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to speak to principles only; he knows not, for he has not thought upon, the peculiar deficiencies of his congregation; "they may be such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat." There may be a peculiar besetting sin of the place, as well as of individuals, which should be adverted to in the Preacher's discourse.

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A third observation made on our Lord's Sermon was, that it contained a zealous exhibition of the true interests of the auditors. Every Christian Pastor will endeavour to do this. It is the duty he has bound himself to, it is the ministry to which he is called. The warrant of his office, the Holy Gospel, has reference to this in every branch and particular of it, and " unto him if he preach not the Gospel." Still such is the wayward deficiency of human nature, and such is the proneness to deviation in the human mind, that the best intentioned extemporary preacher is liable to err in this respect. When he ascends the pulpit his heart and intention may be good, he may begin and he may proceed aright so far as he has thought. After this he will be found to wander; the fault of his head, not of his heart. It is a general defect attaching itself to him in common with other fallen men. Very superior abilities indeed are requisite to prevent this, and give to the whole of an extemporary harangue the system and order so attainable in a written discourse. But what is the event of such wandering, or wherein is its peculiar impropriety? Instead of exhibiting the true interests of his audience; instead of removing their besetting sins and particular obstacles out of their way to eternal salvation, he deviates in his own sensations, talks familiarly of his own feelings and hopes, and appeals to his own state as a proof and example. But then, however harsh the assertion may seem, he preaches himself and not Jesus Christ and him crucified." To avoid this error, it is usual on the Continent for the Clergy to deliver their disCourses memoriter. They learn them first, and then utter them.

As far as we have hitherto gone the advantages may not seem to be with extemporary preaching. There are, however, other considerations which not inaptly arise from the discussion of the subject. Not only the matter but

the manner of the Preacher may be adverted to. We sometimes see the Extemporary Preacher ascend the pulpit, and, horresco referens, open it much in the same manner a tradesman would his large ledger, smack his hand on the page containing the account of reference, and assume the attitude of a creditor speaking to his debtor. By degrees he warms to an unbecoming heat, his arms. are then thrown about in every direction, and the gestures of the performer degenerate to pantomimical. During the celebrated Sermon on the Mount what were our Saviour's gestures we know not, as we are not told. But we do know, that in the case of the woman taken in adultery "he stooped down and wrote on the ground as though he he heard them not ;" and when he was under the necessity of addressing her accusers, he simply raised himself up and delivered his opinion. When too the zealous but failing Peter had fulfilled his Lord's prediction, that "this night, before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice," his Lord merely turned and looked upon Peter. In either case there seems to have

been no gesture with the hand. Where indeed the Preacher is in earnest, and is master of his subject, his eye will be sufficient. With that meniber he may single out, not rudely, but imperceptibly by the other part of the congregation, the sinning auditor to whom it may be necessary to apply what is said.

What has hitherto been stated, has been so under the idea that the Preach

er, in adopting the extemporary mode,' has been actuated by the best motive, that of zeal only. It is however to be apprehended, that popular applause operates upon some, united with the vanity of thinking they would attempt what their brethren cannot. These should have recollected, that in their classical school they learned that popular applause was, in the Latin language, popularis aura, a breath of the people, no sooner come than it is gone. What folly then is it to rely upon it, or strive after it? On this subject the good Bishop Taylor gives the following excellent advice: "Let no man preach for the praise of men; but if you meet it, instantly watch and stand upon your guard, and pray against your own vanity; and by an express act of

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14

On Extemporary Preachers. acknowledgment and admiration, return the praise to God."

At a celebrated watering-place I once heard an extemporary Preacher. It is hoped the judgment was not erroneous, but he certainly seemed to preach, not to edify, but to please his people. He had on a silk gown and fashionable kid-gloves; the right arm was extended, with the fingers of the hand closed, except the fore one and the thumb, which were extended also, being deemed perhaps a gesture both impressive and elegant. His subject was death. He might have shewn the true division of this into temporal, spiritual, and eternal. He might have shewn the temporal death to be the separation of the soul from the body on account of Adam's transgression. He might have shewn the spiritual death to be a separation of the soul and body from God's favour in this life, the case of unregenerate and unrenewed persons, who are without the light of knowledge and the quickening power of grace. And he might have held out to us the terrors of eternal death -the perpetual separation of the whole man from God's heavenly presence and glory, to be tormented for ever with the devil and his angels. He then might have brightened the prospect with a view, through faith, of the triumphant Conqueror of death-the powerful and gracious Saviour, who alone can relieve us from what is the just dread of all nature. But our ex temporary Preacher began by saying, "Let us take a walk together in the cypress-grove;" death was then ad verted to as being painful to the body and sorrowful to friends. Then, I know not how, for the rustling of his silk gown prevented my distinctly hearing, he got much engaged with the pleasure and cares of life, and only drew us back to the subject by repeating frequently "let us take a walk in the cypress-grove." This tautology seemed to be the most impressive feature of his discourse.

