animated without ranting, who can expand his subject without declamation, and elevate it without bombast. As to the propriety of action in the pulpit, the best criticks are divided. "Our preachers, says the Spectator, stand stock still in the pulpit, and will not so much as move a finger to set off the best sermons in the world. It is certain that proper gestures, and vehement exertions of the voice, cannot be too much studied by a publick orator. They are a kind of comment upon what utters, and enforce every thing he says, with weak hearers, better than the strongest argument he can make use of. They keep the audience awake, and fix their attention to what is delivered to them; at the same time, that they show the speaker is in earnest, and affected himself with what he so passionately recommend to others." Spectator, No. 407. Audi alteram partem. Let us hear the other side of the question. "In the pulpit, says Johnson, speaking of Dr. Watts, though his low stature, which very little exceeded five feet, graced him with no advantages of appearance, yet the gravity and propriety of his utterance, made his discourses very efficacious. I once mentioned the reputation which Mr. Foster had gained by his proper delivery to my friend Dr. Hawkesworth, who told me, that in the art of pronunciation he was far inferiour to Dr. Watts. Such was his flow of thoughts, and such his promptitude of language, that in the latter part of his life he did not precompose his cursory sermons; but having adjusted the heads, and sketched out some particulars, trusted for success to his extemporary powers. He did not endeavour to assist his eloquence by any gesticulations; for, as no corporeal actions have any correspondence with theological truth, he did not see how they could enforce it." Johnson's Life of Watts. If a pulpit orator makes use of much gesticulation, he ought to commit his sermon to memory; for nothing can be more unnatural than for his hands to be flying about in all directions, whilst his eyes are fixed upon his notes. But then acting is not preaching, and what is sufficiently becoming on the stage would degrade the sober dignity of the pulpit. Quintilian directs, that even the manner of the heathen orator must be widely different from the theatrical. “Plurimum aberit a scenico," says that illustrious grammarian, "let it be very distant from the manner of the stage.' رو If the speaker is interested in what he delivers, he will naturally be drawn into some action; if his composition, thus aided, contains good sense, and sound doctrine, in pure language, he will infalliby secure the attention of his audience. A sultry afternoon and a hearty dinner will indeed resist the sublimest strains of eloquence, and the habitual slumberer will doze beneath the discharge of the evangelical artillery, however ably pointed. But this ought not to mortify the preacher, since the powers of Paul himself could not keep Eutychus awake, whose consequent disaster is recorded by the sacred writers as a warning against the seductions of the drowsy god in time of divine service. But the modern construction of pews is a sufficient guarantee against the recurrence of similar accidents, and the sleeper may now safely indulge his favourite propenisty, without endangering either life or limb. TO THE EDITORS OF THE ANTHOLOGY. GENTLEMEN..... In an old edition of Virgil, I find a poem on the same sub. ject as the verses from Spenser which were published in your last Anthology with a Latin version. Although this shaft never came from the quiver of Virgil, I have furnished it with an English plume and submit it to your examination DE LIVORE. LIVOR, tabificum malis venum, Qui semper lacerat, comestque mentem. Vivit pectore sub dolente vulnus, Quod Chironia nec manus levarit, Nec Phoebus, sobolesve clara Phoebi. TRANSLATION.....ON ENVY. Envy, a dry consuming bane, The marrow sucks from every bone. His sighs and groans will seal the truth, His loud bewailings, and his chattering tooth. Mark! how he sweats, and when he speaks, Terrifick envy pales his cheeks, And every limb emaciates. To him bright day, nor wine, nor meat, Though Jove should drink his health, are sweet ; Though Hebe serve and hand the bowl, Or Ganymedes, would it cheer his soul. He cannot slumber, cannot rest..... It is the Fury in his breast; The rav'nous vulture in his mind; THE BOSTON REVIEW, FOR JULY, 1809. Librum tuum legi & quam diligentissime potui annotavi, quae commutanda, quae eximenda, arbitrarer. Nam ego dicere verum assuevi. Neque ulli patientius reprehenduntur, quam qui maxime laudari merentur. PLIN. ART. 1. An Historical View of Heresies, and Vindication of the primitive Faith. By Asa M'Farland, A. M. minister of the gospel in Concord, New Hampshire. Concord; George Hough, and Thomas and Whipple, Newburyport. 1806. 12mo. pp. 273. [Concluded from vol. vi. page 338.] THE injunction in Titus iii. 11th. is aimed at interested, ambitious, corrupt, "self condemned" authors or followers of a sect. The heretick to be rejected is a factious man, and his crime is an unprincipled and sinful party-making. He is "subverted, sinneth, and condemned of himself." He is turned out of the right way by a perverse disposition. When the apostle says he is self condemned, it is because whoever departed from the apostles, and made a party against them, did by that very act renounce christianity, and deny themselves to be christians, renouncing those men from whom alone the duty of a christian could be learned; or because the vices of those who opposed themselves to the acknowledged ministers of the church carried their own condemnation; or because the bad passions by which they were actuated must have been attended with a consciousness of improper views and a secret misgiving of heart. The precept in Titus, considered in its general application, is probably a precept of similar import to that in Romans; "Mark them, which cause divisions, and avoid them.” The heretick, when that term is used with reference to a person professing christianity, is the man, who, either from pride, from motives of ambition, or interest, is led to violate those important precepts of our Lord. Matt. xxiii. 