of them, with sentiments of respect for the character of the Author.

Mr. Simeon, in his Sermons, Skeletons, and Defence of the Liturgy, has stood forth the able and eloquent defender of the doctrines of the Reformation. By his gene

ral residence in one of the Universities, by the possession of very considerable literary powers in union with genuine piety, his efforts to combine literature and devotion in the minds of the young students, have been singularly successful.

Mr. Robinson, of Leicester, in his Scripture Characters, and several other writings, powerfully co-operated in the The character dissemination of the truths of the Gospel. of this venerable man has been embalmed by the masterly skill and eloquence of Mr. Hall.

Mr. Gisborne, to the vigorous powers of philosophical research, has added the chaste and manly elocution of a Minister of Christianity. While his eloquence fills and pleases the ear, by its soft and gentle, yet vigorous flow, by the spirit of devotion which it inspires, it is calculated to sink into the heart. Being strictly Evangelical, it is fitted to awaken only such impressions as tend to subliBesides his philosomate and purify our fallen nature. phical acuteness, his moral disquisitions are all distinguished by being baptized in the pure fountain of Christianity. His Sermons embrace both the great doctrines of the Gospel and the practical duties of the Christian life, by which it is adorned; an union which every volume of sermons should carefully preserve. In his sermons the Calvinist should observe, that the animating views of the Gospel, the humility it teaches, the faith it requires, and the sanctification it impresses, are by no means peculiar to the system of Calvinism.

Mr. Cooper, who may be considered as the rival of Mr. Gisborne, as a preacher, (a rivalship perfectly consistent with the charity of the Gospel, as it is without the smallest desire to depress each other) possesses in a high degree those qualifications of discrimination, eloquence, elegance, and of pure and fervent devotion, that are necessary to impress an enlightened Assembly. In him, the Arminian may see how consistent moderate Calvinism is with every decorous accomplishment, that adorns the Christian divine.

The great popularity of the sermons published by these two divines, is a strong proof that the general taste for scriptural Divinity, and excellent composition, is rising and assuming a more elevated tone.

Dr. Buchanan, a name to be venerated by every lover of learning, as well as of Evangelical piety, has rendered the most substantial services to the cause of truth, and to the empire of religion, in works too numerous for us to particularize. All of them exhibit a mind ardent and unwearied in the cause of God and of man. With ample sources of information, he possesses that boldness of sketching which is necessary to engage the attention, and that particularity of detail which, by filling up the outlines, rewards and satisfies it. His sermons have powerfully seized and arrested the minds of men of every class, but like the works of the two preachers last mentioned, his productions are particularly fitted to instruct those who move in the more elevated and polished ranks of life.

Mr. Faber, a gentleman of various learning, and diversified talents, well known in the literary world for the deep research and the critical acumen he has shown in his work on the Prophecies, and on the mysteries of the Caberi, has performed important services to the cause of Evangelical piety.

Dr. Paley, whose name is an honour to English literature, and whose greatness of mind is evident in all his works, discovered in the early and middle stages of his career, a decided opposition to Evangelical doctrines; but in the last act of his life, he showed that a great revolution had taken place in his sentiments. In writing, and in preparing for the press, a volume of Sermons which he bequeathed to his parishioners, several of the peculiar doctrines of Christianity which he had before denied, powerfully engaged his mind. The necessity of Divine Influences, of Conversion, of thinking more of our sins, and less of our virtues, seems to have struck him with peculiar force. Though he cannot be represented, even in these sermons, as altogether Evangelical; though they are chargeable with very considerable defects, they yet give sufficient evidence of a mind dissatisfied with a secularized system of Divinity, and of a mind in the train that leads to Evangelical truth. Though the progress of his mind towards that great point of rest is unrecorded, further than it was marked by his own pen, there can be no reason to doubt that it afterwards reached a much higher degree of perfection. These sermons have had considerable influence in promoting the cause of Evangelical piety.

Dr. Haweis, in various publications, is distinguished by the possession, and by the cultivation of various and diversified talents. His Church History discovers a mind fervent and vehement in the cause of Religion; feelingly alive to the interests of Evangelical piety, but not at all times sufficiently broken to patient investigation. Hurried through scenes to the illustration of which he brought a mind equal, had he brought it more calm, his observations are sometimes superficial, not from the want of

penetration, but from the impetuosity of his feelings. They are sometimes tinctured with vulgarism, not from his want of taste, but from his neglecting to consult it. His sentiments are always pious and Evangelical, and often striking and impressive. Several characters of eminence in the religious world he has drawn with the pencil of a master. Let any unprejudiced reader examine his portrait of Whitfield, of Wesley, or of Lady Huntington, and he will acknowledge descriptive talents of no ordinary rate, and recognize the lines to be filled up with several delicate touches and finishings. Even in his happiest exhibitions, we sometimes meet a sentence that ill accords with the correct and elegant language of that which preceded it. Upon the whole, however, notwithstanding some eccentricities, his works have been greatly subservient to the promotion of Evangelical religion.--The publicity which has lately been given to the books of Homilies, and to the works of several of the Fathers of the Church of England, has powerfully co-operated with the labours of individuals, to recall the attention of her members to the pure sources of vital religion, at which her Martyrs and Confessors imbibed the doctrines they transfused into her Liturgy, and instilled into the Creed of her sons. A society formed for the purpose of supplying the poor with the book of Common Prayer, has also adopted, as part of its object, the circulation of the Homilies, and wherever these circulate the river of the water of life flows.

Though to the Clergy primarily and especially, yet not to the Clergy alone, are we to ascribe, by the blessing of God's Spirit and Providence, that flood of glory, which, within these few years has burst upon the eyes of men. Pious and able laymen, without trenching on the office of the Christian ministry, have nobly co-operated in the cause

of the Redeemer of the world. To the honour of the sex, one distinguished female who is an ornament to human nature, and to the Church of England, has brought what she herself would call her mite; but what most of her fellow worshippers, comparing it with their own tithe, would call her multifarious offerings to the sacred treasury of religion. To hundreds of thousands of the poor and illiterate, in tracts called the Cheap Repository, she has administered instruction, consolation, or reproof; and blending the whole with entertainment, she stole upon their attention, and fixed it before they were alarmed; caught them, as the Apostle Paul did, by an innocent craftiness and guile. The blessings of many that were ready to perish has, no doubt, come upon her, and many an eye that has never seen her, nor shall see her, till they meet before the throne of God and the Lamb, has moistened at the sight, or at the hearing of her name. Nor are the polished and gay, who move in the circles of fashion, less indebted to her for sending them, in another disguise, the doctrines of their Saviour, and the pure principles of Evangelical piety, in the elegant dress of Calebs in search of a Wife. Where an Evangelical sermon would hardly find admittance, or at the best find a suspicious one, an elegant cover has opened the door to the admittance of Scriptural religion and morality. To those in the middle ranks of life, she has rendered elegant amusement the vehicle of instruction, and the improvement of the intellectual powers, subservient to the sanctification of the soul. More perhaps than any human being now alive, has she contributed to form, and to raise, the character of her own sex to the knowledge of piety and virtue, and to make the reflecting part of ours blush for their literary, their moral, and their religious defects. What man does not venerate