clad with the garments of vengence, shall lead you to call on the rocks to cover you, and on the mountains to fall on you.' "Behold him, impenitent sinners, who cannot be excited by the infinite condescension of the Son of God, by the invitations of his mercy, and the proffers of his grace, to turn from your sins, and to serve him as your Lord and Master. Notwith standing your ungrateful rebellion against him, he still seeks to gather you into his fold, and beseeches you to come unto him and be saved. Shall his efforts still be resisted by you, his gracious invitations still rejected? Miserable men, the time will come when you shall behold him no longer the compassionate Saviour, but the inexorable Judge, laughing at your calamity, mocking at your fear.' "Behold him, humble penitents,-long and dark may be the catalogue of your sins, heavy and intolerable their burden. But why are ye faithful? Listen to the good tidings proclaimed to Zion, that her King, the Lord of hosts, will come, having salvation. He has come to feed his flock like a shepherd, to gather the lambs with his arm, to carry them in his bosom.' And it is the language of divine power, as well as of infinite mercy -Look unto me, and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth;' 'come unto me, all ye that labour, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' “Behold him, faithful Christians, constantly by the eye of faith, in the fulness of his love. Under the sense of your sins, let his mercy be your solace. In the experience of the numerous temptations and sorrows of the world, let his grace be your confidence. Amidst all the changes and trials of this mortal life, let his service be your delight. With the messenger of glad tidings to Zion,ascend the holy mount, and behold your God, your Redeemer, preparing for you a place in his heavenly kingdom, seats of glory eternal in the heavens, bliss that fadeth not away. "O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion, get thee up into the high mountain; O thou that tellest good tidings to Jerusalem, lift up thy voice with strength, lift it up, be not afraid. Say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God." 52-56. vol. 1. pp. Passages equally animated and flowing with this might be selected from the second sermon, in describing" the extreme of folly which it is to devote our affections solely to the things of this world, and to neglect preparing for that eternal state to which, at a period when we think not, death may summon us." (p. 17.) In this, however, and even in the preceding sermon, and we may say almost throughout these discourses, there is to our minds a want of precision in the general result of those practical addresses, which are, however, reiterated with a fervency and an urgency which leave no doubt on the mind as to the sincerity of the preacher. We should have wished the simple distinction between him who serveth God, and him who serveth him not, to have been more clearly laid down. It is too much to say, as in the first sermon, to a whole body of nominal. Christians, indiscriminately assembled in a large congregation (as we have no doubt Bishop Hobart's always are), "We also are quickened from our natural state of sin and condemnation, to spiritual vigour and life." (p. 5.) We think that " as many as believe" should have been added; and that in duty to our own catechism, which indeed extends the office of God the ReGod the Sanctifier to all the elect deemer to all mankind, but that of people of God: that is, (for we mean nothing exclusive,) to all who really embrace, by faith, the offers of the Gospel. Something of a similar vagueness appears to our apprehension in the following passage of the same sermon :— "The full lustre of the Gospel surrounding us, let us not close our hearts to its renovating power, and its consolatory hopes. The works of darkness;' those vices and sins which disgraced even the 'times of ignorance,' when men wandered sensual indulgences, so degrading_and in the night of pagan darkness; those offensive, which men seek to conceal from sible, even from their own consciences, the knowledge of the world, and, if posand therefore choose for the commission of them the shades of midnight, would be in those who enjoy the splendour of Gospel the highest degree criminal and odious in day." vol. I. p. 6. Such conduct would not only be criminal and odious, but it would portend utter separation from all the hopes and privileges of the Gospel, and a state of darkness as dense and deep as though no splendour of Gospel-day shining around; so Bishop Hobart himself elsewhere remarks. See, for were example, p. 141. The truth is, that the preachers of the school to which our author may be said to belong, address their auditors almost promiscuously as Christians, because professedly and by the sacrament of baptism they are such. Our view, on the other hand, is, that a large portion of them are not Christians, except in name; and should therefore be addressed, not as merely needing to be exhorted to higher advances in goodness and virtue, but to become Christians in the spiritual sense of that term; to lay the very foundations of religion; and to seek truly that inward and spiritual grace, of which their baptism was but an outward and visible sign. The pursuit of this topic would probably exhibit some consider able differences of opinion between Bishop Hobart and ourselves; but our sentiments upon