Austin, London, answers well to its title; being written with remarkable plainness and perspicuity; unembarrassed by any subtleties or perplexities; and no less practical in its tendency, than edifying and satisfactory in point of doctrinal elucidation. It would be difficult, perhaps, to select another discourse on the same subject, more perfectly adapted to popular edification.

SECTION VIII.

POSTHUMOUS PUBLICATIONS.

THE works of Dr. Waterland published by himself are undoubtedly those on which his reputation must chiefly depend. But the pen of so ready a writer, and one so extensively engaged in professional labours, could not but be continually called forth for purposes less generally known and observed, though scarcely less conducive to the public good. It was well, therefore, that he had consigned to a confidential friend, the care of "selecting and revising for "the press," after his decease, "such of his writings "as should be thought most useful, and proper for "the public view.”

This trust was confided to the Rev. Joseph Clarke, M. A. Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge, and formerly a pupil of Dr. Waterland; who discharged it with that affectionate ardour and respect which might be expected from one who had so much reason to hold his memory in veneration. In a well-written preface to this posthumous publication, he briefly touches upon the leading points of the author's literary and personal character; and his eulogy is marked by that judicious discrimination, which gives the strongest presumptive evidence that it is a genuine and characteristic portrait. The preface contains also so full and circumstantial an account of the pieces thus selected, as renders it hardly necessary to do more than refer the reader to it for satisfactory information.

The works thus selected by Mr. Clarke, consist of thirty-three sermons, and two tracts, one on Justification, the other on Infant Communion.

The sermons appear to have been written chiefly for parochial instruction. Mr. Clarke has well observed of them, that they possess the qualities which Dr. W. himself, in his preface to Mr. Blair's Sermons, had represented to be most essential to practical discourses; and he adds, that "if some may have "looked upon him as a mere scholar, conversant only in the learning of the schools; they will here "find they were mistaken, and that he understood "men as well as he did books ;"-" that he had

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a thorough insight into human nature, understood "the secret springs and movements of the passions, "and the whole anatomy, if we may so speak, of "the human mind." In this point of view, they add greatly to the author's reputation; as shewing not only the versatility of his talents, but his sincere and ardent desire to apply them to the substantial benefit of those who were committed to his charge. It is seldom, indeed, that the characteristic excellencies of the polemic and the pastor have been so successfully united in the same writer. To this, his remarkable perspicuity, in thought and in expression, greatly contributed. Even on the most abstruse subjects his meaning can hardly be misunderstood; while to such as are more level to ordinary capacities, he continually gives additional interest and importance, by laying open the grounds and reasons on which they rest. Hence, we find occasionally, even in the plainest of these discourses, questions of considerable difficulty very satisfactorily

elucidated, and applied in the manner best calculated to make impression upon understandings unaccustomed to such investigations.

It is another great excellence in these sermons, that the author, in treating of Christian duties and the great practical concerns of life, carefully avoids giving encouragement, on the one hand, to any laxity of principle, or, on the other hand, to excessive rigour and austerity. We find him uniformly insisting upon the full extent of moral obligation, and the necessity of entire and unreserved obedience to the Divine will; yet never straining any point of duty to an impracticable extent, nor affording countenance to those visionary notions of perfection, or fantastic schemes of life, which owe their origin, rather to the wanderings of imagination and the waywardness of spiritual pride, than to sober and solid reasonings grounded upon Scripture-truth. Many of the subjects chosen by him are such as require considerable care and circumspection in the application of them; such as may either lead to subtle and dangerous casuistry in the hands of designing men, or to doubts and perplexities in the minds of the undiscerning. Seldom, perhaps, does Dr. Waterland appear to more advantage, than in unravelling difficulties of this kind, and removing stumblingblocks in the way of truth,. piety, or virtue. Instances, in confirmation of these remarks, continually occur; more particularly in the sermons on the love of our neighbour and self-love, on keeping the heart, on passing judgment concerning the calamities of others, on sins of infirmity and presumptuous sins, on the

joy in heaven over repentant sinners, on charity to enemies, and on the pharisee and publican.

The sermons in this collection which are more immediately doctrinal or expository, are no less excellent in their kind, and are equally adapted to parochial instruction, though they might deservedly claim attention from the highest class of readers or hearers.

It has, of late years, been made a subject of censure, that our principal Divines in the middle and earlier part of the last century, had, in a great degree, departed from doctrinal and evangelical preaching, and had done little more for the edification of their flocks than deliver dry and jejune dissertations on moral topics, grounded rather upon heathen ethics or abstract philosophy, than upon Christian principles and it has answered the purpose of a certain active and zealous party in the Church, to arrogate to itself the merit, not only of having been the first to introduce a more spiritual and evangelical mode of preaching to the people, but also of giving a higher and better tone than heretofore to the great body of the Clergy at large, in their popular discourses. It would not, perhaps, be difficult to shew, that these assumptions have been somewhat hastily advanced, and inconsiderately admitted. For, upon a careful examination of the very many volumes of sermons published during the above-mentioned period, by the parochial Clergy, as well as by Preachers before the Universities, the Inns of Court, and other congregations above the ordinary class, it is surprising to observe (after hearing such a sweeping charge as this) how large a proportion of them relate to the most essential articles of the Christian faith; how many of