effect is an excellent remark of Bishop Burnet :-" That it is not the best sermon that makes the hearers go away talking to one another, and praising the speaker; but that which makes them go away thoughtful, and serious, and hastening to be alone."* There can be no close application of scriptural truth to the conscience, while the hearers remain in a dull and apathetic state, with their intelligence unawakened, and their mental energies unexercised. The dormant faculties must be called into action. The sleeper must be roused from his lethargy by sounds, for which his ear is adapted. He must be appealed to in language level to his understanding. One of the most effective of our modern preachers has given the result of his own experience on this subject. "The total inefficacy of the common strain of preaching I ascribe, in part, to its being too studied, and too general; and whilst all the other sciences are flourishing and improving, because all the appeal is to experiments, in divinity this only sensible method is quite neglected. I have several shepherds and shepherdesses who attend; they prick up their ears when I am proving that a shepherd or his boy, though he cannot read a word, is not at all further removed from the knowledge and delightful enjoyment of God, than a scholar or a gentleman; they seem struck with the glad tidings, when I prove this to them by the instances of the poor shepherds of Bethlehem, the poor widow in the gospel, and the slaves mentioned in 1 Cor. xii. 13." It is related of another minister, also of great eminence in point of effect, that "his diction, like that of the original he studied, was so plain and perspicuous, that the meanest of his hearers might clearly understand him."‡ Quoted by Dr. Witherspoon in his sermon, entitled Ministerial Fidelity in declaring the whole Counsel of God, on Acts xx. 26, 27. Innes's Christian Ministry, p. 197. See also the observations on the composition of a sermon in Bishop Horne's Life. "A writer, strong in his expressions, affirms that a sermon without an application does no more good than the singing of a skylark: it may teach, but does not impel; and though the preacher may be under concern for his audience, he does not show it till he turns the subject to their immediate advantage."-Jones's Life of Bishop Horne, p. 139. + Venn's Correspondence, p. 182. "To render his addresses the more appropriate, he was frequent in his pastoral visits, and took a lively interest in the circumstances of his flock. At an ordination he thus commended the same habit-- Be familiar with your people, not high, or strange. Converse with them for their good. Acquaint yourself with the state of their souls; their temptations, their infirmities.' -Life of Matthew Henry, p. 124. Life of Cadogan, p. 70. The church of Rome is Antichrist, from smouldering our Saviour's holy light. Dissent is Antichrist, from lack of that charity which was higher in our Saviour's account than the gift of prophecy. Such is the curse of dissent, but it did not wholly sully the character of John Wesley. We believe that to the end of his days, he truly loved the Church of England; and although our clerical biography presents a galaxy of divines, who utterly eclipse the ecclesiastics of every other nation, many of whom too were more highly gifted than ever Wesley could boast of being, still and for that very cause, would we point attention to that good and extraordinary man, who produced such wonderful effects, simply by the working of zeal chastened by nought, save perhaps love. And we the rather make him our exemplar, because of another trait in his character to which we ascribe his success; we mean his free and cordial intercourse with the common people. It was this that taught him how to strike from the most stony heart the sparks that set the whole soul in a glow. It was the secret of that sympathy which he knew so well to inspire. It is the keeping so much aloof from communion with the lower orders, that throws such a damp upon the ministration of the clergy of the Church of England. And here we cannot do better than enrich our pages with the recommendation of the Bishop of Winchester," in this regard:" "It becomes essential therefore to the success of a christian ministry, that public teaching be followed up with the private and individual inquiry Understandest thou what thou readest?'* After our Lord had washed the disciples' feet, he put this question to them-' Know ye what I have done to you?' Such must be the pastor's question to his flock. He must not suffer the daily worshipper to become a formalist. He must remind his people of the inward and spiritual grace, conveyed in the outward and visible sign. He must see that they receive the instruction of the Church in an intelligent spirit, and are able to give a reason for the hope that is in them. This cannot be, in ordinary parochial charges, except through the medium of systematic pastoral visitings, quite independent of, and supplemental to the public offices of the sanctuary. And here again our Lord has set the example. He did not confine his teaching to the ministrations of the synagogue, or the seat in Moses' chair; but resorted to interlocutory discourses on every opportunity when two or three were gathered together; whether on the shore, on the mountain, or in the city; in the midst of friends or of foes; at Jacob's well, in the house of Zaccheus or Levi, at the Supper with his disciples, or in the way going up to Jerusalem or Emmaus. In St. Paul's charge to the elders of Ephesus, he twice reminds them how he taught from house to house,' and ceased not for the space of three years to warn every one, night and day, with *Acts viii. 30. John xiii. 12. tears.'* And in writing to the Corinthians, he appeals to their knowledge of his personal sympathy with the feelings of every private Christian among their whole body, notwithstanding the multiplicity of his ordinary duties-- Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is offended, and I burn not?' Does this imply an identification of interests at which a successor of the apostles cannot aim? Does it involve too burthensome an exaction of his time and strength? Where should the shepherd be but with his flock? What avail public instructions, if the detail be not filled up in private? Where is the Christianity we profess, if it be exhausted in a few formal and brief exhibitions, and do not descend into the daily life?' How little do the body of the people understand of our elaborate compositions, unless by catechetical instructions, by private expositions, by application of truth to the individual conscience, we make them intelligible !"