8-10. "But as for you, assume not the title of Rabbi; for ye have only one teacher, the Messiah; neither assume the title of leaders, for ye have only one leader, the Messiah." Heresy is an immorality, implying malignity and perverseness of disposition, and having no necessary reference to opinion, true or false. It is an offence, which may be committed alike by the orthodox and heterodox, the protestant and papist, the Calvinist and Arminian, the trinitarian and antitrinitarian. The ecclesiastical heresy is another thing. In early times of the church, the term was applied to any new opinion. In process of time it meant opinions deemed erroneous or pernicious; or corruption of the christian doctrine. As the majority, of course, considered themselves right, and all dissentients wrong, so they gave themselves a good name, pronouncing their tenets orthodox, and their adversaries a bad name, calling their doctrines heresies, and those who entertained or defended them, hereticks. Hence the word, as a word of opprobrium, was assigned to all who departed from the received or dominant faith, or declared articles of belief, especially on the subject of the trinity. It necessarily follows from this definition, that a man may be a heretick to one church and not to another; and a heretick to the church and not a heretick to God. We are all greeted with this name by the Roman catholicks, and accept it from them as an honour. Ecclesiastical history shows that men of the most blameless and exemplary lives, who have above all things loved truth and righteousness, and who have most diligently studied and faithfully explained the scriptures, have often been accounted hereticks, because they chose to obey God rather than man; to think for themselves according to the light they received, and speak what they thought. When the word, heresy, was used to signify an essential defect of belief, the want of a rule of heresy was long felt and acknowledged, and a distinction was admitted between errour and heresy. St. Augustine says, "What it is that makes a man a heretick cannot be strictly defined, or at least without difficulty." "Every errour," says he, "is not heresy, though all heresy, which consists in vice, must be errour." His famous saying is often mentioned, errare possum, haereticus esse nolo. Admit then that the ecclesiastical and scriptural heresy are different, and that those who err in theological sentiments are, on that account merely, improperly called hereticks, yet it may be said "there is a necessary faith for a christian, without which no one is to be acknowledged in that character. This faith, say the orthodox, is Calvinism, or something like it, or near it. Let every man, at least every man who has had opportunity to consider and judge, adopt our standard, and believe in our formularies, or let him be excommunicated. We deny his christianity, if he denies that our peculiarities are essentials.” That is, we must make their logick a part of our faith, and their phrases must appear to us the mirrour of truth. The difficulty of settling the question of fundamentals, and agreeing to admit persons into the church on the same terms as the apostles admitted them, arises chiefly we fear from the difficulty of renouncing power, and being equitable, humble, and modWhen we speak of those who differ from us, as Paul spoke of his opponents, we ought to inquire if we have the same right. We ought to recollect that we are not inspired teachers, are not mirac est. ulously enabled to understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and want the " signs of an apostle," and especially the gift of "discerning spirits." There are a few principles respecting communion and fundamentals, which have not been generally regarded by national churches and by separate congregations. An individual church is not a private club or association, at liberty to make bylaws for itself at pleasure, but a publick religious society, subject to the lawgiver of the church, the founder of the society, and having such rights, and such only, as he hath given. Hence this church invades the rights of other churches and of the members of its own, if it makes assent to any confessions or creeds, which the gospel hath not expressly authorized, the condition of its esteem, and brotherly love. For example, when Christ has said, they who are weak in the faith receive, but not to doubtful disputations, no christian church is so far a voluntary society, at liberty to establish rules for itself, as to be warranted or justified in saying: "No one shall be admitted to our communion, who is not strong enough in the faith peremptorily to pronounce on this or the other difficult and disputable matter in christianity." Christian esteem, christian fellowship, is to be rendered not merely, where we please, but where it is due. Further, things fundamental to some are not fundamental to all, as more knowledge may be expected in a man than in a child, in a wise man than in a weak one. Those truths, which are fundamental to all, are plainly declared, or the necessary consequences of those plainly declared; they are few, and often repeated in the scriptures. Those truths which are to be made the criterion of another's capacity for salvation, must be such as a good mind cannot help discerning; and such as are not only important but indispensable to a christian temper. We conclude this part of our review with a citation from the famous Mr. Baxter....." Two things have set the church on fire, and been the plagues of it for above one thousand years. 1. Enlarging our creed and making more fundamentals than God ever made. 2. Composing (and so imposing) our creeds and confessions in our own words and phrases. When men have learnt more manners and humility than to accuse God's language as too general and obscure (as if they could mend it) and have more dread of God and compassion on themselves, than to make those to be fundamentals or certainties, which God never made so; and when they reduce their confessions, first, to their due extent, and secondly, to scripture phrase, that dissenters may not scruple subscribing, then, I think, and never till then shall the church have peace about doctrinals. It seems to me no heinous Socinian notion, which Chillingworth is blamed for, viz. Let all men believe the scripture, and that only, and endeavour to believe it in the true sense, and promise this, and require no more of others; and they shall find this not only a better, but the only means to suppress her. esy and restore unity." The general character of heresy, according to our author, consists in maintaining a warfare with the great and distinguishing principle of the christian scheme and of the orthodox system, that ur" salvation is of God".....that it is "wholly the work of God and |