

&c.'

"It would be uncandid not to allow, that the little space left for the practical improvement of some great subject that loudly called for it, and was revealed with an immediate view to the regulation of men's temper and conduct, may not always be a deliberate, designed thing; ministers are under a temptation to give a disproportionate place in their enlarge ment to what occurs in the former part of a discourse, which is often theoretical; and are not a little surprised to find the

time allotted for the sermon gone before any direct application to the conscience has been made, or any one inference drawn in favour of that holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord. Ministers of superior genius, and whose minds are amply stored, lie more open to this temptation than others. They are not satisfied without the best proof which a point of doctrine admits; when, perhaps, not one of their auditory had a single doubt on the subject.

"The first preachers had doctrines to promulgate and establish, that were new to the world; yet such were their views of the Christian ministry, that they never failed to appropriate some considerable part of every epistle extant, to the interest of piety and virtue in the hearts and lives of those to whom they wrote. They were sensible of the superior advantage of those truths which they were commissioned to publish, and never omitted to improve them for the forming of Christ within men. If apostolic example is followed, sermons will correspond with the general state of our auditories; and that will be more largely administered which is found most wanting. Pilate's question, What is truth? should never be relinquished until it is satisfactorily solved. I cannot so far re

exhibit the happy medium between dull common-place orthodoxy, and that prevailing defect of the present age which perpetually evinces its prurience by reaching after lofty declamation, or loading every paragraph with glittering ornaments or gaudy flowers. In many points, these sermons are worthy of becoming models to young preachers, and will be found much more likely to lead them to an apostolic purity and earnestness, than some others of more ambitious pretensions, and more extensive popularity. We confess ourselves ardent admirers of true genius and eloquence, and to a certain extent agree with Mr. Irving, that there is great room for improvement in the substance or materiel of pulpit compositions: -but at the same time we still more ardently admire sound doctrine and scriptural simplicity. No eloquence, no oratory will supply the place of those "unsearchable riches" with which every discourse in a christian pulpit should be replete.

flect on the wisdom and goodness of God, as to suppose there is any one revealed truth that is not of great importance. A minister who is bent on being instrumental in producing the greatest sum of good, will endeavour to know in what his hearers are most defective, and will be guided, in his preaching, by that knowledge. Can a minister hesitate a moment in pronouncing, that error in practice is far more prevalent than error in opinion? But does this always appear, either in their choice of subjects, or the manner in which they are handled? What is a physician if his prescriptions do not answer to the diseases of his patients? When adverting to a deviation from apostolic example, I have no view to Antinomians; but to those preachers who are less consistent; for whilst they profess great zeal against antinomian principles, they are gradually preparing their hearers for them, by the comparatively little attention they pay in their discourses to the law, as obligatory on Christians as a rule of life. There are those who can often remark the easy transition from Socinianism to Deism, who seem not aware of another equally easy, and, at least, equally dangerous.

A Posing Question put by the Wise Man, viz. Solomon, to the wisest of Men, concerning making a judgment of temporal conditions: wherein you have the ignorance of man (in knowing what is good or evil for man in this life) discovered, together with the mistakes that flow from it: And the Great Question resolved, viz. Whether the knowledge of what is good for a man in this life be so hid from man, that no man can attain it. Preached at the Weekly Lecture at Upton-uponSevern, in the County of Worcester, by BENJAMIN BAXTER, late Minister of the Gospel there. London, (about 1661).

Ir may not be deemed an unapt simile, which has suggested itself while we have been occupied in the perusal of this excellent little volume, and with which, in spite of the rhetoricians, we shall begin. Modern writings are like landscape paintings while the works of our ancestors are like maps; they contain little to gratify mere gazers at books-or the large class of adult picture-book readers; they have little of the colouring and grouping, and light and shade, or, if we may so call it, little of the picturesque of their subjects; but they possess the more valuable qualities of the map, which, though it is less pleasing, is more useful than the picture. They are but minute sections of a country that the landscape can exhibit, while the map makes the student acquainted with the boundaries, relations, and nature of the whole, and, when occasion requires, may serve to facilitate his journey through every part of it. We are ready to admit that many of the older writers are deficient in a due attention to the garb in which their

