The National Register.
London, England, 1813-06-06 00:00:00

grt pulpit.

No. I.

(THIRD SERIES).
Philosophy !--a name of meek degree,
Embraced in token of humility
By the lirond Sage, who, whilst he strove to hide,
In that vain artifice reveal'd his pride ;
Philosophy ! whom Nature had design 'd
To purge all errors from the human mind,
Herself misled by the philosopher,
At once her prieu asid master, made us err!
•••• CUURCHILL.

REV. ALEXANDER FLETCHER, A. M.

MINISTER oy NILES'S-LANE, MEETING-HOW; NEAR CANNON-
STREET.

The reign of miscalled philosophy is now past. Scepticism has
had its day, respecting both politics and religion, and men's minds
are appeased. The calm is mercifully consequent on the storm.
Ri fleeting on the scenes which have taken place, we shall, never
finless, be better enabled to ascertain their causes,' and guard against
the-A- recurrence. " A daring spirit of innovation, nutempered by
humility and devotion, has been the distinguishing feature 6f the
esent times. Whilst it coeflned itself to the exposure of the cor-
ruptions of religion and die abuses of power, it met with some de-
gree of countenance from the wise and good in all countries, who
were ready to hope it was the instrument destined by Providence
to meliorate the condition of mankind How great was the disap•
pointmeut when they perceived that pretensions to philanthropy
were, with many, only a mask assumed for the more successfill
propagation of impiety and anarchy ! The season, however, was at
length arrived when God was resolved to punish the impiety of a
nation lulled in voluptuous ease, and dreaming of a philosophical
miliennium ; as well as to avenge the blood of his servants, whose
souls had for a century been incessantly crying to him from under
the altar,"—those " mystical virgins of the Apocalypse, who fol•
lowed the Lamb whithersoever he went, redeemed from among men,
'first fruits to God and the Lamb, and who overcame by the blood
of the Lamb, and ►sy the word of Isis testimony." The hour of retri-
lmeton was thus come. " And what nietbod did " God " employ
for. this purpose? When he to whom vengeance belongs, when he
whose ways are unsearchable, and whose wisdom is inexhaustible,
proceeded to the execution of this strange work, he drew from his
treasures a weapon he had never employed befbre. Resolving to
make their punishinent as signal as their crimes, he neither let
louse an inundation of barbarous nations, nor the desolating powers
of thelilliVerSC:—lle neither overwhelmed them with earthquakes,
nor visited them with pestilence. He summoned from among
themselves a ferocity more terrible than either ; a ferocity which
mingling in the struggle for liberty, and borrowing aid from that
very refinement to which it seemed to be opposed, turned every
man's hand against Isis neighbour, and sparing no age, nor sex, nor
rank, till satiated with the ruin of greatness, the distresses of in•
nocence, and 'the tears of beauty, it terminsted its career in the
most unrelenting despotism." Such has beets the scourge of our
times! " Our only security against similar calamities," adds the
Rev. Robert Hall, In his Sermon entitled Reflections on War, ‘4 is a
p eady adherence to religion; not the religion of mere form and pro-
fession, but that which has it, seat in the heart : 'not as it is mu-
tilated and debased by the refinements of a false philosophy, but as
it exists; in all its simplicity and extent, in the sacred scriptures ;
consisting in sorrow for sin, in the love of God, and in faith in a
crucified Redeemer. If this religion revives and flourishes amongst
tiq, we may still surmount all' our difficulties, and no weapon
formed against us will prosper; if we despise or neglect it, no 1111-
111101 power can afford us protection."
• Religion Was an affair with whiils the speculative philosophers
ought nut in prudence to have meddled. Religion was above their

• TIM NATIONAL RtnISTBR.

' 363

conception. Though they might cobble states, they never could
mend hearts. Hence, while they threatened her, ilia overwhelmed -

them with shame. Reli,rion is natural to man, is necessary to him.
and is inseparable from his condition. Religion affords us an Eden
in the moral wilderness.

The true superiority of our religion seems most evident in the
promulgation of it. When has it not pleased God by the foolish-
ness of preaching to confound the wisdom of the most wise? How is
this? Not by might, humanly speaking, nor by choice. Evi-
dently, then, ever since the Descent of the Holy Ghost, the recep.
tion of the Comforter, (promised by the Redeemer before his
ascension!) on the day of Pentecost, that Spirit of Truth, then
vouchsafed to the Church, whose office it is to " present the mys.
teries of salvation in so penetrating and transforming a manner as
to render them vital principles," has invarisbly sown and matured
the seeds of Christianity. It was this Spirit which gave assured•
ness to Peter, made Stephen faithful unto death, and rendered Paul,
although he had consented to the stoning of that martyr, the most
distinguished Champion of our Religion, which he also sealed with
his blood ! Apostles were not alone entitled to the outpourings of
this divine Spirit; the christian commission was not only aposto-
Heal, but ministerial. It is the same Spirit, therefore, that still
attends the Ambassadors of Christianity, whenever duly accredited,
throughout the world. This promise is to them, and to those who
Shall labour after them, in the spiritual vineyard, even to the ele.
veuth lour. Lt .t them thus work, while it is day.
The Revered ALEXANDER FLETCHER, A. M. appears to
have be,'u etsdnellt with much of that spirit which imparted even to
the apostles " an unction, a fervour, a boldness, to which they were
at first strangers;" and without which, " however intrinsically ex.
cellent," the great truths of our most holy religion 46 will be to us
mere dead speculation, an inert mass."

Having been invited from Scotland, and his ministry foiled ac-
ceptable in 'town, Mr. Fletcher was, towards the close of the year
1810, admitted to the Pastoral Charge of the Scots Church in Miles's
Lane, near Cannon-street. This church was formerly under the case
of the Rev. Dr. Addington, and had fallen into decay, internally as
well as externally ; but it bas happily revived duritig the short period
of Mr. Fletcher's pastorship, and, should his life be spared to
seems- likely to he the crown of his ministerial labours.
Added to qualifications of a far superior kind, Mr. Fletcher may
be pronounced, without the risk of dispute, an highly animated and
deeply impressive preacher Although his discourses are evidently'
• tudied with great care, and arranged with precision, although rhe-
torically constructed and logically elongated, the habit of learning
them, common to the clergy of his country, enables him to preach
with the fluency of extemporaneons eloquence. Of this excellence
be displayed a consummate proof in hix recent Sernwd before the
Missionary Society, which, though it was written for the press, and
open before him, he delivered, apparently, almost from meiitory, but
with an ease and naturalness that are supposed W belong exclusively
to the extemporary speaker. • _ _

Drilled as it were by the discipline of a northern_ education into
habits of severe reasoning, Mr Fletcher may not be aware that his
ratiocination at times becomes burdensome to the mind of the
hearer. It really demands an effort, beyond the ordinary stretch
of retention, to bear in memory a sermon consisting of font heads,
split again into four, and making, on the whole, sixteen divisions;
Let him early eschew, then, the unprofitable practices of those who
still perplex the simpler class of auditors'

' With subtitties on subtilties refinid,
' Meant to divide and ,übdivide the wind!'

Believing him to be sincere in his great work, the cure of sours;
it is matter of regret to find, considering his ability and impre,sion,
that his strength is scarcely equal to his day,--that bodiy indispo-
sition has al-eady compelled him to limit his ministerial exertions,
and circa iuseribed the sphere of his utility. Still the spirit is
linj: the gc,th is we4k

ONESIMUS4