PORTIUS'S LECTURES. ever, we see too frequently done, more par- to deny this position; yet we are not of the rest and sanctity of that holy day. prepared to proceed so far as the right The bent and tendency of the present times reverend preacher. We fully believe, is too evidently to a contrary extreme, to an that "whenever men abandon them- excessive relaxation instead of an excessive strictness in the regard shewn to the Lord's selves to impiety, infidelity, and profli- day. I am not now speaking of the religions the fault is not in the situation, duties appropriated to the Lord's day, for gacy, but the heart:" but we cannot bring these are not now before us, but solely of the ourselves to maintain, that “ there is no rest, the repose which it requires. This rest mode of life, no employment or pro- is plainly infringed, whenever the lower fession which may not, if we please, be classes of people continue their ordinary ocmade consistent with a sincere belief in cupations on the sabbath, and whenever the the gospel." P. 216. Still less are we on this day in needless labour. This, how higher employ their servants and their cattle disposed to acknowledge, that because the sacred writers have incidentally mentioned with praise some centurions, "the profession of arms seems to be studiously placed by them in a favourable and an honourable light." P. 218. Defensive war, in the present state of human affairs, is, doubtless, necessary; and yet this, even when holily undertaken and generously carried on, is an evil of no trifling magnitude. In the common contests of vulgar ambition, the object on one side, at least, is unjust, and the means employed to secure that object, are uniformly hostile to the mild and pacific spirit of the gospel. The dispositions that war tends to generate, are so directly adverse to the disposition enforced by the religion of Christ, that he must possess a very uncommon share of virtue and resolution, who can devote himself to the profession of arms, and yet preserve his Christian purity untainted. The ninth lecture forms a commentary upon some of the principal admonitions which our Lord gave to the twelve, when he sent them forth to preach the gospel. In this lecture his lordship very ably comments on that celebrated and much misunderstood prophecy, to the fulfilment of which the records of ecclesiastical history bear but too fatal a testimony; "I come not to send peace on earth, but a sword." Some of his lordship's remarks on this head will correct the courtly inconsistencies in the conclusion of the preceding lecture. In the tenth lecture, the bishop discourses upon those incidents in the bistory of Christ, respecting the observance of the sabbath, which gave occasion to his enemies to conspire against his life. The following observations are deserving of serious regard. "There is no danger that we should carry the observance of our sabbath too far, er that we should be too scrupulously nice in avoiding every the minutest infringement "This temporary suspension of labour, this refreshment and relief from incessant toil, is most graciously allowed even to the brute creation, by the great Governor of the universe, whose mercy extends over all his works. It is the boou of heaven itself. It is a small drop of comfort thrown into their cup of misery; and to wrest them from this only privilege, this sweetest consolation of their wretched existence, is a degree of inhumanity for which there wants a name; and of which few people, I am persuaded, if they could be brought to reflect seriously upon it, would ever be guilty." The case of the demoniacs cones under the Bishop's consideration in this lecture. His lordship adopts the scheme of real possessions; he attempts to defend it with arguments which appear to us greatly deficient in force, but which it is not within our province to refute. The three succeeding lectures are The Greek and Roman fables are most N 3 "Our Saviour's parables, on the con trary, are all of them images and allusions taken from nature, and from occurrences which are most familiar to our observation and experience in common life; and the events related are not only such as might very probably happen, but several of them are supposed to be such as actually did; and this would have the effect of a true historical narrative, which we all know to carry much greater weight and authority with it, than the most ingenious fiction. Of the former sort are the rich man and Lazarus, of the good Samaritan, and of the prodigal son. There are others in which Our Saviour seems to allude to some historical facts which happened in those times; as that wherein it is said, that a king went into a far country, there to receive a kingdom. This probably refers to the history of Archelaus, who, after the death of his father, Herod the Great, went to Rome to receive from Augustus the confirmation of his father's will, by which he had the kingdom of Judæa left to him. "These circumstances give a decided superiority to our Lord's parables over the fables of the ancients; and if we compare them with those of the Koran, the difference is still greater. The parables of Mahomet are trifling, uninteresting, tedious, and dull. Among other things which he has borrowed from scripture, one is the parable of Nathan, in which he has most ingeniously contrived to destroy all its spirit, force, and beauty; and has so completely distorted and deformed its whole texture and composition, that if the commentator had not informed you, in very gentle terms, that it is the parable of Nathan a little disguised, you would scarce have known it to be the same. Such is the difference between a prophet who is really inspired, and an impostor who pretends to be so." The twelfth lecture is occupied in important reflections suggested to the right reverend preacher's mind, by the parable of the sower. We select with pleasure the following impressive pas sage: "There is a third portion of the seed that falls among thorns. This wants neither root nor depth of earth. It grows up, but the misfortune is, that the thorns grow up with it. The fault of the soil is not of bearing nothing, but of bearing too much; of bearing what it ought not, of exhausting its strength and nutrition on vile and worthless productions, which choke the good seed, and prevent it from coming to perfection. These are they," says our Saviour in the parallel place of St. Luke," which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares, and riches, and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection," In their youth, perhaps, they receive religious instruction, they imbibe right principles, and listen to good advice: but no sooner do they go forth, no sooner do they leave those persons and those places from whom they received them, than they take the road either of business or of pleasure, pursue their interests, their amusements, or their guilty indulgencies, with unbounded eagerness, and have neither time nor inclination to cultivate the seeds of religion that have been sown in their hearts, and to eradicate the weeds that have been mingled with them. The consequence is, that the weeds prevail, and the seeds are choked and lost. "Can there possibly be a more faithful picture of a large proportion of the Christian world? Let us look around us, and observe how the greater part of those we meet with are employed. In what is it that their thoughts are busied, their views, their hopes, and their fears centered, their attention occupied, their hearts, and souls, and affeetions, engaged? Is it in searching the scriptures, in meditating on its doctrines, its precepts, its exhortations, its promises, and its threats? Is it in communing with their own hearts, in probing them to the very bottom, in looking carefully whether there be any way of wickedness in them, in plucking out every noxious weed, and leaving room for the good seed to grow, and swell, and expand itself, and bring forth fruit to perfection? Is it in cultivating purity of manners, a spirit of charity towards the whole human race, and the most exalted sentiments of piety, gratitude, and love, towards their Maker and Redeemer? These, I fear, are far from being the general and principal occupations of mankind. Teo many of them are, God knows, very differently employed. They are overwhelmed with business, they are devoted to amusement, they are immersed in sensuality, they are mad with ambition, they are idolaters of wealth, of power, of glory, of fame. On these things all their affections are fixed. These are the great objects of their pursuit ; and if any accidental thought of religion happen to cross their way, they instantly dismiss the unbidden, unwelcome guest, with the answer of Felix to Paul, "Go thy way for this time; when we have a convenient scason we will send for thee." "But how then, it is said, are we to conduct ourselves? If Providence has blessed us with riches, with honour, with power, with reputation, are we to reject these gifts of our heavenly Father; or ought we not rather to accept them with thankfulness, and enjoy with gratitude, the advantages and the comforts which his bounty has be stowed upon us? Most assuredly we ought. But then they are to be enjoyed also with innocence, with temperance, and with moderation. They must not be allowed to usurp the first place in our hearts. They must not be permitted to supplant God in our affection, or to dispute that pre-eminence and priority which he claims over every propensity of our nature. This and this only can prevent the good seed from being choked with the cares, the riches, and the pleasures of the present life." This lecture being the last that was delivered in the year 1799, is closed by an earnest recommendation of a strict observance of the ensuing week, commonly called passion week. "In that week," observes his lordship, "all public diversions are, as you well know, wisely prohibited by public authority; and in conformity to the spirit of such prohibition, we should, even in our own families and in our own private amusements, be temperate, modest, decorous, and discreet." P. 323. There are, how ever, those, among whom, notwithstanding this loose, inaccurate language, is the bishop of London himself, who are of opinion, that not in passion week alone, but at all times, and in all seasons, Christians ought to be temperate, modest, decorous, and discreet. Had his lordship then no apprehension, that by enforcing with so much solemnity the observance of a particular season, it might be inferred by some, that at other times so much caution and watchfulness would not be necessary? Are there none who would cheerfully comply with such a requisition, as a kind of commutation for their general irregularities? Is there not considerable danger, that those who are thus exhorted to make a pause in the fashionable career of dissipation and folly, when the season allotted to that purpose is over, will plunge with renewed alacrity into the vortex, under the persuasion, that having by this penance made their peace with heaven, they are left at full liberty to indulge themselves to the utmost, till the season of penitence and retirement comes round again? The thirteenth lecture relates principally to the parable of the tares. "This parable well deserves our most serious consideration, as it gives an answer to two questions of great curiosity and great importance, which have exercised the ingenuity, and agitated the minds of thinking men, from the earliest times to the present, and, perhaps, were never, at any period of the world, more interesting than at this very hour. The first of these questions is, how came moral evil into the world? "The next is, why is it suffered to remain a single moment; and why is not every wicked man immediately punished as he deserves?" With respect to the first of these