The National Register. — London, England, 1808-10-09 00:00:00

OCT. 9. THE NATIONAL REGISTER. api,ointed to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ, in the tiillage where you first drew your breath," &c. It; as is coajectorable. this letter alluaed to his commencing ser mon, the clerical exertions of Mr. Jay are to be dated from the dose of the year 1787. His labours seem to have been immediately appreciated. " 0 blessed villages," exclaims his enraptured teacher, " which were favoured with your respective ministerial labours! 0 highly-favoured Marl borough, whose streets were then occasionally thronged with them who went to and from the house of God, and had their hearts filled with joy and gladness !" He had iudeed taken care to enter upon preaching, in the words of his more than-father, as a work of the lust importance. Mr. Winter's conuexien with 'the Rev. Rowland Hill enabled bun quickly to place his pupil where evangelical talents would be most extensively estimated. Mr. Jay appeired accordingly at Sorry Chapel, Black Friars' !toad, during the summer of 1788. His preceptor, with paternal solicitude, followed all his steps, with vigilance so unremitting, with au afection so anxious, that I can not resist the pleasing task .of transcribing his counsels. lf," he writes to Mr. Jay, July 29, 1768, 44 you really have performed your appointment for Mr. Hill, I would • advise you to attend to no further invitations, but leave • London immediately. Come intothe country, to pray and reflect; and wherever you go. set the picture of your mortality before you, and consider that he who has raised you can sink: you," &c. " What a noise IMay 8, 1789) have you made in the world ! How many eyes are upon you.—How many hearts fear for you ! how many envy you! &c. These are your best days, make much of them; anti by your indifference to yourself, and that holy negligence which is a bright ornament and necessary to blunt the edge of even kind suspicion ; shew that you can be popular without being proud. The church, as well as the world, looks with a jealous eye upon the young minister of the day ; and especially upon those who ave no paternal property to support gay appearance." Let every young candidate for the church, of whatever denomination olcbristians, read and reflect on these im portant concluding admonitions. Mr. Jay now became rapidly popular. He long since settled at Bath, as Minister of Argyle Chapel, where his hearers are both respectable and numerous. He has pub lished various Sermons, and a tract on Marriage. Ile is married, and has children. Easiness is the characteristic of this preacher. " God," to use the quaint but significant description of his precep tor, " has given him a tongue,- and an early commission to " use it." his great excellence is, that his disposition leads him to delight in the benevolent features of Chris tianity; whence he is persuasive rather than peremptory, and excels in exhorting to repentance. If he is not a Boanerges, he is a Barnabas : if he does not often alarm and intimidate the sinner, yet he always consoles and Strengthens the believer. His talCnts, indeed, arc pecu liarly calculated to interest minds susceptible of tender ness; and his labours are therefore particularly agreeable to the female portion of his audiences. He is what may be termed on amiable preacher. The matter of his discourses is generally practical and experimental. But he enumerates his divisions too often : a custom - which, howeier it may assist the speaker, en cumbers his arrangement and tires his hearers. His expressions are frequently quaint, as—" the example of king Josiah of old" — 44 We may say as one of old did" . ----; and sometimes they border on vulgarity, as— " being ready to strike the heart out of one's body"— " the ordinance of preaChing seems to have swallowed up the duty of prayer." • • . His style, though deformed by many inaccuracies, is pleasingly familiar. His address is simple, but insinuating. iiis action, if not striking, has nothing ungraceful. I shou ld Id entirely admire the (idioms and clearness his vOice, apparently in coptorinity with his system ..of intercessie u l • IllatruCtion, it 'did not degenerate into peti- 653 tiouing or begging tones, into alms-asking articuiation. He is also too lung, and • sometimes scarcely audible, in prayer. Highly as I respect the character of Mr. Jay, and willing as lam to allow - all possible credit to his public exertions, I cannot consent to class 'him among the eminently distin guished divines of the age. Ile began, as we have seen, to preach very early in life ; and he probably owes much of his popularity to that circumstance. It is something, how ever, to have firmly retained his first. reputation. I trust that he is as happy in other respects ; that profession is ne wer at variance with principle ; that experience, instead of changing, has only confirmed the convictions of youth. I -confess, commonly speaking, that I entertain man y appre hensions respecting juvenile conversions. The man is too often destined to unlearn what the boy has been induced to believe. This I say generally. Considering him as a writer, I have now no concern with Mr. Jay. Ofissr.uus. DEFENCE OF TILE REV. MR. MOORE. ON ESISIT',: has this moment received the following Animad versions ou his Account of the Rev. James Moore. Vitae does not note permit him to comment either on the veracity or inge nuity of his new antagonist ; but he hers directed it to he 2,7r4 . 0/.9 inserted, and (though, as the reader w , bri!se is pre ferred teithota fee or rtu'ard to the publishers of this paper. GENTrI7It art. rah, 180 S. Hyatt will be kind enough to insert the iriclo•ed .liiswer to Onesimus in your next week's valuable Register You will infi nitely Oblige, (;entlemen, Your most obedient hutnble Servant, Gen t - P. S. Not being acquainted with the rules, I don't know w hc ther any payment is necessary for the insertion ; if it i•, do not delay to publish it, but in your note to correspotelein•, let me know, .and on the word of a gentleman you shall receive the money the next mooting. Messrs. Bell and Dr Camp. The insidious atxl illiberal attack made on the character of one of the most eminent divines of the ace, (Mr. Moore) by Onesimus, could not hut excite in every g - enerints and feeling mind, sentiments of indigoatioe and contempt : influenced by such sentiments, I cannot resist oir:”i!!tr a few remarks on Onesi mus's letter. Ile, in the first uPtance, proves himself preju diced and narrow-minded, by mentioottt, titr tirst events at Mr. M.'s onset in the world : if 'Mr. Moore really did at one period " take up the hiorionic profession," which I by no means pre tend to contradict, is he, on that account. imbued for more sa cred ditties? is he less calculated for hi. important office; be valise led away into error (if error it may be term-d) by the inconstancy and thouehtlessness natural to smith ? Have not some of the most eminent Ministers of Christi-oil:v, tiny, the Apostles themselves, turned frnm erotally " profane pursuits." Onesimns recommends Mr. Moore to clear his character of this supposed speck, by his present exemplary conduct : a recom mendation Mr. Al. as perfectly understands and fulfils, us Onesi mus can possibly instruct him, and if my noble cnlndcd friend would trouble himself to make the inquiry, l have not n i doubt he would find Mr. Mioire's private life as unexceptionable as even his refitted ideas could wish. With regard to his style of preaehing,.Mr. M., I will readily admit is totally persuasive; Out because he thunders not forth the terrors of the laws, does it consequently follow, that his doctrine is not evangelic and sound, and that .his..,ertnons are mere flow ery orations ? Is out • the human heart, in most cases, as open to perseatiou, as Its threats? Do nut the latter often produce a specie* of stqpitied despair, which wholly enervates the mind, and sinks it beyond the power of making those exertions that it ought on so im portant a point ? As to my liberal anituativertoe4 observotiei4 on Mr. .Alogre'•eraanuer in the pulpit, they are much too puerile to be worth fife notice of anx impartial person, and could come from none hut the pen of invidious calumny or weak envy, and will never, from: their ystaininess, add am reath to their author's literary tame. I havemn i more to add, than in advise Ocesimes, whenever he again takes ;upon himself the arduous task of cri ticising a man, who rises far shove his contemptible necurstious, he would have some determined point whereon It, snake los attack, as without that, neither he nor any other n ill ever make