affection, as may engage their attention and conciliate their love." p. 133. Mr. Robinson, in treating on the 5th commandment, includes the duty of servants, and justly observes, that one duty of a servant "is to regard that precept of our Lord, to gather up the fragments which remain that nothing be lost." We have here another example of an almost unbounded amplification. We were pleased with the following passage, in which this respectable pastor authoritatively claims a comfortable subsistence, as well as due affection and respect, for his ministerial brethren. We object to nothing but its constituting a part of an exposition on the 5th commandment.

"Are they fathers in Christ? Then as their children honour them, and by your gentle and affectionate behaviour shew yourselves grateful for their labours of love. Want they must not, while it is in your power to contribute to their support. They have a claim upon you for a comfortable provision: and if they have sown unto you spiritual things, let it not be thought a great thing, if they shall reap your carnal things.' But do not therefore treat them as dependents, or sit in judgment upon them to dictate, to cavil, or to condemn. Check not their zealous exertions for the advancement of religion by any opposition or unkindness, They are entitled to your countenance and warmest support; and it will be your honour, as it is your duty, to strengthen their bands, and to be fellow-helpers to the truth. As standing in the front of the battle, they have peculiar difficulties to struggle with; they are exposed to the fiercest O pray for them, that their faith and courage fail not, that they may be endued with wisdom and fidelity in 'declaring all the counsel of God,' and 'that the word of the Lord' in their mouth may have free course and be glorified.' there no cause to lament a supercilious contempt of the ministers of Christ? Is not the sacred office itself reviled, and they who are invested with it complained of as a burden upon society? Even the most eminently devout and zealous among the clergy meet with no small share of scorn and ridicule; and there is no surer proof of the growing profaneness of the age. It may be thought a trifling offence: but we know him that hath said, He that despiseth you, despiseth me. p. 174, ..

onset.

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But is

We think that Mr. Robinson, in touching on the obedience due to government, might have made some more plain admissions of the propriety of our freely canvassing political questions, and might have adverted to the popular principles of the British constitution. He expresses himself however in a very becoming manner on this general subject. (p. 166.)

"Do not," he says, 66 encourage those books, papers, prints, or societies, which are calculated to excite disaffection, sedition, and tumult, or even to lessen your reve rence for their authority. Render to them their dues; tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom.' plain not of the weight of taxes, which are Comof necessity imposed for the support of

Government; but pay them with exactness and cheerfulness. To evade them is an act of public fraud and rebellion. You receive a full compensation for them in the peace, protection, and liberty, which are secured to you. If riot and disorder agitate or threaten the state, let your loyalty be manifested by the most active services. Meddle not with them that are given to change.' Fear God, honour the King.' How much is this obedience to the civil powers insisted on in the sacred Scriptures! The example and the precepts of our Lord teach us to render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's.' The apostles with one mouth require their followers to be subject; and the universal practice of the first Christians proves that the genius of the Gospel is most favourable to the maintenance of good government. But is it sufficiently considered among ourselves, what danger, what guilt is incurred by sedition? It cannot be a light offence in the sight of God, against which so heavy a doom is denounced in his word: They that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.' We advert not to those extreme cases (for extreme and rare they must be*) in which the subject is released from his allegiance; but we contend that the common faults of governors will not justify opposition or contempt. We of this country are under the strongest obligations to obedience; and yet sedition has stalked forth among us with an audacious front; and treason has erected its standard. O get you from the tents of these wicked

*See for an elucidation of this subject, Christian Observer, for 1802, pp. 320 & 814.

men! Let us bless God for the unparalleled excellency of our constitution, for the un corrupt and impartial administration of justice, and for the virtue and piety of that

illustrious person who fills the throne, beseeching the Almighty Sovereign to continue to us those bigh privileges, which so many among us have despised and abused." The superior strictness of the morality of our author appears in many parts of his work. As one instance of it we give the following observations

on the 7th commandment:

"What shall we say, then, to the general strain of conversation in circles of gaiety, to those loose stories and wanton songs, which furnish entertainment in so many companies, and to those theatrical performances and exhibitions, in which modesty must be perpetually put to the blush, which yet are numerously attended with eagerness and delight? Are these the things, which become persons' professing godliness'." p. 208.

preted the former commandments as requiring right "dispositions of the heart," and not merely as restraining the members of the body, from perpetrating evil; insomuch that the 10th commandment is thus rendered somewhat redundant and superfluous, We were pleased with his remark under this head on the unlawfulness of gaming. May not the practice of purchasing into a lottery deserve to be noticed as constituting one species of gaming?

