It is rather singular that both these gentlemen should hallucinate egregiously in the matter of local and individual names. Lieut. M. gives us l'Arcadia and l'Arcadie for Acadia or l'Acadie-the Nemisses, for the Nemesis-the Diamede for the Diomede. Mr. Talbot has Anticosta for Anticosti, and commemorates a Duchess d'Anguillion, sister of Cardinal Richelieu,'--a lady of whom we cannot recollect to have heard. There was, indeed, a niece of the Cardinal, who became Dutchess d'Aiguillon in 1631, and we presume that this must be the benevolent person to whom Mr. T. alludes as the foundress of the Hotel Dieu at Quebec.

Art. VI. Sermons. By the Rev. Robert Gordon, D.D. Minister of Hope Park Chapel, St. Cuthbert's, Edinburgh. 8vo. pp. 478. Price 10s. 6d. Edinburgh, 1825.

THE

HE Author of this volume, we have understood, is one of the most impressive and powerful pulpit-orators of the present day in the Church of Scotland; and these sermons bear the stamp of no ordinary mind. They display a vigour and originality of thought which it is truly refreshing to meet with in printed sermons, and are at the same time boldly explicit in the enunciation of every part of the Gospel system. The time, we rejoice to think, has gone by, when Blair's Sermons were esteemed the ne plus ultra of excellence, the model of pulpit eloquence. Perhaps, we are in some danger of a contrary extreme in the present day. The topics of many of Blair's Sermons are admirable, were they but apostolically handled. The morality of the Gospel does not stand less in need of powerful illustration, than the doctrines on which it is built; and the most useful preacher is the one who, following the Christian professor into all the relations of life, plies him at every step with the high and peculiar motives of his heavenly calling, bringing every article of his creed to bear upon his practice. There is an intellectual pleasure derived from perusing or listening to the philosophical or eloquent exposition of truths, repulsive in themselves, by an accomplished advocate, which no doubt contributes to crowd the pews of our churches and chapels in which the doctrines preached are decidedly evangelical. But practical preaching, by which we mean apostolic preaching, will be relished only by the spiritual

man.

The volume before us contains two and twenty sermons on the following subjects. I. The Ungodliness of the Heart. II. The Ungodliness of worldly Pursuits. III. The Tendency

of Moral Evil to perpetuate itself. IV. God Manifest in the Flesh. V. The Reward of the Redeemer's Sufferings. VI. The unsatisfying Nature of Worldly Enjoyments. VII. Danger of Delaying to seek the Lord. VIII. The Nature and Necessity of Repentance. IX. God's Ways not Man's Ways. X. Necessity of Repentance. XI. Means of Regeneration. XII. Peace of Mind necessary to cheerful Obedience. XIII. and XIV. Effects of Faith exemplified in the Character of Gideon. XV. The humblest Believer an Instrument of Good. XVI. Free Grace illustrated in the History of Naaman. XVII. and XVIII. Daniel's Prayer. XIX. God knoweth the Heart. XX. Iniquity in the Heart a Hinderance to Prayer. XXI. Our Salvation wrought out with Fear and Trembling. XXII. God working in us a Motive to Perseverance.

We have been the most struck with both the subject and the composition of the third sermon, founded on Kings xiv. 16." And he shall give up Israel, because of the sins of Jeroboam, who did sin, and who made Israel to sin." After illustrating the nature and consequences of the sin of Jeroboam, so repeatedly and pointedly referred to in the sacred history as that in which the fatal defection of the ten tribes from the worship and favour of Jehovah originated, Dr. Gordon thus proceeds to apply his general principle, the tendency of moral evil to perpetuate, or rather, to propagate itself.