it have been often expressed at length, and our space does not allow of our going into the detail of it at present. In Sermon VI., on the time of Christ's appearance, the heads of discussion will give our readers no mean idea of BishopHobart's power of arrangement and comprehension, where the subject requires it; although, as we may hereafter remark, his divisions sometimes exceed the necessities of a just distribution. Not so, however, in the present case. "The particular time of Christ's appearance was the most suitable for that event; because, "I. That was the time appointed by him, who, as the Sovereign of the world, keeps the times and the seasons in his own power. "Il. It was the design of the Almighty Ruler of the universe to conduct men through various degrees of religious knowledge to the full manifestation of his glory in the face of Jesus Christ. "III. At the time of Christ's appearing, the inefficacy of the Jewish dispensation and of the light of nature, had been fully proved. "IV. The world was then in a state peculiarly calculated to test the truth of his divine pretensions, and at the same time to advance the establishment of his Gospel. "V. The prophecies precisely fixed the period of Christ's appearing to this particular time." p. 72. The next series of sermons embraces the 7th, 8th, and 9th, on the season which follows Advent, namely, Sermon VII., on the new year, from Eccles. i. 1.; the true estimate of human life, from Psalm xc. 12; and the shortness and uncertainty of life, from Luke xii. 20. Of these affecting, and as usual, copious effusions, we decidedly prefer the first and third to the second. The thoughts and employments appropriate to the new year are admirably described in the first; and in the third, the uncertainty, frailty, and imperfection of all human pursuits, prospects and pleasures. The touching nature of the following passage, closed by a very appropriate observation upon the enjoyments of life, will, we think, approve itself to every feeling and reflecting mind. After shewing the days of the pilgrimage of human life to be few as well as evil, the preacher proceeds: "Are you oppressed, Christians, by the ills of poverty? But a little while endure in faith and patience; and you shall be enriched with those treasures that fade not away, nourished with that bread of life which will be satisfying to the soul: and refreshed with those waters of salvation that never fail. "Are you placed in an humble and laborious station? Look by faith to the recompence of reward;' and learn patience and resignation in the view of the infinite disparity between a felicity that endures for ever, and those labours of which it is the reward, short in their duration, and from which, sooner than you now anticipate, you may be released. "Are you surrounded by discouragements and difficulties? But having made God your refuge and your portion, you have the promise of his protection and support, through all the trials which can assail you; and of these there will soon be a termination, in that state where the light of his countenance shall for ever illumine and refresh your souls. "Are you languishing under wasting or excruciating disease? But short at its longest term will be the period of that suffering, which, sanctified to your soul's health, will prepare you for that state where your corruptible shall put on incorruption, and your mortal, immortality: ' and even now the sentence may have gone forth to release your spirit from its suffering tabernacle, and to translate it to the paradise of God. "Are your hearts wounded by the sepa. ration from you by death of some beloved Christian relative or friend? But faith teaches you that they have only gone before you to that rest on which, after a few more years of trial, you shall enter, and with them participate in the joy of your Lord.' Your Master may come in an hour that ye know not, and, terminating the trials of your exile, call you to your home. Perhaps the spirit of the Christian relative or friend, whose departure but as yesterday, from its mortal tabernacle, has roused your lamentations, may welcome you to-morrow to the same state of blissful repose. "Under the trials and separations of life, how different to the sinner and to the Christian must be the view of the uncertainty of the event, which is to separate them from it. The sinner, unprepared to meet his God, to render his last account, hardened and impenitent under those afflictions which were graciously designed to soften and subdue him, must regard with inexpressible dread an event which, when he knows not of it, may terminate his misery here only to augment it in an infinite degree in the eternal world. But the Christian, reconciled unto God his heavenly Father, prepared by his Saviour's merits and grace to appear before the judgment-seat, anticipates with humble hope, the near approach of the summons which, releasing him from the afflictions that have embittered to him the present world, is to consummate all his virtuous joys in the presence of his Saviour and his God. "In reference to the enjoyments of life, what should be the effect produced upon us by the consideration of its shortness and uncertainty? "It surely is not the part of wisdom to become inordinately attached to any enjoyments short and uncertain in their duration. The apprehension of their termination, and in a moment least expected, which must sometimes occur to the minds