|| That society in this country is badly and even awfully constructed, is generally felt. It is made up of a vast number of cliques, and each exclusive circle cares nothing whatever for any other. There is an interfusion of ranks undoubtedly, so far as alliance is concerned, but no interfusion of interests. The freemasonry of a particular set is more operative than ties of blood. A man marries, or by his exertions raises himself in the grade * Acts xx. 20, 31. † 2 Cor. xi. 29. At the head of the rules which Cotton Mather laid down for the more private discharge of his ministry, and the edification of his flock, was the following:-1st. "To keep a list of all the members of his church, and to go it over, by parcels at a time, in his secret prayers— supplicating the most suitable blessing he could think of for each person in particular. Not only did he observe this rule in his daily prayers, but he every now and then set apart a whole day for fasting and prayer on his church's account; and on such days he used to pray for every member of his church by name, though they amounted to nearly four hundred. For his own direction in these his private prayers for his flock, he used to take the bills that were put up in the congregation with him into his study; and there he would go over the several cases in his secret prayers and thanksgivings, more particularly than he did, or could do, in public."-Life of Cotton Mather. || Bishop Daniel Wilson's Evidences, Lect. xxvi. This is one of the features in Chaucer's description of his Good Man of Religion; Prologue to Canterbury Tales. "Wide was his parish, and houses far asonder, In sickness and in mischief to visite, The ferrest in his parish, moche and lite, Upon his fete, and in his hand a staff.” See the whole description of this " poor parson of a town, but rich of holy thought and work," in whose portrait the poet is supposed to have delineated the character of Wicliff. of society, and forthwith he shakes off his old friends and connexions. Thus is the community partitioned and subdivided into certain distinct fractions, which, like marbles in a bag, touch without mingling; instead of being separated and split like so many globules of quicksilver, which however they may seem to fly off, will invariably upon contact redintegrate themselves. It is bad enough that there should be such discordant interests in society. But the evil assumes a much darker shade when we recollect, that the ministers of the Church of England (of course with many exceptions) have taken their fixed station amongst (if we may be allowed an ugly epithet) the genteeler classes; and left the commonalty, that is to say, the millions, to be made the prey of the Political Economists on the one side, and the dissenting interest on the other. "What the locust leaves is devoured by the palmer worm." We would earnestly exhort the clergy of the Establishment to cast off this opprobrium on their sacred profession, to recollect that inwrapped in the divine panoply, if they were found seated beneath the lowliest roof in the metropolis or elsewhere, there can be no pollution inferred; no defilement in their contact with its vilest inmate. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that an educated clergyman is, ex officio, a gentleman; and no possible contamination that does not reach the inward man, can ever for a single instant invalidate his title to be so considered. Nay, the more urgent he is in propagating the gospel and administering to the spiritual wants of the poor, the more decided are his claims to the respect and reverence which, from his station, belong to him. It was imputed by the Pharisees to our Saviour as a crime, that he ate with publicans and sinners, but he rejoined, that such was his mission, "I am not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance." Matt. ix. 10, 13. Assuredly the clergy should cultivate the affections, and insinuate themselves into the confidence of the common people, much more than they seem at present to think worth their while. 66 They should," to use the language of Baxter, "by familiar conversation with them get their love, and also find out their ignorance, error, and sin, their objections and doubts, to know what they need, and deal with them privately and personally, as well as publicly for their instruction.* "I infer," says his lordship, "from our Lord's example, the "duty which St. Paul urged when he exhorted the Roman Chris"tians to 'condescend to men of low estate." "+"I venerate the * Treatise on Obedient Patience. Works, vol. xi. p. 484. name of Dr. Franck, of Halle in Saxony," writes Mr. Venn, "who, when a professor of greatest note in that university, felt his bowels yearn over the children of the poor, and became their teacher, though derided by the university for his heavenly compassion. So differently did his God regard the good work, that, from a small beginning, it was soon enlarged to be amongst the first charitable foundations, embalming his name for ages to come."* Doddridge's ministerial injunctions are as sound as practical on this head. "You must not shun the cottages of the poor, or the chambers of the languishing; nor must you ever be so intent on the more pleasing sounds, as to turn away from the sighs and groans of the distressed. You must often be visiting your brethren, that you may see how they do; and their personal or domestic afflictions must be tenderly weighed, in their various circumstances, that your heart may feel its part, and so prompt you to do all you can, if possible to remove them; or if that be impracticable, as it often will be, at least to alleviate them; and sometimes the sight and conversation of a christian friend does so much to alleviate them, that one would imagine so cheap a charity should not be denied. Let not our Master say, in reference to any of his servants, I was sick, and ye visited me not; I was in prison, and ye did not come unto me."" But the practice of Felix Neff is yet more exemplary than the precept of Dr. Doddridge. The heart of the apostle was thoroughly devoted to the spiritual advancement of his mountain flock. "It was his high and lofty ambition to elevate their thoughts and hopes to the noblest objects to which immortal beings can aspire, and to raise the standard, until they should reach to the fulness of the stature of Christ; and yet he so condescended to things of low estate, as to become a teacher of a, b, c, not only to ignorant infancy, but to the dull and unpliant capacities of adults. Beginning with the most tiresome rudiments, he proceeded upwards, leading on his scholars methodically, kindly and patiently, until he had made them proficients in reading, writing, and arithmetic, and could lead them into the pleasanter paths of music, geography, history, and astronomy. None but such men as Oberlin and Neff, none but those who, like them, have been under the strong influence of christian motives, have ever done violence to their natural tastes and inclinations, and have left the more agreeable, and equally legitimate duties of their profession, to assume the functions of the humble pedagogue, and of the village dame, and to teach the lowest rudiments to the lowest poor; not before the admiring *Correspondence, p. 248. Matt. xxv. 43. Doddridge's Directions for Ministerial Conduct.— Works, vol. iii. p. 205. |