• I doubt not, it will readily occur, that the principle by which the sin of Jeroboam was thus perpetuated, is in reality a principle of our apostate nature, that must ever be in active operation, and that the subject of these remarks, therefore, admits of a very obvious, as well as a very extended application. There were, it is true, many peculiar circumstances in his case, which served to render his sin more flagrant, and its consequences more palpable, than it is possible they can be with a great proportion of mankind; and in these respects, therefore, no parallel can be drawn between his character and that of any individual in ordinary circumstances. The place which he occupied was one of power and extended influence; the practice which he introduced, from the moment that it was acquiesced in, became a national delinquency, involving thousands in its guilt; the covenant that was thereby violated was a covenant, on the stability of which depended the very existence of Israel as a nation; and the judgements with which their sin was visited were temporal judgements, and therefore open to the inspection of the world. But, after excluding or making allowance for all these peculiarities, enough still remains to exemplify the natural tendency of moral evil to extend and perpetuate its debasing influence, and enough to suggest to the sinner many a serious and alarming reflection. Though it might be utterly impossible for us to trace the guilt of any individual through all its remote consequences-though we might not be warranted directly to charge him

with any definite portion of the sins of those whom he has been instrumental in corrupting-and though we might be altogether unable to estimate the extent to which he has contributed to the amount of abounding iniquity; yet, to God, who is intimately acquainted with every possible combination of events, and can assign to every separate cause its precise share of the influence by which these events are brought about, every action of every individual must be perfectly known, both as it is in itself, and as it affects those who may be directly or indirectly subjected to its influence. And who does not perceive that His all-seeing eye may be tracing the consequences of a guilty deed, at the distance of ages from the moment at which it was committed, and connecting the ruin of multitudes with an action which the perpetrator himself perhaps dismissed from his recollection with as little concern as he did the worthless gratification that led to it? The man who, in the pride of his fancied intellectual superiority, awakens in the mind of another, one serious doubt on the subject of divine truth, or he who, in the pursuit of ungodly pleasure, allures a fellow-creature into a participation of his own profligacy, thereby opens a flood-gate which Omnipotence alone can shut; and were a prophetic eye to take a survey of the future consequences of one such action, it might see there the commencement of a train of evils, as appalling in their nature, and as interminable in their duration, as those which Ahijah foresaw when he uttered the prediction in the text. The instant such a man has succeeded in effacing the religious impressions, or corrupting the moral principles of another, he has put a principle of evil in operation, which it is utterly beyond his power to control; he has inflicted an injury which the wealth of worlds, if it were at his command, could not repair, and an injury too, of which he can neither see the termination nor calculate the extent. The victim of his own artifice is prepared to perpetrate the same crimes, and to entail upon others the same ruin; and thus may the effects of his sin continue to be perpetuated and felt when he himself is forgotten, or when his memory lives only in the book of that remembrance, where his guilt has been recorded in connexion with its consequences. To the truth of these remarks, the experience of every day bears melancholy and decisive evidence; for who has not. known them exemplified, and to a fearful extent too, even within the sphere of his own observation? Yet, how little, how very little of these consequences can come under our notice, compared with what they really are, and must appear, therefore, in the sight of God! And how fearful must the judgement-seat be to the man who is there to be reckoned with for unforgiven guilt like this,-who shall then be compelled to read the faithful record, not only of his personal offences, but of their pestilential effects,-who shall be made to see the full extent to which the withering influence of his crimes has affected the moral well-being of his fellow-men, and shall be confronted with the multitudes whose impenitence he was instrumental in sealing, and to whose ruin, therefore, he has in reality contributed!'

pp. 57-58. Dr. Gordon remarks, that one of the bitterest and most ago.

nizing reflections of a mind awakened to its guilt will be, that the individual has contributed to corrupt or to harden others, without the possibility of repairing the injury that he has done them. We believe that this will be found, moreover, a consideration best adapted to awaken a sense of guilt. In dealing with the heart that is dead to the enormity of sin as an offence against God, some effective use may often be made of what good feeling may yet remain, by attacking this vulnerable point. The idea which keeps back men from real repentance, is the mistaken notion that sin is reparable, that repentance can atone for it, that a simple act of mercy on the part of God can do away all the consequences of disobedience. This is not the fact, as respects the individual himself; but it is much easier to shew, that repentance can avail nothing as an atonement or reparation with regard to the consequences of sin on others. This thought, Dr. Gordon has very forcibly pressed home upon the conscience.

