in a fpecious attire. The fancy was charmed and reafon was not strong enough to break the delufion.

Thefe difcourfes are introduced to the world by a preface from an anonymous writer, who hath thrown together a heap of fulfome declamatory nonfenfe on the excellence, importance, and comfort, of the doctrine of Chrift's divinity.

The fermons which fucceed it on the fame fubject are pretty much in the fame diffufe, unmeaning, illogical train. They have not the flightest pretenfion to argument, and they will rather weaken than confirm the caufe they profefs to fupport. They are full of difmal interjections, or impertinent interrogations and their chief ftrength is concentred in a plaintive ah ! or an emphatic oh!

One argument (if it may be fo called) on which the Preacher Plays in proving the doctrine of Chrift's divinity, is drawn from his knowledge of the human heart. This point he illuftrates by a remarkable inftance from the Evangelifts. Did not a look from our Lord's eye renew the heart of Zaccheus. The holy fcriptures reprefent him as an oppreffor and extortioner: one who made it his bufinefs to grind the faces of the poor, and raise himself a fortune by all manner of unjust practices. One would almost despair of recalling fo egregious a finner :-a finner that was hardened in villany, and a veteran in iniquity. But, behold!—a glance from Chrift's eye converts him! He climbed the tree a finner! and came down the tree a new creature !'

In the farther illuftration of the fubject, the Preacher defcants on the figns and wonders which attended the crucifixion of our Saviour, and then gives the Arians a home-thrust by the fharp two-edged fword of interrogation and interjection.

The fun withdraws at the horror of his agonies, and leaves the astonished world in darkness! And is not this the great God! Did ever the whole face of nature go into mourning for any but its Creator? The centurion, before an infidel, now becomes a believer! He is now convinced of the divinity of the BLESSED JESUS: thefe aftonishing, unheard-of events overcome his prejudices.'-Oh! Priestley, art thou yet, in the pride of reason, hardened against orthodoxy?

-Can fuch things be

And overcome us like a fummer's cloud

Without our special wonder?

To give a death-wound to Socinianifm, the Preacher affures us in the most peremptory language of abfolute certainty (p. 35.), that the fatisfaction of Chrift must be more than infinite, fince it made us ample reparation to the Uncreated Holinefs as if the whole race of finners had been eternally destroyed.' Some of the duller clafs of our Readers may be unable to comprehend

the

the force and extent of this argument: and others, whofe heads run on nothing but mathematics, may laugh at it as a palpable abfurdity. But there is a profound meaning in it, whether it be perceived or not. We will draw it out of its deep and dark abyfs, and prefent it to our Readers in open day-light, in all the drefs of mood and figure; viz. As fin is in itself an infinite evil, it could not be atoned for by a fatisfaction that was barely infinite, fince in that cafe the matter would only have been upon an even poife. But the fatisfaction of Christ did actually atone for the infinite evil of fin. THEREFORE, the fatisfaction of Christ must have been more than infinite. Q. E. D.!

In a fermon on the duty of reading the fcriptures, the Preacher hath almost exhaufted the very fountain of invention for fimilies, metaphors, and all poffible figures of speech, to difplay the excellence of the word of God.

O bleffed book! (fays he) our better, our fpiritual fun, that sheddeft thy bright beams upon our fouls, and furnishest us with the light of life! Thou fovereign antidote against the delufions of the devil, the treachery of our fallen nature, and the darkness of the world! Thou guide to lead us fafely from the mazes of this miferable life unto our heavenly and everlafting reft. No wonder that David counted his kingdom as nothing, and called thee his heritage and portion for ever. 'Tis rather to be wondered at, that all mankind do not prize thee as their richeft jewel; converfe with thee as their sweetest companion, and talk of thee as the dearest object of their love all the day long.' What a rapid fucceffion of metaphors! So quick and fuddenly do they follow, that (as Shakespear fays) they gall each other's heels! The bleffed book is a fun, and the next inftant this fun is converted into an antidote :-but indeed it is an antidote against darkness. From hence it takes the fhape of a guide, and from a guide it is transformed into a heritage. The heritage becomes a jewel, and the jewel (by a procefs as extraordinary as that which the teeth of Cadmus underwent) ends in a companion, to whom one might be making love all day long!

