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Now it is a HAMMER.

Let us put ourselves under the difcipline of this heavenly word. It is likened to a hammer that breaketh the obdurate heart, that rock in the breaft, in pieces.'

Now it is a good BREAST of MILK. The babes in Chrift may fuck at this breast, and grow thereby.'

It is a LANTERN.

The fcriptures are hung out by the Lord himself on purpose to be a light unto our feet and a lantern to our path.'

It is an APOTHECARY'S SHOP.

In this fore-boufe of precious things there is medicine for fickness and balm for every wound.' It is a BUTTERY.

every

In it we have a fupply for every want. It is plenteousness ftocked with all that can be cheering to us in our pilgrimage.' It fometimes acts like FIRE.

< There are fuch promifes from one end to the other-such precious promifes to fet on fire all our hopes.'

At other times it acts like Water.

The fcriptures are wells of confolation as well as wells of falvation, and we may draw from them the water of joy in fuch abundance as will drown all our troubles.'

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Fingentur fpecies, ut nec pes, nec caput, &c.

ART. III. Sermons by Colin Milne, LL.D. Rector of North Chapel in Suffex, Lecturer of St. Paul's Deptford, and one of the Preachers at the City of London Lying-in-Hofpital. 8vo. 6 s. bound, Cadell. 1780.

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HE Author informs his Readers, in the Advertisement prefixed to his Sermons, that few of them were delivered exactly in the fame form in which they are now offered to the Public. The time ufually allotted for inftructions from the pulpit feldom permitted the Author to exhauft his fubject in a fingle difcourfe. When the intreaties therefore of fome partial friends had perfuaded him to fubmit the leaft incorrect of his compofitions to the infpection of the Public, he judged that he fhould be guilty of no great impropriety by incorporating feveral difcouries upon the fame fubject into one or two, which, though thereby necefiarily rendered longer than fermons generally are, might yet, he imagined, by conjoining the feveral arguments employed, and placing them before the Reader in one ftrong point of view, gain, perhaps in point of energy and effect, what they loft in elegance and neatnefs.' What degree of elegance or neatness thofe fermons might poffefs in their original and unincorporated state, it is not our bufinefs to determine. We take the matter as it lies before us: and in this view cannot

help

help obferving, that if Dr. Milne facrificed elegance and neatnefs for the purpose of fecuring energy, and producing a better and stronger effect on the Reader, we are forry his good wishes should have fo poorly fucceeded. We do not fo much bewail the facrifice of the fmaller beauties of language, when the defect is fupplied by the greater and more fubftantial excellencies of fentiment and argument. But, alas! Dr. Milne's lofs of neatness is accompanied with a want of force; and where we mifs Hermes, we do not meet with Minerva.

These fermons are very long and for the reafon for which the Author may think them excellent, we think them tedious. The arguments employed in them, fo far from being placed in a ftrong point of view,' are weakened by the uncommon length to which they are drawn out: and whatever might be their effect when delivered from the pulpit with the accompaniments of voice and action, we are perfuaded they will lofe that effect on the fober and more judicious Reader; who, inftead of being charmed by the fafcination of oratory, will be difgufted to see the simple truths of the gospel gaudily decked out in meretricious ornaments, and the chafter beauties of language loft amidst a redundancy of tawdry metaphors, and glaring but infipid expletives.

The figure of rhetoric to which Dr. Milne is most indebted for his eloquence, is that which the Greeks called the Periphrafis. It is a very common and commodious figure, and generally makes a great fhew in the pulpit. It is (as our good old Scriblerus obferved long ago) the fpinning-wheel of the bathos, which draws out and spreads a thought into the finest thread.' So fine, indeed, that, at times, it is fcarcely difcernible by the acuteft eye! We fhall produce feveral examples of Dr. Milne's remarkable dexterity in the working and management of this fame fpinning-wheel. No matter where we turn. Every page almoft prefents a proof of our Preacher's fkill. In the third fermon (viz. On Death) we meet with the following very lamentable defcription of a very doleful fubject. [N. B. We shall cautiously note by a numeral mark every divifion, and fub-divifion, and fub-fubter-divifion of this curious paffage, that the Doctor's knack at amplification may be readily obferved, and the value of it arithmetically estimated.] To die: to difappear from all the objects which furround him :- -to be torn from the intimate fociety in which he had lived with a father-with a family

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with friends-with congenial fouls-with kindred spirits, whose .(1) fentiments and defires, whofe hopes and fears were the fame :

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and to rot

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he knows not where:- -to lie in cold obstruction

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to be removed from a fplendid apartment, furnished with every accommodation and elegance, into the dark,

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VII

unfurnished, contracted chamber of the grave:—from a bed

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of softness and luxury, to a dank, loathfome, fubterraneous

grotto:

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to embark on the boundless ocean of eternity:

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to become from " fenfible, warm motion," a motionlefs, infen

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fible, "kneaded clod"—the food of worms-the horror of men

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-the hideous depofit of a tomb :-this fpectacle alone held

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up to fancy, disturbs the fenfes-darkens the imagination-and

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"It is

embitters all the fweets of life." "I with (fays Yorick) that the Preacher had brought it in fudden death." "I have known a regiment (fays Uncle Toby) flaughtered in lefs time." like your Honour's wound (fays Corporal Trim). 'Tis a d-n'd tedious affair. I'd forfeit my Montero cap, if I made half the ado about it that the parfon doth."