thoughts are presented-and, that frequently there is a want, not of appropriateness indeed in the thoughts themselves, but of selectness and condensation. Their general practice appears to have been to think long, and much, and profoundly, upon any subject they took in hand-but their defect appears to us to consist in recording their thoughts without discrimination, and without a just esti mate of how much it might be necessary to say, in order to establish their positions, and without a careful selection of the more appropriate illustrations. But yet, amidst the iteration, and operoseness, and cumulation, which characterise the greater portion of their works, there is such a completeness, such a thorough and panoramic view of their whole subject, that we cheerfully bear with their occasional tediousness and detail. If we were to specify any one particular class of the older writers who exceed the moderns, we should, without hesitation, name the Theologians, for heavy and prosing as many of their larger treatsies unquestionably are, yet, generally speaking, their smaller works are characterized by unrivalled excellence. There is a pith, and an unction; a simplicity, and an earnestness; a species of effective eloquence and point, which are in vain looked for among the productions of the later schools of divines.-One of the features which we cannot pass over, and in which they are pointedly contrasted with the theological productions of our own age, is their familiarity with the word of God, and the ample use they make of it to illustrate every proposition, and to press home every doctrine. The Bible was their storehouse and their trea

not say to the wedge of gold, thou art my confidence? Do you not make them the fuel for lusts, and instruments of revenge? You may know, what your hearts were in desiring them, by the use you afterwards make of them. Remember, lust is an earnest craver ; and will pretend, that what it begs, is for God, till it hath what it desireth. It is good for Christians then, to put the question to themselves, what God hath the more from them, for that they have received from

him?

"To close up the answer to this question; let me tell you, although it be lawful to pray for the things of this life; yet not principally and primarily, but with respect to the inferiority of their nature and uses. Remember still, these are not the chief things to be sought after. Matt. vi. 33. Seek FIRST the kingdom of God, &c. We ought in our prayers, to give the precedency, and pre-eminence to spiritual good things. Heavenly things are to be preferred before earthly; and we are to place them in our prayers, as God hath placed thein. Though we may lawfully pray for the things of this life, yet we pray unlawfully, when we are more earnest for them, than for the things that relate to another life. God took it well from Solomon, when he was left to his choice and bid to ask what he would, he only asked wisdom. He did not ask riches, nor a long life, nor the life of his enemies. Yet God gave him those. The way to have the things of this world, is chiefly to seek after the things of another world. These things you may pray for absolutely, namely grace and an interest in Christ, and pardon of sin and all soul mercies; and all the good things that relate to another life.

We read of some in Hosea vii. 17. that howled upon their beds for corn and wine. Those were the things they only sought after; and their prayer was but a brutish cry, compared to the howling of a dog. A gracious soul pants after the things of another life, when others pant only after the things of this life. The Prophet speaks of such, Amos ii. 7. who pant after the dust of the earth: but David's soul panted after God. Psalm xlii. 1. So punteth my soul after thee, O God. Then it is right, when we pray for the things of this life, with a serious consideration of their lowness and baseness, and inferiority, being compared with the things of eternity, and another life."pp. 56-58.

It was among the prominent features of the nonconformist divines to give a scriptural consistency to their sentiments, and to manifest a deference for the authority of the word of God, which is not always

apparent in the theologians of the We think that it opposite school.

will be found, on a fair and extensive survey, that by far the larger portion of the useful practical books, and incomparably the larger mass of sound divinity, which our country possesses, proceeded from those learned, devoted, and apostolic men, whom the Church of England violently and contemptuously thrust from her. With all the learning and genius which she could boast, after the Act of Uniformity she was left miserably destitute of the higher and more valuable qualities, which the side of nonconformity exhibited. The immense masses of judicious theological works which those divines ejected from the establishment, have bequeathed to posterity, will remain a monument to their piety, zeal, and wisdom, which will be heard in their praise, when the tongues and the pens which have calumniated their characters are forgotten. But we are wandering from Mr. Baxter.It is not possible to present an analysis of this volume. It is replete with scriptural wisdom, and keeps singularly close to the main subject. Many passages might be selected to evince the general clearness and precision with which the writer states and enforces the soundest views of truth, and by the spirited and sustained manner in which the

whole subject is treated. But we shall content ourselves with a single extract, in illustration of its sterling excellence as a work of practical divinity. The principle pervading the following passage is of great moment, and is well illustrated in the clear and familiar style of this writer.