But the Preacher hath not half done with his fubject: for as Martinus Scriblerus hath long fince obferved of Sir Richard Blackmore (Vid. Пeps Babus, cap. v.), There is nothing fo great which a marvellous genius, prompted by the laudable zeal of finking, is not able to leffen! Hear how the moft fublime of all books is reprefented in the following images.'

First, it is likened to a TRUMPET.

When our hands have hung down, and our knees grown feeble in our holy warfare, hath not a chapter, and fometimes a fingle verfe called up our courage as a trumpet, and inspired the foldier of Chrift with new recruited vigour?'

Now

Now it is a HAMMER.

Let us put ourselves under the difcipline of this heavenly word. It is likened to a hammer that breaketh the obdurate heart, that rock in the breaft, in pieces.'

Now it is a good BREAST of MILK.

The babes in Chrift may fuck at this breaft, and grow thereby.' It is a LANTERN.

The fcriptures are hung out by the Lord himfelf on purpose to be a light unto our feet and a lantern to our path.'

It is an APOTHECARY'S SHOP.

In this fore-houfe of precious things there is medicine for every fickness and balm for every wound.'

It is a BUTTERY.

In it we have a fupply for every want. It is plenteoufnefs ftocked with all that can be cheering to us in our pilgrimage.' It fometimes acts like FIRE.

There are fuch promifes from one end to the other-fuch precious promiles to fet on fire all our hopes.'

At other times it acts like Water.

The fcriptures are wells of confolation as well as wells of falvation, and we may draw from them the water of joy in fuch abundance as will drown all our troubles.'

vane

Fingentur fpecies, ut nec pes, nec caput, &c.

B.....

ART. III. Sermons by Colin Milne, LL.D. Rector of North Chapel in Suffex, Lecturer of St. Paul's Deptford, and one of the Preachers at the City of London Lying-in-Hofpital. 8vo. 6 s. bound, Cadell. 1780.

HE Author informs his Readers, in the Advertisement prefixed to his Sermons, that few of them were delivered exactly in the fame form in which they are now offered to the Public. The time ufually allotted for inftructions from the pulpit feldom permitted the Author to exhauft his fubject in a fingle difcourfe. When the intreaties therefore of fome partial friends had perfuaded him to fubmit the leaft incorrect of his compofitions to the infpection of the Public, he judged that he fhould be guilty of no great impropriety by incorporating feveral difcourfes upon the fame fubject into one or two, which, though thereby neceflarily rendered longer than fermons generally are, might yet, he imagined, by conjoining the feveral arguments employed, and placing them before the Reader in one ftrong point of view, gain, perhaps in point of energy, and effect, what they loft in elegance and neatnefs.' What degree of elegance or neatness thofe fermons might poffefs in their original and unincorporated itate, it is not our bufinefs to determine, We take the matter as it lies before us: and in this view cannot

help

help obferving, that if Dr. Milne facrificed elegance and neatnefs for the purpose of fecuring energy, and producing a better and stronger effect on the Reader, we are forry his good wishes fhould have fo poorly fucceeded. We do not fo much bewail the facrifice of the smaller beauties of language, when the defect is fupplied by the greater and more fubftantial excellencies of fentiment and argument. But, alas! Dr. Milne's loss of neatness is accompanied with a want of force; and where we mifs Hermes, we do not meet with Minerva.

