The National Register. — London, England, 1811-03-24 00:00:00

p • ok• •w • THE N ebe pulpit; _ . —.,rim-- No. XXXVI. The loose morality of the age, co-operating with a Waft of Scripturu! know/edge, cause some to get rid very speedily of their tursery faith, and rnibrace Deism.-41is 'tor of I,AiNDA Fr . Uwe will not have real Christianity, we are La danger of hav ing nolie St a1....Ma. WILBERI OK CE. JOHN PARSONS, ,D. D. DEAN OF BRISTOL. Insufficient as it might•ordinarily feem to appreciate the talents •f, any preacher by once hearing him, still there happen circum stances in which such estimates of clergymen may be satisfacto rily made, and safely accepted. Such are the extraordinary cir cumstances of this case. When one of our ecclesiastical digni taries, in the maturity of mind and at the meridian of life, Wefts some great public occasion for the exertion of his abilities,—is it unfair to think:, acquainted with all the circumstances, tkat he did intend to preach well; and, therefore, to take such sermon as at least no unfavourable specimen of his clerical character at the best ? Let us take the preacher at the best, and not fix upon Tim at his worst. His 'office demands this. Just and great ho- Pour have. the preachers of our faith. Are we not told to es teem them very highly, in love;' and this, also, truly an clearly , for their work's sake r Certainly it will at the same dine be found not lesi'desirable that each of these should do the work a an evangelist !' The right Reverend the DEAN or BRISTOL (John Parsons, D. D.) preached before the Hc s nourable the House of Commons, pursuant to motion, in St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, on the morning of Wednesday last, March the 20th, 1811 ; "being the Day appointed, by Proclamation, for a General Fast and before Almighty God." The situation in Which the *reacher stood was at the same time aogust and solemn ; the tkcasion was full of scriptural solemnity, and the congrega tion to which he addressed himself, although partly mixed, was, on the whole, unusually respectable both as to rank and as to numbers : yet these very advantages, however otherwise desira ble, rendered the preacher's situation not less arduous than great. He had the errors or vices of all orders to expose and to probe. He had likewise to preach nationally as well as indivi dually to the hearers Igo met. Dr. Parsons selected, for his text, the 14th verse of the 4th chapter of The Book of the Prophet Jeremiah :'-0 Jerusalem, wash t! , ine heart front wickedness, that thou »gayest be saved.—How long shall thq rain thoughts lodge within thee ! Exhibiting the doc trine of a particular providence, deducible from reason and reve lation, and insisting on the interference of Divine Providence in the affairs of men, sometimes operating by second causes, but occasionally by its special interposition, the preacher drew an anunated representation of the intimate connection between private virtue and public spirit, and, adverting to our degenera cies, most impartially inferred the necessity of national repen tance in order to national conservation. lt , ..prob:itieg the self isfieess so lamentably predominant in this age, and in our li , nd; this he traced to the want of picas feeling, the only trite source of moral action, shewing, at the same time, the intimate con nections between the religious infieh lity and the trmporal cala mities of communities. When, her:ever, he endeavoured to draw 'a parallel - between the state of the Jews at the epochwhen Jeremiah denounced the vengeance of the Almighty against them, and uttered the forcible yet pathetic exclamation contained in the verse from which he had chosen to preach, the Dean of Bristol did not satisfy the expectation w hich his exordium had raised. Nebuchadnezzar was not quite like Napoleon— Napoleon ih not quite like Nebuchadnezzar. The two cases are Rot so parallel as they may appear to be. Napoleon,. like his - Babylonish preilecessor, may be said, in the language of Daniel, ZONAL RE! ISTF,R. . . to be a ". King of.Kiugs,'.' to whom '! the God Of Heameillatli given a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory ;" yet, howe ver this portion of Sacred Scripture may be, as it is, written for our instruction and application - , the imperial conqueror of our times, the king of kings of this day, does not altogether resemble the monarch by whom he is now represented tckus as fDre,sha dowed. Napoleon may, perhaps, say, in his heart, adopting the thinkiu; and language of Nebuchadnezzar—" Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom, by : the might of my power, and for the honor of my majesty ?" Napo leon, however, either in consideration of the improved state of the human mind, or for some reason more credit:ll3lC to himself, 114 s frequently represented his successes as the result, 'not of chance, nor of his own might, but of fate, over which mangled no cintroul ; and he accordingly caused himself to be &each bed, even in the repudiation which preceded his late marriage, as raised up by Providence to repair the evils of a terrible revo lution. ON tsuatbs. • . Wednesday, being the day appointed : for a General Fait, it was observed in the metropolis with api•ropriate solemnity.— The work of charityvent hand in hand with religion; in many of the Churches' a collection wt•as made for the British prisoners in Fr,:nce. Her Majesty and the Princesses heard divine service in Windsor Castle. The Lord Mayor and Sheriffs went in state from the Mansion-house, accompanied by several Alderrnet% &c. . attended by the City Marshals, awl other officers, to. St. Paul's Cathedral, preceded by the East London Militia, and Heard divine service, and a sermon preached by his Lordship's Chap lain ; after which they proceeded hack to the Mansion-house..... Most of the Volunteer Corps in the City and suburbs also at tended divine service at the Parish Churches ; and the shops were very generally shut. • The present preacher was far more successful in those darts of his sermon where he anticipated tse probable calamities which we might apprehend from the fashionable irreligion of the age ; where he maintained that religion was the only pure source of . patriotism ;—that the man who did it so fear Geld, was• not likely to stand in awe of human laws, or to honour the institu tions of the state; but that, should the worst come, besides hay ing heartless champions (since bad men were not to be expected to fight well in a just cense), we might even . find amongst us those who would " let the Philistines into the camp of Israel, and exult to behold the Temple of God in ruins !" When dwelling upon topics of this alarming nature, the preacher did well in pointing out the leading vices of the age, in umnaeking the idol, falsely called Honour, every where set up, instead of the God of our fathers, instead of the God of Heaven ! while the morality of its worshippers too plainly demonstrated its diabolical source. \\That, however, did the reverend preacher mean, by harmless pleasures and innocent gratifications ; which he seemed to think were not only consistent with the spirit of pure religion, but perfectly irreproachable in the isiet of Gocre Our fathers, " a sober Christian race !" our fatbeti, praised still by the preacher; our fathers, " patterns of every virtue, every grace ;' our fathers would have looked with conscientious jealousy upon many of our now harmless pleasures, and grati fying joys. Why was the preacher so tender of this point ?...8 Although the time may be come " when they will Snot endure sound doctrine," preachers should declare what in their hearts they must feel is sound doctrine. Harmless pleasures haveilone us too much serious mischief. Pleasure and Hon Our are alike our idols. Are we content to be joined to them Ephrata is joined to idols, let him alone I' Judging of the DEAN of BIUSTOL'S pulpit talents from his sermon just preached before the Commons, he seems endued with qualifications, and to have acquired attainments, which might lead to sortie eminence in the pulpit. His language is purely and finely classical, frequently highly figurative; while his argument is sound, his illustration clear, his application warm. Qualities such as these were, nevertheless, still felt to he incomplete. Action still was absent. \\Thy this want N.. Reading impedes action; reading palsies action. March 23, 1811. ;' .~~► ~~