language of St. Peter? There is, I will venture to assert, no other possible way of accounting for it, but from that very circumstance which St. Peter himself mentions in his speech to the high priest, namely, "that he whom they had crucified, was, by the almighty power of God, raised from the dead." It was this change in the condition of his divine Master, which produced a correspondent change in the character and conduct of St. Peter. It was this miracle of our Lord's resurrection, which could alone have produced the almost equally astonishing miracle of St. Peter's complete transformation. Had Jesus never risen from the dead, as he had repeatedly promised to do, he would have been a deceiver and impostor; and that St. Peter knowing this, should openly and boldly profess himself his disciple when dead, after having most peremptorily denied him, and disclaimed all know ledge of him when living, and should expose himself to the most dreadful dangers in asserting a fact which he knew to be false, and for the sake of a man who had most cruelly deceived and disappointed him, is a supposition utterly repugnant to every principle of human nature, and every dictate of common sense, and an absurdity too gross for the most determined infidel to maintain."

The following passage occurs in the conclusion of the twenty-fourth lecture, in which the worthy prelate takes a final leave of his audience.

"In the history of our Lord, as given by St. Matthew, of which I have detailed the

most essential parts, such a scene has been presented to your observation, as cannot but have excited sensations of a very serious and awful nature, in your minds. You cannot but have seen, that the divine Author of our religion is, beyond comparison, the most extraordinary and most important personage that ever appeared on this habitable globe. His birth, his life, his doctrines, his precepts, his miracles, his sufferings, his death, his resurrection, his ascension, are all without a parallel in the history of mankind. He called himself the Son of God, the Messiah predicted in the prophets, the great Redeemer and deliverer of mankind, promised in the sacred writings, through successive ages,

almost from the foundation of the world. He supported these great characters with uniformity, with consistence, and with dignity, throughout the whole course of his ministry. The work he undertook was the greatest and most astonishing that can be conceived, and such as before never entered into the imagination of man. It was nothing less than the conversion of a whole world from the grossest ignorance, the most abandoned wickedness, and the most sottish idolatry, to the knowledge of the true God, to a pure and holy religion, and to faith in him, who was THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE. He proved himself to have a commission from heaven, for those great purposes, by such demonstrations of divine wisdom, power, and goodness, as it is impossible for any fair, and ingenuous, and unprejudiced mind, to resist. Of all this you have seen abundant instances in the course of these lectures: and when all these circumstances are collected into one point of view, they present such a body of evidence, as must overpower, by its weight, all the trivial difficulties and objections that the wit of man can raise against the divine authority of the gospel."

We have entered into this minute de, tail of the lectures which compose these volumes, on account of the celebrity tion of the much respected author. they have obtained, and the exalted staTheir intrinsic excellence is not, we confess, altogether what we had expected. The reasoning is often inconclusive; and many difficulties in the narrative of the evangelist, are either passed by without explanation, or noticed in a very unThe defence of satisfactory manner. Christianity is, on every proper occasion, admirably supported; and the practical reflections are throughout most forcible and impressive. To reclaim the infidel, to confirm the doubtful, to convert the sinner from the error of his ways, and to encourage the real Christian in his arduous race, these lectures are well adapted. May their success be commensurate with their extensive cir culation.

THE author of these sermons, as we learn from a short memoir prefixed to them by the translator, was born August 5, 1730, at St. Gall, in Switzerland,

where his father, a pious and an upright man, was settled as a practitioner in the law. Young Zollikoffer, when arrived at the proper age, was put to the gymnas

sium of his native town, whence, being intended for the church, he was sent to prosecute his studies first at Bremen, and afterwards at the university of Utrecht. Shortly after he had completed his academical course, he obtain ed an establishment as preacher in his own country, at Murten, in the Pays de Vaud. But here he remained only a short time, being called to a more considerable place at Monstein, in the Grisons. Thence he shortly removed to Isenburgh; and the reputation of his talents as a preacher being now widely diffused, he was appointed, at the early age of eight and twenty, to the office of one of the German preachers at the reformed church at Leipsick. In this distinguished situation he passed the rest of his life, revered by an enlightened con gregation, favoured with the friendship of the most eminent professors of the university, zealously discharging the duties of his important station, and "in all things shewing himself a pattern of good works." After suffering a painful illness with the patience of a wise man, and the resignation of a Christian, he died on the 22d of January 1788, aged 58 years.

The subjects of the sermons which compose these volumes, are the following.-1. Wherein the dignity of man consists. 2. What is in opposition to the dignity of man. 3. How and by what means Christianity restores the dignity of man. 4. The value of human life. 5. The value of health. 6. The value of riches. 7. The value of honour. 8. The value of sensual pleasure. 9. The value of intellectual pleasures. 10. The value of devotion. 11. The value of sensibility. 12. The value of virtue. 13. The superior value of Christian virtue. 14. The pleasures of virtue. 15. Why many virtuous persons enjoy not more pleasure. 16. The value of religion in general. 17. The value of the Christian religion in particular. 18. The value of Christianity in regard of the general advantage it has procured to mankind, and still procures. 19. The high value and excellence of the human soul. 20. The value of man's lifetime upon earth. 21. The value or the importance of one 22. Of the detriment and danger of too frequent dissipation and diver

sions.