These fermons are very long and for the reason for which the Author may think them excellent, we think them tedious. The arguments employed in them, fo far from being placed in a ftrong point of view,' are weakened by the uncommon length to which they are drawn out: and whatever might be their effect when delivered from the pulpit with the accompaniments of voice and action, we are perfuaded they will lofe that effect on the fober and more judicious Reader; who, instead of being charmed by the fafcination of oratory, will be difgufted to fee the fimple truths of the gofpel gaudily decked out in meretricious ornaments, and the chafter beauties of language loft amidst a redundancy of tawdry metaphors, and glaring but infipid expletives.

The figure of rhetoric to which Dr. Milne is most indebted for his eloquence, is that which the Greeks called the Periphrafts. It is a very common and commodious figure, and generally makes a great fhew in the pulpit. It is (as our good old Scriblerus obferved long ago) the spinning-wheel of the bathos, which draws out and fpreads a thought into the finest thread.' So fine, indeed, that, at times, it is icarcely difcernible by the acuteft eye! We fhall produce feveral examples of Dr. Milne's remarkable dexterity in the working and management of this fame fpinning-wheel. No matter where we turn. Every page almost presents a proof of our Preacher's skill. In the third fermon (viz. On Death) we meet with the following very lamentable description of a very doleful fubject. [N. B. We fall cautiously note by a numeral mark every divifion, and fub-divifion, and fub-fubter-divifion of this curious paffage, that the Doctor's knack at amplification may be readily obferved, and the value of it arithmetically estimated.] To dieto difappear from all the objects which furround him:-to be torn from the intimate fociety in which he had lived with a father-with a familywith friends-with congenial fouls-with kindred spirits, whose

(1)

3

(2)

4

(3)

(4)

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fentiments and defires, whofe hopes and fears were the fame :

I

-to

L

IV

" to go he knows not where :

and to rot

VI

-to lie in cold obstruction

to be removed from a fplendid apartment, fur

I

nished with every accommodation and elegance, into the dark,

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3

VII

unfurnished, contracted chamber of the grave :—from a bed

of foftness and luxury, to a dank, loathfome, fubterraneous

grotto:

IX

VIII

to embark on the boundless ocean of eternity :

I

to become from " fenfible, warm motion," a motionless, infen

fible, "kneaded clod"—the food of worms-the horror of men

-the hideous depofit of a tomb :-this fpectacle alone held

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up to fancy, difturbs the fenfes-darkens the imagination-and embitters all the sweets of life." "I with (fays Yorick) that the Preacher had brought it in fudden death." "I have known a regiment (fays Uncle Toby) flaughtered in less time." "It is like your Honour's wound (fays Corporal Trim). 'Tis a d-n'd tedious affair. I'd forfeit my Montero cap, if I made half the ado about it that the parfon doth."

In a fermon on the Confolations of Affliction,' the Author thus expands a common thought beyond all necessary bulk and proportion, by blowing it out with the fwelling blast of amplification. Virtue, ftrengthened by Chriftian faith, and animated by Chriftian hope, is unchangeable. Like her eternal Fountain, "the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness nor fhadow of turning," the is " the fame yesterday, to-day, and for ever:" her pleasures, her fupports, her confolations the fame. They reft upon a bafis which nothing can fubvert. They are established on a rock which the rain may batter, the floods beat upon, and the winds affail; but fhall affail, beat upon, and batter in vain. Free and independent, fhe rifes nobly fuperior to chance and accident; and is equally unaffected by the frowns as by the fmiles, by the ebb as by the flow of fortune. Though troubled on every fide, fhe is not dejected; though perplexed, yet not in despair, affured as the is that the Lord of Hofts is with her, that the God of Jacob is her refuge.'

Dr. Milne, like most orators of the new school of the BATHOS, frequently runs one metaphor into another, and produces fuch a crude affemblage of heterogeneous images, that the eye can perceive no distinct object, or any confiftent relation or fimilitude. In the above paffage, virtue is faid to issue from a fountain; and yet the Stream (for it must be a ftream that pro

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ceeds