Another extemporary harangue is still recollected from its inefficiency and impropriety. The Preacher (a self-appointed one indeed) wished to impress us with the necessity of grace. But however he might have" read,” he had not 66 digested." He seemed to be fully crammed, and wished us to be so also, detaining us a long time

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to no purpose. From the grace of
God he fell to the sin of man: "Live
as ye list, get
drunk when you please,"
were his plain words. He then got to
the place of torment, and from thence
suddenly to heaven, and even ventured
on the hazardous ground of predestina-
tion and election. In fine, he kept
building up his materials one on the
other without any good system or pur-
pose, like those infatuated builders, we
read of, after the flood. It was impos
sible to follow him in his vagaries and
flight; but at last his Babel-niass, as
heretofore, became involved in and
was terminated by a like confusion,
and we were released.

Now to avoid such inefficiency and impropriety of harangue, to expel and drive away all erroneous and poisoned doctrines, and that the Word of God should be preached according to the mind of the Holy Ghost, expressed in the Scriptures," a book of Homilies was even printed, and ordered to be read or preached in the Churches. This adherence to a preconceived form, began in the reign of Edward the Sixth, was renewed in that of his sister Elizabeth, and so continued till the unhappy times of the first Charles. Then a set of innovating spirits, disdaining the trammels of system and order, must needs set themselves up as priests, as enlightened men. They professed to be gifted people, and in their zeal not only abrogated the form and order established in the Church, but overturned all order and government, and, Titans-like, even attempted to scale heaven. The consequence was a disruption of all law, which bound man to man in justice and equity. Villainy and Hypocrisy saw their opportunity, seized it, and usurped a dominion over these unhappy kingdoms; and fair freedom and just rule was exchanged for the very worst species of tyranny-democratical rage and faction. Even the agitators in these wild scenes saw their wicked errors, when on the scaffold acknowledged them, and in the eloquent language of the prophet said, we looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry."

May we, Mr. Urban, never live to see such times. The considerate mind' cannot, however, but reflect, that the same causes may produce the same

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effects. "The beginning of strife is as when one letteth out water."

Another reflection on the subject in hand is, that in the Church-worship too large a share of importance is attached to the sermon. Now this is but an address to man, the prayers are an address to God. But how often does it happen to the advocates for extemporary preaching, that their whole thoughts and heart are given to the sermon, to the desecration even of the other part of the service. This is evidenced by their unbecoming gesture of body; they come to worship, but they will not bow down and kneel before the Lord their Maker."

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I ought to apologize to you, Mr. Urban, for the extent of this epistle, and will hasten to conclude it, lest it reach the interminable length of an

Extemporary Sermon. I will only

observe, in conclusion, that whenever we enter a Church we should think "how dreadful is this place! This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." We should endeavour to deport ourselves accordingly, offer up a sincere and therefore acceptable sacrifice; and, whether we hear an extemporary or premeditated discourse, endeavour to apply to ourselves the good contained therein, because it is our duty. Yours, &c.

dispositions; but John Bull, for want of a Gallic-polish, does not exhibit it like them in an ostentatious point of view, and his ideas being directed to commercial pursuits, he prefers the calculations of profit and loss, and the contemplation of the gains exhibited upon the face of his ledger in the counting-house when winding up a heavy account, to studying the graceful attitudes of a Venus de Medici, or discriminating the contour of a cartoon. A well-informed traveller illustrates this observation, and says, that the meanest citizen of Rome is a more competent connoisseur than an Alderman of London *. This indifference to the study of the fine arts has obtained for us from the courtesy or rather polite contempt of our volatile neighbours, the epithet of a nation of shopkeepers.

There is nothing can be deduced as a stronger proof of the declension of Architecture, and indifference to the beauties of uniformity, than the unfinished state of some of our public buildings, particularly Somerset House; Western extremity of that building displays more the appearance of magnificent ruins than a structure in a state of completion.

