Review of Buddicom's Sermons. 1823.] an abundant promise of becoming lingness to exercise patient study CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 256. on More rapid, and, for a time, ap some occasions be witnessed; We shall select a single discourse as a specimen of Mr. Buddicom's volumes, preferring for that purpose one of apparently a more ethical than doctrinal cast; with a view, among other reasons, to shew how naturally a faithful Christian pastor grounds even his ethics on the irreversible basis of scriptural doctrine, and interweaves almost unconsciously the credenda and agenda of the Gospel in one uniform texture of what is good and what is lovely, what is enjoined and what is delightful and beneficial. Some preachers have been accused of almost always selecting doctrinal topics, and seldom or never carrying them out into the details of practice: others have been equally accused of too generally choosing practical topics, and forgetting to urge them upon Christian grounds. We hope, and we fully believe, that the number of these ultras on either side is greatly decreased and decreasing; but we would venture to submit for consideration whether there is not still a habit prevailing in many minds of avoiding one class of texts and preferring another, to the exclusionif not of any essential truth-at least of due variety and with an injurious influence as respects general edification. It may be said indeed to come to the same thing in the end whether a minister selects 2 L a doctrinal point and treats it practically, or a practical point and grounds it on sound doctrine; but if his habit is always to do the one and never to do the other, the just proportions and symmetry of Divine truth may be not a little deranged in the general view of those who take their measures of it from his instructions. And here we think that some of what are called the orthodox, and some of what are called the evangelical clergy, (we by no means make the charge general on either side,) respectively fall into too much of system. It is not satisfactory for a clergyman to say, "I almost uniformly preach moral duties, but I ground them on Christian doctrines;" or for another, "I almost uniformly select doctrinal texts, though from them I inculcate Christian duties." The two men would do well, now and then, to exchange texts with each other; the ethical divine borrowing from his neighbour, "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners;" "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved;" "Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world ;" and his neighbour receiving in return, "By works a marr is justified, and not by faith only;""Be content with such things as ye have;" "Who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill? &c." "Study to be quiet and to do your own business" "Envy not the oppressor, and choose none of his ways;" "Whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good report, think of these things.' Some texts might be profitably split between the two parties; each taking that portion which he would have been least likely of himself to select; as for example: mercy, Do justly, love And walk humbly with thy God. Pure religion and And to keep himself undefiled before God unspotted from the and the Father is world. this, to visit the fatherless and widows n. their affliction; But to return to our author-The sermon which we proposed briefly to analyse is founded on 2 Samuel xxiii. 15-17: " David longed, and said, O that one would give me drink of the water of the well of" Bethlehem, which is by the gate! And the three mighty men brake through the host of the Philistines, and drew water out of the well of Bethlehem that was by the gate, and took it, and brought it to David. Nevertheless he would not drink thereof, but poured it out unto the Lord. And he said, Be it far from me, O Lord, that I should do this: is not this the blood of the men that went in jeopardy of their lives? Therefore he would not drink it." After a few introductory remarks on the evils of rashness, the author proposes to consider first, David's temptation; condly, his victory. Under the former head he remarks: and se "David had encamped in a strong hold near the cave of Adullam, in order to resist the Philistines with whom he was then at war; and to prevent them from destroying the harvest, which his subjects were at that time employed in collecting. The heat and drought were excessive; and probably David felt them as painfully as the meanest centinel in his army. Bethlehem, the place of his birth, was near. Often had he drank of the water of the well of its gate and often, no doubt, had it refreshed and re-animated him. Bethlehem, however, was possessed by his enemies. They held guard over the fountain which he so well remembered, and portance would induce a corresponding so dearly valued. Their sense of its imvigilance and caution. Aware at once of the excellence of these waters, and of the difficulty of procuring them, he uttered (in a moment when inconsideration triumphed over self-restraint) that rash desire which occasioned his devoted friends so much danger, and himself so much subsequent self-condemnation. "Now where is the Christian who has not been thus tempted, and has not, like David, thirsted for the waters of the well 1823.] Review of Buddicom's Sermons. of Bethlehem? Who has not, in the un- posed by this rash desire, he had surely 251 the soul. The spirit of evil, therefore, In describing David's victory wards the conclusion of the dis Course: "David poured the water out unto the Lord. What does this phrase imply? He offered it as a solemn drink-offering to the Most High. He made the very temp. tation by which he had been assailed, and by which he had been in some degree subdued, a mean of praising God by an act of self-denial, which Divine grace ena bled him to practise. Be this conduct, my dear hearers, the model of your own. Sacrifice every unholy desire, and every incitement to sin, to that God in whose strength you must overcome