The essay on prayer for special grace to keep the commandments very properly follows this comment. There is much piety in the following passage, in which the duty of intercessory prayer is deduced from the second petition in the Lord's

prayer.

The

"We should intercede for those, who are admitted to the sacred function, that they We doubt, whether in his observations on the 8th commandment, love; that the holy, anointing,' may may go forth with divine light, and life, and he is well founded in saying, that abide in them, to cheer their own souls, "to live above our income is the and to prosper their labours. For those, prevailing sin of the present day." to whom they are sent, we should implore We suspect this to be a prevailing grace, that they may know the time of remark in almost every day. Great their visitation, and that while they have Britain has unquestionably advanced light, they may believe in the light, and be in general wealth in the course of the children of light.' We should feel pethe last 50 years; and it is not easy revive his work among us! And if he estaculiar solicitude for our country. May God to comprehend how this accumula-blishes his kingdom of righteousness, that tion of property can have taken will be the bulwark of the land, against all place if extravagance has been the threatening or desolating enemies. predominating sin. That there is a most unchristian competition in respect to the "splendour of appearance and the expences of the table," nevertheless is unquestionably true. Our author remarks on the subject of the 10th commandment, that this is very properly placed the last in the second table, as being the guard and defence of all the rest; and containing in itself a short summary of our whole duty to man.”. "The other commandments restrain our hands, our feet, our tongues, and all the members of our body, from perpetrating any evil. The object of this is to repress any injurious disposition in the heart; and from a regard to this will result a strict observance of the rest." Mr. Robinson nevertheless has inter

cases of those, who are more intimately connected with us by the ties of friendship or relation, we should bear upon our minds in this petition, that they may all be 'delivered from the power of darkness, and translated into the kingdom of Christ'." P. 320.

In the essay on the church of Christ, our author, as we think, very justly observes that

"The church of Christ admits of a considerable variety, as embracing so many different societies of Christians, placed in

such very different circumstances. It was intended to comprize within its pale the inhabitants of remotest countries, yea, of all the nations of the earth, whose habits and sentiments and political governments might be extremely dissimilar; and therefore its general form and constitution, and its essential ordinances are such, that it may be every where established, and adapt

“Our national creed recommends itself to our approbation, as being perfectly sound and scriptural. Its doctrines, which are clearly stated in the thirty-nine articles, are entitled to our belief and admiration, as firmly resisting dangerous errors, and comprising a well compacted system of evangelical, and he is moreover one of lical truth. Every important principle of those among them, who, according the Christian faith is here brought before to another common, though not very us, and we are required to profess our uncorrect term, may be denominated equivocal and cordial assent to the whole. calvinistic. It has lately been the endeavour of many persons of name and authority in the church, to represent the mass of evangelical or gospel ministers, and especially the more calvinistic part of them, as

heretical and schismatical, as seditious and disloyal, as antinomian in sentiment, and as furnished only with a very scanty share of religious knowledge: in short, as a most unworthy part of our establishment. We have here then a statement of their principles. We have a complete exposure of those dangerous and fanatical doctrines, against which it is necessary, as it seems, perpetually to guard the sound members of the church; "sound members," it is to be feared, among whom a multitude of worldly and irreligious men are permitted to include themselves. It has lately, as we understand, become the fashion in our university pulpits and in visitation sermons, after breaking one lance against an infidel, to break another against a Gospel minister, or a methodist. Now it is much to be desired, that they who engage in these tournaments should become well acquainted with both the enemies against whom they deem it their duty to contend. We wish therefore to recommend the work of Mr. Robinson to those teachers of divinity, who are as yet imperfectly informed respecting the religious system of this writer and others of his class. We do not ask them to pay implicit deference to his opinions; we ourselves have freely canvassed many passages in his work. We would speak not as partisans, but as the friends of candour and of truth. We however affirm with confidence, that whatever may be the faults of any ministers of this class, they will never be successfully opposed by those who censure without reading their works, and deal only in general invectives. Still less will they be corrected by the criticism of men who are themselves manifestly heterodox or vicious. Candour requires at the very least that their sentiments should be clearly known and fairly exhibited. When these are understood, and when the characters of the men are also investigated, we are convinced that their opponents will see reason to retract CHRIST. OBSERV. No, 52.

the greatest part, if not the whole of the charges so vehemently preferred against them; and to bear an honourable testimony to the general orthodoxy and purity of their doctrines; the strictness of their lives; and the exemplariness aud utility of their labours.