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The depraved taste exhibited in the erection of altars, screens, &c. as well as in the general outline and finishing, with the internal ornaments that decorate many of our ancient churches in the Metropolis, must be evident to every person who has a taste to discriminate between the Grecian, Roman,

Tquisitive traveller sooner upon and Gothic styles. This innovation

his arrival in a strange country, or makes upon his mind a stronger impression of the civilization and taste of a people, than the regularity of the streets, the elegance and uniformity of the buildings, both public and private, in great towns and cities. Thus, when Eneas visited Queen Dido, Carthage being at that period in an infant state, the city planned in a barbarous style, and the habitations unfinished, we are told by Virgil, that he found them "A people rude in peace, and rough in war." In making this quotation, I have not the most remote idea that it is applicable to our situation, as I am inclined to think that we are at present more forward in refinement and civilization than our neighbours, with much more of the milk of human kindness in our

commenced in the reign of Elizabeth as we perceive in the construction of her monument, and many others erected at that period, a feeble attempt to unite the sublimity of the Egyptian with the magnificence of the Greek and Roman orders, by a mixture of obelisks, pyramids, Corinthian and Tuscan columns, embellished with a profusion of gingerbread work, in painting and gilding; and from the erection of monuments, this fantastical style was gradually extended to the repairs and ornaments of the fabric.

This Vandal rage for innovation has been very justly denounced and stig. matized. For want of a chaste and

* I dissent from this opinion, and except the late worthy Alderman Boydell.

16

Innovations in Architecture.

true style of Gothic, a system fixed by sober and settled rules, succeeding builders had recourse to the paltry expedient of borrowing or stealing ornanaments from the mutilated and scattered fragments of the Greek and Roman orders, to "give to airy nothing a local habitation and a name." Hence the style of Gothic Architecture from the reign of Henry VII. like the tongue of our ancestors, is now nearly forgotten, if not totally obsolete, and an incongruous medley introduced, a non-descript composition partaking of Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Gothic, and Fantastical; in fact, it is the style of no age or country, but merely the crude conceit of some contracting stone-masous or house carpenters.

The Saracenic, Gothic, or Moorish style, that prevailed amongst that people in Spain previous to their expulsion, appears to be the most pure, elegant, and refined of all the different methods that prevailed in Europe in the Middle Ages. The bold and lofty sweep, the expanded curvature of its pointed arches, and the lightness, uniformity, and elegance of its slender shafted columns, its pinnacles, mina rets, and turrets, are truly admirable, and the decorations of curving and tracery that adorn its component parts, are calculated to strike the most inattentive traveller with admiration. Such was the Alhambra, a noble specimen of the sublime conception and bold execution of a people stigmatized as barbarians. The Spaniards are as unconscious of the beauty and antiquity of those ruins, as the Turks are of the ruins of Athens, Balbec, or Palmyra, and equally as prone to dilapidate and destroy, from indolence and ignorance. We have many noble specimens of the Gothic in this country, all of which were no doubt originally derived from the Moorish style. The Saxon Gothic, which prevailed before the Norman Conquest, has very little of elegance; it is remarkable for the thickness of its walls, its solidity, and clumsiness, its misshapen buttresses, and a general want of uniformity in its component parts: in fact, their fabrics may be considered as typical of their rudeness and barbarity. After the Conquest our ancestors progressively improved, as they began to acquire a tincture of polite literature by the introduction of Learning from the

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Coutinent; the fine arts were more generally diffused amongst the nobility, their habits became more polished, and the internal comforts, as well as the external ornaments of their habitations, studied with more attention than at any former period. Still the great mass of the people were in a comparative state of rudeness and ignorance, and the Learning of the times confined to the Gothic hall of the feudal Chief, or immured in the monastery; and it was only from the period of the discovery of Printing, that the British community began to have a remote conception of the utility of the Fine Arts, to polish the taste, and refine the manners. The adoption of the magnet in the invention of the compass, to facilitate the pursuit of Navigation, and its extension throughout Europe, contributed much to the researches, industry, and civilization of maritime nations; and we kept pace with our neighbours, although continually involved in civil discord and intestine commotions to nearly the period of the Reformation, which in a great measure broke the chain of civil and religious intolerance, and ameliorated all classes of the community. It was about this time that the innovation on the Gothic style commenced, as it is a well known fact that the first reformers extended their rage and animosity not only to the Monks and prelates of the Church of Rome, but to the temples where they officiated. Thus in Scotland, the barbarous fury of Knox and his followers defaced, dilapidated, and destroyed many beautiful edifices, dedicated by our ancestors to the worship of the Deity; and this species of religious phrenzy or fanaticism, like a political mania, had in its outset and career many of the prominent, destructive, and levelling, as well as the sanguinary features that also distinguished the French Revolution, by the mutilation, defacement, and prostration of the venerable remains of the pure Gothic; and even after this ebullition had subsided, it left behind it some of its distinguishing and characteristic features, namely, a rage for innovation in the repairs of churches, to deviate as much as possible from the ancient style. Hence it was disused, and a grotesque medley introduced.

Yours, &c.

A. S.

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