them. Crucify them upon the cross of your Saviour's love. Convert into an offering of praise the occasions of evil; and glorify God by the very snares which the enemy of man has laid for your souls. "vol. ii.pp.214, 215. We have selected this sermon for remark, not because it is the best, or the most regularly worked out, of our author's discourses-indeed the contrary is the case-but chiefly as an illustration of the many rich and striking topics afforded to the Christian preacher in some of the less frequented paths of Scripture narrative. There is, even in the present age, a vast and inexhausted field for the researches of a studious divine in the sacred volume, especially in the Old Testament. We believe that novelty itself, that popularly attractive charm, would not be unattainable in sermons, familiar as are all their legitimate topics, if ministers would only be at greater pains in breaking up new ground, instead of always practising an indolent established routine of clerical cropping; cultivating, if we may so speak, but a few acres of the sacred text, instead of "going through the good land in the length thereof, and the breadth thereof," seeking for its indigenous treasures, digging its golden mines, and furnishing us with more of its racy clusters, rather than passing off in place of them the repeated distillations of an indolent theology. We wish for nothing new in doctrine or in morals; and, in the best sense, the topics contained in the most popular and oft-recurring texts can never be exhausted. Neither do we wish again to witness that most injurious habit, coeval with the age of the Commonwealth, of choosing farfetchedtexts andfanciful adaptations. But still there is much interesting matter in Scripture, not currently touched upon by divines, and which might be more often discovered, if, of an active clergyman's life, the amidst the incessant occupations business of sermon-making were not too frequently deferred to a period of the week when it becomes necessary to ask rather which text may be most easily done into a sermon, than which, if diligently and deliberately wrought out, would best answer the purpose of exciting attention and administering to edification. Having thus adverted to a discourse of our author's on a somewhat unusual, and, as respects matters of doctrine, apparently unpromising text, it would be unfair to him if we did not give at least one short passage from a discourse of a different cast. We take the following, almost without selection, from the next sermon but one, on that justly popular and interesting passage, "What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ; yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord." "I raise my voice to warn you against the fearful mistake of trusting to a wellspent life as your plea and justification in the day of God, instead of depending solely for acceptance upon the righte ousness and death of Jesus Christ. Will and measure stature with that of St. Paul? your goodness bear to stand side by side, Touching the righteousness that was in the Law, he was blameless. Do your consciences give in the same attestation? If not, your claim is inferior to that which the Apostle might have urged; but which, taught as he was by Truth infallible, he Remember that by utterly renounced. the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified. Remember, also, that He who is to decide upon your pretensions to a reward of merit is of purer eyes than to behold the least iniquity. How, then, 1823.] should man be just before God?. The Gospel commands the renunciation of this illusory hope. It tells you, that as all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God,' so all must be justified freely, not by their own merits, but by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." vol. ii. pp. 254, 255. "The sacrifices made by St. Paul were far from being worthless; their value bad long endeared them to his esteem: but there was a standard by which an enlightened judgment and converted heart were compelled to measure them; and they were found deficient. Compared with the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Saviour, they shrank into a minuteness of dimensions which made them almost, if not altogether, invisible to an eye fixed upon the magnificent realities of heaven, the glory of an everlasting possession, and the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory." pp. 255, 256. "St. Paul, indeed, when he became a Christian, renounced not his Jewish privileges, but merely his unholy reliance upon them. He quitted not the exercise of morals and virtue, to surrender himself to intemperance, and riot, and self-indulgence. The change which the principles of salvation had produced made him only more unceasingly zealous toward every good word and work. He was merely divested of that unblest presumption which his legal righteousness had served to produce, associated, as it was, with an entire ignorance of the demand and spirituality of the law of God. The new religion of the Apostle was eminently that Discourses thus excellent and scriptural, thus devout and edifying, well deserve, and we trust will obtain, a wide circulation and just degree of public regard. LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL INTELLIGENCE, &c. &c. GREAT BRITAIN. In the press :-An Appeal for Religion; A Society has been founded by the name of the "Asiatic Society of London," upon the principle of that which has ex isted long in Bengal, for the encouragement of literature, science, and arts, in connexion with India and other countries eastward of the Cape of Good Hope. It already includes a highly respectable list of members. It has been lately ascertained, that a round galvanic conductor of the electric fluid is, in every portion of its surface, on the magnetic equally fitted to act needle; and likewise that the poles of a magnetised steel bar are not necessarily situated at its extremities,—but that, by a particular mode of touching, the two ends will have similar poles, whilst the |