Sermons sur les points les plus importants de la Doctrine Evangélique. Tome I. pp. 302, Tome II. pp. 404. 8vo. 1804. Guernsey, Chevalier; London, Taylor, Hatton Garden. Price 12s.

Ir is seldom that any publication in French can be announced by us with satisfaction. The secularity, the religious sterility, and the irreligious fecundity of the French nation render it as inimical to this, in a moral, as it is in a national view. We therefore seize with more readiness the opportunity which is offered by the present work, whose author as we learn from the preface (not the title page) is M. Gibert, of calling the attention of our readers to a production in a Gallic dress, which may be read, not only with safety, but with information and improvement. Practised (we will not say hackneyed) as we are, in the employment of perusing pulpit compositions, one of the most legitimate parts of our province, with the severity of critical vigilance and jeajousy, a state of mind not the best adapted to the proper or most pleasing effect of such performances, we have yet found in the sermons of M. Gibert what has struck us, both as original and peculiarly impressive. This our readers will be disposed to attribute to the circumstance, that the author is a Frenchman; and they are partly right for we are undoubtedly more familiar with English than with French sermons. The Sermons before us, however, are not in the pompous and inflated style (as we Englishmen should call it) of the most admired productions of the French pulpit; but, uniting such a moderate degree of this quality Li

as on the whole is pleasing with the solidity of the English pulpit, they exhibita combination of vivacity and soundness of reasoning, which confers upon them considerable merit. By this commendation, which we consider due to the author, we certainly do not pledge ourselves to approve of every part of his work; and in the course of the present examination of it some instances of our disapprobation will occur.

The preface to these Sermons is honourable both to the author and to his work. It appears from that preface, that the Sermons were not intended for the press;-that the author considering his decreasing strength, of which he knew not the cause, as an indication of his approaching departure; possessing, however, at the same time, the power of speaking as before, and willing, like a good soldier of Christ, to spend his last breath in the service of his Saviour; requested the permission, (which he obtained) of the Dean of the Island, to preach in the evenings of the Lord's day at his church a certain number of sermons which he had by him;-that six of his hearers, in their own name, and that of many others, solicited the impression of these Sermons, to which the author consented, after the number of those who signed the proposal for their publication appeared sufficient both to discover the general will, and to indemnify the expence. The apology with which the preface concludes for the repetitions which occur in the Sermons will be easily admitted.

The first is a good and striking Sermon on the general resurrection. In the second, to which the same character is due, we meet with a criticism, which at first dazzled us, but on reflection appeared to want foundation. The author objects to the common translation and interpretation of Exod. xxxiv. 7, and of the second commandment, where the vengeance and the mercy of God are contrasted, by representing the first as extending to the third and fourth generation, and the second to thou

sands. M. Gibert justly observes, that there is no word in the original answering to the word "generation" in ours, and we believe every other, translation, at least the Septuagint and the Vulgate. He urges further, and with some earnestness, that, upon the common interpretation, the entail of mercy and of wrath might be confounded, and come to fall upon the same posterity. He therefore concludes, that nothing is intended here but a comparison between the beneficent and avenging attributes of the Deity, and that the proportion of the one to the other is represented as thousands to three or four. See pp. 24-27. We acquiesce in this conclusion, but we are not satisfied with the means by which the author arrives at it. The expression, "visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children," in the second commandment, and in the other parallel passage it is added "children's children," convince us, that generations are intended, and that the term is properly added after the numerals in our translation. The other argument of our author we look upon as rather a refinement; and the whole question of entail (if we may so speak) in the divine economy, although it is discoverable, not only in the Mosaic institute, but in the very constitution of the human species, is involved in great difficulty and obscurity.

We pass on to the fifth Sermon, because we cannot notice every portion of the work which has merit; and this arrests our attention more particularly, as it discovers the writer to be an Anti, or rather a Non-Calvinist, In declaring his sentiments upon this head, he professes to steer between two extremes. But this part of the work might have escaped our particular regard, at least a public announcement, had it not included such an expression of charitable respect towards those who differ from him on this subject, as we could earnestly wish were universally imitated by those who adopt the same views.