"He that will take a right view of a condition, must take a right standing for the viewing of it. It is in the viewing of a condition, as it is in the viewing of a picture; the art in drawing is best discerned at some convenient distance. The reason why many are mistaken about these conditions is, their setting these

:

conditions too near them when they take a view of them. Thus they set the comforts of a condition, and the crosses of a condition, so near to them, that they cannot take a right view of them. It is with men, in this case, as it is with a man in the midst of a great wood, or in the midst of a great city. When he is at some distance from them, he hath a fuller view of them, than when he was in the midst of them, because his sight is bounded, and terminated, that he can see but a little way. He seeth, it may be, but a street, or some part of a street; when, being but at some convenient distance from the city, and having a little advantage of ground, he hath a full view of the city, in respect of greatness, length, circuit, &c. Thus it is in respect of conditions when a man is in the midst of the comforts of a condition, in the midst of his honour, wealth, and prosperity, he sceth but a little way, and cannot take a full view of his condition. So it is, when a man is in the midst of his crosses, and afflictions, he discerneth but a little of his condition. And thus, not taking a right view of their conditions, they make a false judgment of them. Solomon hath a passage, Prov. xviii. 1. Through desire, a man, having separated himself, seeketh, or intermedleth, with all wisdom. The words are diversely interpreted. In the margin we read thus, he that separateth himself, seeketh according to his desire, and intermedleth in every business. The meaning seemeth to be this, that a man, that seeketh after wisdom and knowledge, hath his retirements; his desire of wisdom, makes him sometimes come off from his secular employments, and set them at a distance from him. It makes him sequester himself from all his worldly businesses, that he may seek after wisdom; and that he may be the freer for study and meditation, and a consideration of things, what they are. Thus it is, in respect of conditions. If a man will take a right view of his condition, and will get wisdom, to make a judgment of it; he must, for a while, (as I may say) separate himself from it, and look upon it at some distance. The apostle gives this direction, for the taking of a right view of conditions. 1 Cor. vii. 29, 30, 31. Let those that have wives, be as though they had none; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they that possess, as though they possessed not, &c. This sheweth us, that then we take a right view of things, when we look on them at a distance. Those things are worst seen, that we are on the same side with. An house is best viewed, when we are on the other side the street. So it is in respect of conditions; we should view the condition, as though we were not in the condition. And so for an afflicted

condition, we should view it at a distance. Let them (saith the apostle) that weep, be as though they wept not. It is oftentimes self in a condition, that binders from taking a right view of a condition. If we could separate ourselves from our conditions, and look upon them, as other men's conditions, and not our own, we should take the better view of them. There was a nobleman, of this nation, who had three of his sons drowned together, in the river Trent: the father had not, as yet, received the sad tidings of their deaths. It was thought good he should be prepared for the tidings, before they came. Upon this account, was that learned, and prudent prelate, bishop King, desired to go to him. He very wisely managed the business. He did not, at first, tell the nobleman what was befallen him, but fell upon a general discourse of an afflicted condition, and so gave the nobleman a view of his condition afar off. The nobleman assented to all the bishop said, and answered, that if God should bring him into such a condition, he did hope, he should be content, and submit to his will. Upon this, the bishop brings the condition nearer to him, and putteth this question to him: Admit the Lord should take from you, your workliy enjoyments, your outward comforts; and should break off the olive-branches from about your table. The nobleman answered, that he hoped he should be therewith content. Upon this the bishop came nearer, and told him, it was his condition, that his sons were drowned; and therefore desired him to do as he had said. If he had at first shewed him what was his condition, he had been at a loss, in taking a view of it. was the prudence of the bishop seen, in giving him a view of it at a distance. So the best way for taking a right view of conditions, is, to view them at a distance."-pp. 140-143.

Herein

We could with pleasure multiply citations of this description, but we hasten to sum up our observations. Mr. B. Baxter rarely rises into any thing like an ambitious style of writing, though there are not wanting traits of genius and imagination. We have not brought his book forward to public notice as one of the most splendid, or remarkable, or elaborate treatises of the school of divines to which he belonged, but as a most useful and pleasing specimen of that second-rate order of men among the nonconformist divines, who, though they took no share in