In a fermon on the Confolations of Affliction,' the Author thus expands a common thought beyond all necessary bulk and proportion, by blowing it out with the fwelling blaft of amplification. Virtue, ftrengthened by Chriftian faith, and animated by Chriftian hope, is unchangeable. Like her eternal Fountain, "the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness nor fhadow of turning," the is "the fame yesterday, to-day, and for ever:" her pleafures, her fupports, her confolations the fame. They reft upon a bafis which nothing can fubvert. They are established on a rock which the rain may batter, the floods beat upon, and the winds affail; but fhall affail, beat upon, and batter in vain. Free and independent, fhe rifes nobly fuperior to chance and accident; and is equally unaffected by the frowns as by the fmiles, by the ebb as by the flow of fortune. Though troubled on every fide, fhe is not dejected; though perplexed, yet not in despair, affured as the is that the Lord of Hofts is with her, that the God of Jacob is her refuge.'

Dr. Milne, like moft orators of the new school of the BATHOS, frequently runs one metaphor into another, and produces fuch a crude affemblage of heterogeneous images, that the eye can perceive no diftinct object, or any confiftent relation or fimilitude. In the above paflage, virtue is faid to iffue from a fountain; and yet the ftream (for it must be a ftream that pro

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ceeds

ceeds from a fountain) is modified into a folid mafs-and that too, for aught we perceive to the contrary, without the help of congelation. This folid mafs is erected into fome kind of building, and is fixed upon a rock, and though battered by rain, keeps its ftation.

Another example of mixed metaphors we find in the fame discourse. The recollected pleafures of humanity and virtue fhall maintain their wonted vigour, "flourish in immortal youth," fupport us in the moft critical moments of diftrefs, like hope, be an anchor to the foul both fure and ftedfaft, make infirmity fmile, smooth the bed of languishing, and render the evening of life ferene and chearful.' Now what connection is there in the feveral images of this gaudy picture? What is it that acts like an anchor and smooths a bed? This combination of inconfiftent figures of fpeech is fuch a capital fault in language, and withal fo common with thofe orators who are seized with the rage of eloquence-the furor grandifonus-that we think it a duty, which as public Critics we owe to the world, to expofe it to the ridicule it deferves, and thus guard, as far as our influence extends, the English tongue from every innovation that the vanity of fome and the folly of others are fo frequently attempting to make on its purity and fimplicity.

To the affectation of a pompous, high-founding, figurative ftyle, we may add another that is equally difgufting to perfons of a chafte and well-regulated tafte: and that is, the affectation of introducing fcraps of plays in the very body of a sentence which treats of fome grave or awful point of religion. Thefe dramatic fragments are generally gathered from Shakespear: but however excellent they may be in their place, we think they look a little oddly by the fide of a text of fcripture. Take the following example of this abfurd and conceited mixture of fcripture and plays, &c. &c. O hope of immortality! thou art indeed our early, our anticipated heaven. Without thee we can do nothing and with thee animating, fupporting, ftrengthening us, we are enabled to do and to fuffer all things. "Ye good diftreft"-I addrefs you in the beautiful language of the moralift ;-"Ye noble few who here unbending stand beneath life's preffure, yet bear up awhile." Difpute it bravely. Quit yourfelves like men: "yet bide the pelting of this pitiless ftorm," and lafh the faucy waves" of difcontent and murmuring, "which throng and prefs to rob you of your prize." "The ftorms of wintry time fhall quickly pafs, and one unbounded fpring encircle all."- -St. Paul, Shakespear and Thomson ! Dulce fodalitium! But Dr. Milne hath the art of joining together what good fenfe, decorum, and Chriftian reverence would always keep afunder :-at leaft in the pulpit!

Dr.

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Dr. Milne was not content with Job's own account of himfelf-an account fufficiently large and particular; but he must needs make an addition to it by foifting in a quotation from a play. The patriarch defcribing his former profperity makes ufe of the following beautiful and fimple allufion; " My root was fpread out by the waters, and the dew lay all night upon my branch." Dr. Milne fpreads out this branch only for the purpose of blafting it in the end. In fine, fays he, Job diffufed his branches like Lebanon; and the fhade of him filled the land: yet in one night "a ftorm, a robbery fhook down his mellow hangings, ftript him of his leaves, and left him bare to weather."

We are the more fevere on this puerile affectation of introducing hackneyed paffages from plays, &c. into fermons, as the evil is become a growing one-efpecially among the younger part of the clergy. The gayer tribe amongst the Diffenters too are running very faft into this abfurdity and as we confider it as a certain mark of a vicious tafte, and a great abuse, not to fay a defecration, of the pulpit, we fhall make no apology for the freedom with which we have cenfured it; and fhall bẹ happy if any, warned by the example of Dr. Milne, attend more seriously to a maxim of the highest authority, viz—“ Not to put a piece of new cloth upon an old garment; for that which is put to fill it up taketh from the garment, and the rent is made worfe!"

It is feldom that a pompous diction can be uniformly supported even by the greatest mafters. Though it fometimes fwells as if it was ready to burst into blank verfe, and may perhaps take its vent and go off this way; yet we as frequently find an intermixture of low, flat words, which finks the majefty of the fentence, and repreffeth the burning ardour with which it fet out.

For example: Profperous hitherto (fays Dr. Milne), we entertain few apprehenfions that the tide of profperity can ever be changed. We attach ourselves to fecond caufes. The great First Cause of all we difcern not. We fee not the Sovereign Wisdom which rules among the inhabitants of the earth and fports itself with the affairs of mortals by fubjecting them to perpetual viciffitudes."

We

We have heard of an impudent fellow's Sporting a face upon an occafion at a table to which he had no invitation. have heard alfo of a knavish inn-keeper's Sporting off cyder for champaign on his guests when they have been half-drunk. But never, till Dr. Milne informed us of it, did we either read or hear of Infinite Wifdom's Sporting itself on any occafion whatfoever.

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