questions, his lordship considers it as a most unaccountable error of judgment, and a strange misapplication of talents, and waste of labour and time (p. 331), for any one who believes in revelation, to employ himself in making any inquiry; since "we are told in the very beginning of the Bible, that he who first brought sin or moral evil into the world, was that great adversary of the human race, the devil, who first tempted the woman and the man to act in direct contradiction to the commands of their Maker:" and thus were introduced into their whole moral frame, all those corrupt propensities and disordered pas sions, which they bequeathed as a fatal legacy to their descendants. “This,” says the right reverend divine," is the true origin of all moral evil." Having thus cut the gordian knot, he proceeds to the second question, which, as he has no hypothesis to support, he discusses in an able and satisfactory manner. The second volume opens with the fourteenth lecture, which is a most interesting and useful history of Herod and Herodias, and of the death of John the Baptist. His lordship's observations on the character of the abandoned Herodias, and her unfortunate daughter Salone, are admirable; and though we earnestly recommend the perusal of the whole lecture, we cannot withhold the following specimen: "We here see a fatal proof of the extreme barbarities to which that most diabolical sentiment of revenge will drive the natural tenderness even of a female mind; what a close connection there is between crimes of apparently a very different complexion, and how frequently the uncontrolled indulgence of what are called the softer affections, lead has no hesitation in going any lengths to gain his point, and will fight his way to the object he has in view, through the heart of the very best friend he has in the world. The same thing we see in a still more striking point of view, in the conduct of Herodias. She was at first only a bold unprincipled libertine, and might perhaps be admired and celebrated, as many others of that description have been, for her good temper, her sensibility, her generosity to the poor; and with this character she might have gone out of the world, had no such person as John arisen, to reprove her and her husband for their profligacy, and to endanger the continuance of her guilty commerce. But no sooner does he rebuke them as they deserved, than Herodias shewed that she had other passions to indulge besides those which had hitherto disgraced her character; and that when she found it necessary to her pleasures, she could be as cruel as she had been licentious; could contrive and accomplish the destruction of a great and good man, could feast her eyes with the sight of his mangled head in a charger, could even make her own poor child the instrument of her vengeance, and, as I am inclined to think, a reluctant accomplice in a most atrocious murder." The subject of the fifteenth lecture is the transfiguration; an occurrence upon which the learned bishop published his opinion several years ago, without his name. The same hypothesis is adopted in the present work. The sixteenth lecture is employed chiefly upon the denunciation in the eighteenth chapter of Matthew, against those who shall cause their brother to offend, i. e. to apostatize from the fruits of the gos pel. This subject the bishop considers much at large, and states the guilt of drawing others to infidelity, whether by means of persecution by open and systematic attacks, by bold and impious libels, by ridicule, by the wicked lives of nominal Christians, or by licentious publications. The lecture concludes with the beautiful parable of the relentless servant; from which the preacher recommends to his hearers the indispensable duty of the forgiveness of injuries. In the seventeenth lecture, his lordship details at length the incident of the young ruler, and the conversation which passed between our Lord and his followers, in consequence of it. The principal topics in the eighteenth lecture, are the parable of the marriage feast, recorded in the twenty-second chapter of Matthew; the insidious question of the pharisee, respecting the pay ment of tribute money, and the inquiry of the lawyer concerning the great com. mandment of the law. This being the last lecture delivered in the year 1800, the bishop concludes with some very serious admonitions to his audience, recommending self-denial, and the duty of considering the wants and distresses of the poor. These admonitions were delivered in "a season of great scarcity and extreme dearness of all the necessaries of life;" but the following important reflection will be deserving of attention at all times, even in the midst. of abundance. "When we consider that the expence of a single evening's amusement, or a single convivial meeting, would give support and comfort perhaps to twenty wretched families, pining in hunger, in sickness, and in sorrow, can we so far divest ourselves of all the tender feelings of our nature (not to mention any higher principle), can we be so intolerably selfish, so wedded to pleasure, so devoted to our own gratification, as to let the lowest of our brethren perish, while we are solacing ourselves with every earthly delight? No one that gives himself leave to reflect for a moment, can think this to be right, can maintain it to be consistent with his duty either to God or man. And, even in respect to the very object we so eagerly point even of pleasure, I mean, and self pursue, and are so anxious to obtain, in gratification, I doubt much whether the giddiest votary of amusement can receive half the real satisfaction from the gayest scenes of dissipation he is immersed in, that he would experience (if he would but try) from rescuing a fellow creature from destruction, and lighting up an afflicted and fallen countenance with joy. "Let us then abridge ourselves of a few indulgences, and give the price