which falls in a year, the course of the winds, the dependency of the rain upon the state of the barometer, or upon other appearances and prognostics, which in mountainous countries are always irregular-are very deserving of being known, and can only be known by a long-continued and attentive course of observation. This is more particularly true in this very neighbourhood; in which great singularities of the kind I am speaking of are said to exist, of which neither the cause has been explained, nor even the appearances themselves sufficiently ascertained.

I will beg leave to conclude with two short reflections. First; that the various sources of intellectual and active occupation which have been pointed out, prove that there is no man of liberal education who need be at a loss to know what to do with his time; that leisure need never be a burthen; that if we sink into sloth, it is our fault, and not that of our situation: and secondly, that whatever direction we give to our studies-I mean those collateral and adscititious studies which have been described-we are contributing our proportion to that which is of great importance to the general diffusion of knowledge, and thereby to the interest of religion, and the credit and usefulness of our order-the furnishing of every portion of the country, as well as of every class of the community, with the presence and society of a well informed clergy.

CHARGE VII.

USE AND PROPRIETY OF LOCAL AND OCCASIONAL PREACHING.

REVEREND BRETHREN,

*

THE late archbishop Secker, whose memory is entitled to public respect, as on many accounts, so especially for the judgement with which he described, and the affecting seriousness with which he recommended the duties of his profession, in one of his charges to the clergy of his diocese, exhorts them "to make their sermons local." I have always considered this advice as founded in a knowledge of human life, but as requiring, in its application, a more than ordinary exercise of Christian prudence. Whilst I repeat therefore the rule itself, with great veneration for the authority by which it was delivered, I think it no unfit employment of the present opportunity, to enlarge so far upon its use and meaning, as to point out some of the instances in which it may be adopted, with a probability of making salutary impressions upon the minds of our hearers.

But, before I proceed, I would warn you, and that with all the solemnity that can belong to any admonition of mine, against rendering your discourses so local, as to be pointed and levelled at particular persons in your congregation. This species of address may produce in the party for whom it is intended confusion perhaps and shame, but not with their proper

* Archbishop of Canterbury's Third Charge to his Clergy. Abp. Secker's Works, vol. iv.

fruits of penitence and humility. Instead of which, these sensations will be accompanied with bitter resentment against the preacher, and a kind of obstinate and determined opposition to his reproof. He will impute your officiousness to personal enmity, to party spirit, to the pleasure of triumphing over an adversary without interruption or reply, to insult assuming the form of advice, or to any motive rather than a conscientious solicitude for the amendment and salvation of your flock. And as the person himself seldom profits by admonitions conveyed in this way, so are they equally useless, or perhaps noxious, to the rest of the assembly; for the moment the congregation discover to whom the chastisement is directed, from that moment they cease to apply any part of it to themselves. They are not edified, they are not affected; on the contrary, they are diverted, by descriptions of which they see the design, and by invectives of which they think they comprehend the aim. Some who would feel strongly the impropriety of gross and evident personalities may yet hope to hit their mark by covert and oblique allusions. Now of this scheme, even when conducted with the greatest skill, it may be observed, that the allusions must either be perceived, or not. If they be not perceived, they fail of the effect intended by them; if they be, they are open to the objections which lie against more explicit and undissembled attacks. Whenever we are conscious, in the composition of our discourses, of a view to particular characters in our congregation or parish, we ought to take for granted that our view will be understood. Those applications therefore, which, if they were direct, would produce more bad emotions than good ones, it is better to discard entirely from our sermons; that is to say, it is better

to lay aside the design altogether, than to attempt to disguise it by a management which is generally detected, and which, if not seen through, defeats its purpose by its obscurity. The crimes, then, of individuals let us reserve for opportunities of private and seasonable expostulation. Happy is the clergyman who has the faculty of communicating advice and remonstrance with persuasion and effect, and the virtue to seize and improve every proper occasion of doing it; but in the pulpit, let private characters be no otherwise adverted to, than as they fall in with the delineations of sins and duties which our discourses must necessarily contain, and which, whilst they avoid personalities, can never be too close or circumstantial. For the same reason that I think personal allusions reprehensible, I should condemn any, even the remotest, reference to party or political transactions and disputes. These are at all times unfit subjects, not only of discussion in the pulpit, but of hints and surmises. The Christian preacher has no other province than that of religion and morality. He is seldom led out of his way by honourable motives, and, I think, never with a beneficial effect.

Having premised this necessary caution, I return to the rule itself. By "local" sermons I would understand, what the reverend prelate who used the expression seems principally to have meant by it, sermons adapted to the particular state of thought and opinion which we perceive to prevail in our congregation. A careful attention to this circumstance is of the utmost importance, because, as it varies, the same sermon may do a great deal of good, none at all, or much harm. So that it is not the truth of what we are about to offer which alone we ought to consider, but whether the argu

ment itself be likely to correct or to promote the turn and bias of opinion to which we already perceive too strong a tendency and inclination. Without this cir

cumspection we may be found to have imitated the folly of the architect who placed his buttress on the wrong side. The more the column pressed, the more firm its construction, and the deeper its foundation-the more certainly it hastened the ruin of the fabric. I do not mean that we should, upon any emergency, advance what is not true; but that, out of many truths, we should select those, the consideration of which seems best suited to rectify the dispositions of thought, that were previously declining into error or extravagancy. For this model of preaching we may allege the highest of all possible authorities, the example of our blessed Saviour himself. He always had in view the posture of mind of the persons whom he addressed. He did not entertain the Pharisees with invectives against the open impiety of their Sadducean rivals; nor, on the other hand, did he soothe the Sadducee's ear with descriptions of Pharisaical pomp and folly. In the presence of the Pharisee he preached against hypocrisy to the Sadducees he proved the resurrection of the dead. In like manner, of that known enmity which subsisted between the Jews and Samaritans, this faithful Teacher took no undue advantage to make friends or proselytes of either. Upon the Jews he inculcated a more comprehensive benevolence: with the Samaritan he defended the orthodoxy of the Jewish creed.

But I apprehend that I shall render my advice more intelligible, by exemplifying it in two or three instances, drawn from what appears to be the predo