even of the most thoughtless, will occasion gloom and despondency. But when viewing all the pleasures of the present life, as greatly inferior to those spiritual joys which are the perfection of our nature, and which will constitute its felicity through endless ages, we have recourse to them not as the highest and sole source of our happiness, but as a refreshment under the toils and duties of life; not to be indulged to such an extent as to disqualify us for the pursuit of spiritual objects, and for a participation in spiritual pleasures; when our attachment to the innocent joys of the world is thus enlightened and regulated by reason and religion, setting a just estimate upon them, the view of their shortness and uncertainty will only modeCHRIST, OBSERV. No. 289. rate and not destroy the gratification which they will confer. "But to be inordinately attached to transitory and uncertain pleasures, is worse than folly. When thus they occupy supremely our hearts, they debase and corrupt them. Usurping that place which God, and his laws, and his promises, should hold in our affections, they involve us in the guilt of rebellion against him who has a supreme right to our service; and, estranging us from his favour, expose us to his just indignation." vol. 1. pp. 120 -123. as Our chief objection to the second sermon of this series is, that we think it holds a language mainly, and even hurtfully, at variance with the above quotation. It contains a very long account of "the enjoyments which this world affords," contrasted indeed with its "disappointments and sorrows, but with a view principally to obviate certain alleged erroneous notions, not very common, it is true, nor so dangerous as the contrary, "denouncing even moderate indulgence in innocent pleasures of life criminal, and a necessary preparation for another world as incompatible with our gratification in the present." (p. 100.) Now we think that our observant preacher, but for the haste in which he feels many of these discourses were composed, would have here paused to tell us what class of ascetic, monastic, or eremetic religionists was here meant. The entire aopenness of the llegation leaves it like a master-key to be pressed into any lock to which the selfishness of man's corrupt nature may choose to apply it. It may, in the folly of some men, be applied to all seriousness in religion whatsoever, and even to many views following in the next sermon of our valuable preacher himself. we think it more hazardous still in connexion with what follows: which is in fact an enumeration of all the "innocent pleasures" of life, (and delightful pleasures they are, when properly regulated,) but placed by the Bishop as wholly apart from the pleasures of religion; while these last come only, in conF But clusion, as a cumulus to the pile, and appropriate to man considered likewise as a religious creature. We do not greatly affect a disjunction of those feelings which ought to constitute one great whole in the breast of the truly renewed man and devoted servant of Christ, whilst to all others we are assured their very “ table is a snare, and that which should have been for their wealth will be an occasion of falling." We fear that the men of the world take exactly this view of their ، innocent pleasures," and make them in consequence very guilty ones; subtracting them from the atmosphere of true piety, and then driving up what they call by a sad misnomer their pleasures of religion into the narrowest possible corner consistent with decency, and, as they hope, with the merciful regard of their Creator. The true Christian, we believe, on the contrary, has the highest enjoyment even of the really innocent pleasures of this life, chastised by temperance, and sanctified by the hope of something higher and better. And the poet quoted, and favoured we have no doubt, by the feeling and pious Bishop Hobart, must in this case, we own, stand before him in the description he gives even of the temporal enjoyments of the Christian. "He looks abroad into the varied field Calls the delightful scenery all his own. We must, however, do Bishop Hobart the justice to add that the expression," innocent pleasures of life," may bear a somewhat different meaning among Transatlantic Episcopalians from that which it bears among ourselves. With regard to the clergy especially, be it remembered, that no rightly disposed clergyman in his country would for a moment class among his innocent recreations the theatre, the card-table, the chase, the race-course, or the ballroom. Both Bishop Hobart and Bishop Chase, during their visits to England, were greatly shocked with the latitude of indulgence which they found considered in very respectable society not inconsistent with the clerical vocation. The season of Epiphany follows; and, with the author's usual felicity, dawns upon us with the happiest possible selection of texts and subjects: for which, as usual, also, we are partly indebted to the inimitable selections of our own church for the several Sundays, which the preacher can seldom mend by his own, where he wishes to be appropriate. The texts are Malachi i. 2; John ii. 11; Psalm Ixxii. 