23. The value or the importance of the doctrine of our immortality.

24. The value or the importance of the hope of a blessed immortality, consider ed as the principal source of our satisfaction and serenity of mind. 25. Of spiritual experiences. 26. The value of social and public worship. 27. The value of solitude. 28. The value of social life. 29. The same continued. 30. The value of a busy life. 31. The value of commerce. 32. The value of a country life, or the edifying sojourn in the coun try. 33. The value of domestic happiness. 34. The value of friendship. 35. The value of civil and religious liberty. 36. The value of learning. 37. The value of more enlightened times. 38. The value of afflictions and tribulations. 39. The value of a good reputation. 40. Of conversion from a bad course of life. 41. The blessedness of beneficence. 42. The value of human happiness itself. 43. Settlement of our notions concerning human happiness. 44. The difference between prosperity and happiness. 45. View of the sources of human happiness. 46. The Christian doctrine concerning happiness. 47. Arguments against vanity. 48. Rules for rightly appreciating the value of things. 49. The vanity of all earthly things. 50. Of the particular character of Jesus Christ. 51. Of the imitation of the example of Jesus. 52. Of the pastoral office.

These subjects, it must be acknowledg ed, are of considerable importance; and they are handled in such a manner as to supply the attentive reader with much valuable information, and many useful directions in the conduct of life.

He who shall open these volumes for the purpose of acquiring enlightened views of human life, an enlarged knowledge of his duty, and powerful motives to the practice of it, will find his labour pleasant, and his reward great. Great justness of thought, and very comprehensive principles of human duty, expressed always in a neat, and frequently in a very animated man ner, so equally characterise the various topics which fall under the preacher's notice, that we cannot readily say upon what part of these volumes our atten tion has been most fixed. Some of the subjects the author was aware might "appear to others not clerical, or not theological and biblical enough;" for this the peculiar character of his audience might be thought to offer a suffi, cient justification; "many of them," as

would our limits allow us, we could with pleasure extend, without remarking that the merits of the original work are in

some degree obscured by faults in the translation.

FEW are strangers to the character of the late Dr. Hunter, as a popular preacher, or to the preceding volumes of his Sacred Biography, which for many years past have been in the hands of the public. The reputation which he acquired from them will not be injured or diminished, by the volume which "surviving him, he bequeaths as a small token of affection and gratitude to the people of his immediate charge." The same religious system which before furnished topics for the exercise of his eloquence, here supplies subjects more eminently adapted to the display of pulpit oratory, and to the flow of a warm imagination. Of these the preacher avails himself. Solidity of reasoning, rational criticism, or liberal interpretation of scripture are no more the characteristics of the present than of the former volumes. Many pleasing and many important truths are however enforced in a strain that must have captivated the minds of the hearers, and will richly gratify every reader of taste and feeling The volume consists of twenty-three lectures, not exhibiting together a connected view of our Lord's life, but each confined to some particular and striking incident. The entire volume therefore, as the author acknowledges (preface, p. vii.) is "but a fragment, each particular discourse aims at presenting one distinct and individual object gradually melting away into another, and it may of course be read either separately, or as a link in

a chain."

The two first lectures are upon the divine nature of Jesus Christ, which Dr. H. regards" as the first leading object of all revelation." A passage in the second lecture is well worth transcribing:

"Again, this subject seems much calcalated to correct the prejudices which prevail among men in the matter of pedigree. There is in reality no such thing as mean and high birth: or if there be a distinction, to be born perfect in every limb and feature, with a sound and vigorous constitution, with a mind complete in all its faculties, this

is to be nobly born; as, on the contrary, to come into the world diseased and debilitated, with a constitution undermined and destroyed by the vice of parents, is to have the disadwhich, if founded in reason, truth and jusvantage of being meanly born; a distinction tice, leaves the great, in general, little to glory in, and the poor little at which to repine. Have we not all one father? What genealogy is pure from every stain of infirmity, folly or vice? Is it any diminution of the Saviour's dignity, any impeachment of his perfect purity, or any imputation on his great public character, that in the roll of his ancestry after the flesh, we find the name of Rahab the harlot, and of her who had been the wife of Uriah, and that he was brought up under the roof, perhaps to the occupation of an obscure craftsman? Virtue and vice are personal not hereditary, and nothing but vice is a just ground of shame. Shall I call myself a disciple of Jesus then, and think it a reproach to be called a carlean, lightly esteemed because my parents penter's son, despised because I am a Galiwere poor and ignoble, because a paltry monosyllable introduces not my name? Real worth ennobles itself independent of the breath of kings, it draws obscure progenitors into light, and leaves a fair and honourable inheritance to posterity-in a bright example, and a respectable name."

The three succeeding lectures detail in a striking and animated manner, the preparations for the Messiah's appearance, both in the heathen and the Jewish world.

Lecture vi. contains the history of the nativity, Lect. vii. is upon the infancy of Jesus. In the midst of many beauties, the following bears a distin guished place;

See

is an interesting and delightful employment "To mark the progress of a human being -to observe how the limbs acquire firmness and strength, how the mental powers unfold themselves, and all the passions of the man, in-succession, stand confessed. the fond mother bending with delight over ker infant, at first a little pliant lump of animated clay, every power lying dormant, save one, that of drawing its nourishment from her breast. By and by the eye begins to feel and follow the light, the slender neck strengthens and sustains the reclining head;