But neither is the application of the subject to be confined to such as have, either by deliberate attempts, or the influence of a vicious example, succeeded in corrupting others, and have thus given a new impulse as it were to the strength of prevailing iniquity Upon the principle which is laid down in the text, and which we have now endeavoured to illustrate, it is evident that from every unholy action that is performed, and every unsanctified expression that is uttered, there must be going forth a corrupting and debasing influence; that though the effects of this influence may not be immediately perceived, it may, nevertheless, have left impressions that will never again be effaced; and that if it has once taken effect, no human wisdom can estimate or foretell the consequences. And if this principle be admitted, then where is the man, let his past life have been as free from flagrant transgressions, and the sphere of his influence as limited as it may, who will venture to allege that he has never contributed to the moral and spiritual injury of his fellow-men-that none have ever imbibed from him an unholy sentiment-or that none have been encouraged by his example to persevere in the ways of sin! So long as he is a stranger to the power of the gospel, there will be something in his character, which, in spite of all the decencies of an external profession, will indicate a spirit of hostility to vital godliness; and though the symptoms of this hostility may seldom or never be perceived by those with whom he holds only a slight or occasional intercourse, yet they will manifest themselves in a thousand ways to his more intimate associates, and may be exercising an influence over them which, though unseen by others, and scarcely felt by themselves, will as effectually estrange them from divine things, as if they were exposed to an apparently stronger and more dangerous temptation. The very tone and manner in which divine truth is spoken of, may weaken the impression of reverence that was once felt for its authority. One expression of levity, or a single profane allusion, may

lessen the abhorrence that was entertained for the deformity of sin and a conversation, which to him might appear too trifling to be remembered, may have made a fearful inroad on the moral principles of others, and loosened the salutary restraints which conscience imposes on the sinful propensities of the heart. In all this, indeed, he may see nothing wherewith to upbraid himself; and while he is not chargeable with having deliberately attempted to draw others into the actual commission of gross and flagrant immoralities, he may flatter himself that he has never incurred the guilt of injuring the spiritual interests of any. Very different, however, is his character in the sight of God, and very different will it be in his own estimation, should he ever be awakened from his dream of self-security. He will then see that it is no light thing to have ministered to the delusion of a fellow-sinner, and contributed to strengthen him in his alienation from God; that the life, which he once thought so blame. less, has not only been unprofitable but positively mischievous; that every day which he spent in a state of estrangement from his Maker, was productive of injury to others as well as to himself; and that the amount of this injury is such as he cannot estimate, and never will be able to repair.

These, I think, are reflections which can hardly fail to occur to the Christian, on looking back to that period of his life when he was living without God and without hope in the world; and though he may never have made any deliberate effort to corrupt or mislead a fellow-sinner, yet he will still have enough to lament on the retrospect of that period, and enough to remind him how unprofitable it was to himself, and how injurious it must have been to others, He knows that in all the intercourse which he then held with his fellowmen, he was as little inclined as he was qualified to attempt advancing their spiritual interests; and though it is but comparatively little of that intercourse that he can now remember, he cannot doubt that much of it was calculated to efface, rather than to strengthen, their impressions of divine things; and that the influence of many a sentiment and action which he has long ago forgotten, may yet be operating on the life and character of those with whom he associated. And while these reflections awaken feelings of the deepest humiliation and self-abasement, need I urge upon believers the powerful motive which they suggsst, to be active and diligent in labouring to counteract that principle of evil which is so fearfully prevalent, and which they themselves have been instrumental in strengthening? Were their own unaided efforts, indeed, the only agency that is to be to looked for to give success to such an attempt, it would assuredly prove a very hopeless enterprise, as the very subject which we have been considering does abundantly testify; and they might be ready to resign themselves to the desponding reflection, that while every sinful action of their lives may have contributed to strengthen the opposition of others to the government of God, they will never be able to effect any thing in the way of disarming that opposition. "They are not abandoned, however, to the feebleness of their own strength, nor left to dwell with unavailing complaints on their own VOL. XXV. N.S. Y