1; Matthew xxii. 1-5; Col. iii. 17; Acts ii. 22. It would be difficult for us, from such a mass of animated statement on the character and offices of the Redeemer, appearing in this series, to select any one or two passages that would give our readers an adequate idea of the whole. It might be sufficient to say, that the subject is that, in all its branches, in which, beyond all others, the preacher seems to delight, and even to revel and expatiate, with the boundless effusions of sincere and heartfelt affection. If Bishop Hobart is an average specimen of the sentiments of the "great body" of American Episcopal divines, there is certainly no ground for the charge of a failure in "preaching the atonement and the various offices of Jesus Christ as the Saviour of man." Witness the following passage from the sermon on Psalm Ixxii. Righteous was the sceptre of that glorious King who came to save his people from their sins,' and to 'cleanse them finally come to from all unrighteousness;' and who shall finally come to 'give to every man according as his work shall be.' "In the fourth verse-' He shall judge the poor of the people, he shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in twelfth, and two following verses, He pieces the oppressor." And again in the shall deliver the poor when he crieth, the needy and him that hath no helper. He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy. He shall redeem their soul from deceit and vio lence, and precious shall their blood be in his sight. These verses describe the righteous and merciful sway of Jesus Christ, as the King of Zion. The poor in spirit,' the children of the needy,' the perishing souls' of sinful and guilty man, he 'saves' with an everlasting salvation. From the deceit and violence' of the great adversary who holds them in bond. age to sin and death, he redeems them. The 'sceptre' of this great oppressor he breaks in pieces. Precious in his sight is the blood, the life of his saints. For he 'died for their sins, and rose again for their justification.' By his precious blood shed upon the cross, he made atonement for iniquity; he satisfied the demands of divine justice; he vindicated the honour of the violated law of the Sovereign of the universe; and proclaimed grace and mercy to the poor and needy,' the weary and heavy laden who come unto him. By his resurrection from the dead, he proved that he was mighty to save; that he had had triumphed over the great oppressor; that he had despoiled death of his sting, and the grave of his victory; and opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers. Well then may it be said of him, as in the fifth "Grateful as is the rain to the grass which, lately mown, is exposed to the scorching rays of the sun; and refreshing as the showers to the parched earth, is the mercy of this gracious Deliverer to the soul of the penitent sinner. King of righteousness and mercy, the 'poor' in spirit he hears, when they cry;' the needy,' the hungry, and thirsty soul he refreshes with his grace; the captive to sin and Satan, who crieth' to him, he redeems; and he that hath no helper,' the contrite sinner, oppressed with his sins, and seeking in vain deliverance from human power, finds in him an everlasting refuge. For he preaches good tidings to the meek, he binds up the broken hearted; he proclaims liberty to the captives, the opening of the prison to them that are bound.' Redeemed from death, and ransomed from the grave, they shall praise for ever their glorious Deliverer, the King of righteousness and mercy, in the city of the living God." vol. I. pp. 183-185. The whole discourse, with that on Jesus as the Bright and Morning Star, of which the interpretation needed scarcely the sanction of Dr. South for its beautiful application to the subject, is indeed an admirable delineation of the united brightness, mildness, and beneficence of the Saviour's reign. The extension of these blessings amongst the Gentile world is admirably delineated in Sermon XI. together with the promise of its final dominion, "confirmed by an inspired apostle, when he announced the final restoration of the Jews with the coming in of the fulness of the Gentiles." The sermons on the transfiguration, and on doing all in the name of the Lord Jesus, afford examples of that somewhat too great fondness for division at which we have before hinted, and which is not always distribution. On both these subjects it might have been better to dissect one real meaning and spiritual import; from which afterwards, like so many irradiations from a centre, might have proceeded as many interesting and important deductions for faith and practice as the occasion required. We have, however, selected one of these sermons, with a few omissions, as a family sermon, for our present Number, from the simplicity and usefulness of the matter contained in it, and as not entering into those points upon which we feel ourselves constrained to differ from our author. We have preferred omitting here and there a sentence which appeared to us doubtful, to making even a slight alteration which would have adapted it, according to our ideas, for family instruction. We shall, however, assume the censor on only one passage in this whole series: we allude to one which occurs in Sermon XII. on the marriage in Cana of Galilee, a subject beyond a doubt confirmatory of all that is really innocent in Christian conviviality, and as such never lost sight of by those who would perhaps stretch that term beyond its fair bearing. Of this we accuse not our worthy bishop in intention. But we think he will agree with us in some former hints we, have ventured to throw out on the slippery nature of those "innocent plea |