of what they would cost us to those who have none. By this laudable species of economy, we shall at once improve ourselves in a habit of selfdenial and self-government; we shall demonstrate the sincerity of our love to our fellow creatures, by giving up something that is dear to us for their sake, by sacrificing all, we shall approve ourselves as faithful our pleasures to their necessities; and above servants in the sight of our Almighty Sovereign; we shall give some proof of our gratitude to our heavenly Benefactor and Friend, who has given us richly all things to enjoy ; and who, in return for that bounty, expects and commands us to be rich in good works, comfort the sick, to visit the fatherless and to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to widow in their affliction, and to keep ourselves unspotted from the world, unpolluted by its vices, and unsubdued by its dominant vanities and follies.” pre The nineteenth and twentieth lectures cannot be read by the Christian without contributing to his improvement; they will also be found well worth the attention of the unbeliever. They are employed in the illustration of the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth chapters of Matthew. These lectures are replete with important information, and contain many striking remarks tending to demonstrate the divine authority of Jesus. We wish that his lordship had confined himself to what he calls the primary, and what we think the only sense of these remarkable prophecies. In the twenty-first lecture we enter upon "the last sad scene of our Saviour's life, which continues in a progressive accumulation of one misery upon another, to the end of St. Matthew's gospel." P. 231. This, therefore, and the three remaining lectures, are occupied in considering the events by which that scene was distinguished. Speaking of Pilate, his lordship ob serves: "We see a Roman governor sent to dispense justice in a Roman province, and invested with full power to save or to destroy; we see him with a prisoner before him, in whom he repeatedly declared he could find no fault: and yet, after a few ineffectual struggles with his own conscience, he delivers up that prisoner, not merely to death, but to the most horrible and excruciating torments that human malignity could devise. The fact is, he was afraid of the people, he was afraid of Cæsar; and when the clamorous multitude cried out to him, "if thou let this man go, thou art not Cæsar's friend," all his firmness, all his resolution, at once forsook him. He shrunk from the dangers that threatened him, and sacrificed his conscience and his duty to the menaces of a mob, and the dread of sovereign power. "Could any thing like this have happens ed in this country? We all know that it is impossible. We all know that no dangers, no threats, no fears, either of Cæsar or the people, could ever induce a British judge to condemn to death a man, whom he in his conscience believed to be innocent. And what is it that produces this difference between a Roman and a British judge? It is this: that the former had no other principle to govern his conduct, but natural reason, or what would now be called philosophy; which, though it would sometimes point out to him the path of duty, yet could never in spire him with fortitude enough to persevere in it, in critical and dangerous circumstances, in opposition to the frowns of a tyrant, or the clamours of a multitude. Whereas the British judge, in addition to his natural sentiments of right and wrong, and the dictates of the moral sense, has the principle of religion also to influence his heart: he has the untitude to guide him; he has that which will erring and inflexible rules of evangelical recvanquish every other fear, the fear of God before his eyes. He knows that he himself must one day stand before the judge of all; and that consideration keeps him firm to his duty, be the dangers that surround him ever so formidable and tremendous." were every British judge necessarily a We are very willing to allow, that sincere Christian, because he lives in a country in which Christianity is professed, it would follow, of course, that the strictest integrity, and the most scrupulous regard to conscience, would invariably mark his conduct; but as there have been persons filling some of the highest offices of the state, whose claims to the character of true Christians have been doubted, we esteem it no small happiness, that our excellent constitution looks further than his lordship of London, and puts a check upon the peccability of the judge, by entrusting the decision of every accused person's fate to those who in all cases are less liable to be influenced by the smiles or the frowns of power. Having, in the twenty-third lecture, adduced much incontrovertible evidence of the resurrection of Jesus, his lordship adds: "But besides the positive proofs of this fact, which have been here stated, there is a presumptive one of the most forcible nature, to which I have never yet seen any answer, and am of opinion, that none can be given. The proof I allude to, is that which is drawn from the sudden and astonishing change which took place in the language and the conduct of the apostles, immediately after the period when they affirmed, that Jesus had risen from the dead. From being, as we have seen, timorous and dejected, and discouraged at the death of their master, they suddenly became courageous, undaunted, and intrepid: and they boldly preached that very Jesus whom before they had deserted in his greatest distress. This observation will apply, in some degree, to all the apostles; but with regard to St. Peter, more particu larly, it holds with peculiar force." His lordship then proceeds to recite the ascension of our Lord: after which some parts of the conduct of Peter after he very forcibly asks, "In what manner shall we account for this sudden and astonishing alteration in the |