strong light, and form the richest legacy to surviving relatives.

He was buried on the 10th of August in the family grave at Bunhill Fields, when, to a large audience, the Rev. William Broadfoot delivered a suitable and very impressive address. On the Sabbath following in the morning, at Miles Lane, he preached an appropriate and deeply-interesting sermon from these words, "The righteous hath hope in his death;" and, at the request of the relatives, the same sermon at Wells Street in the afternoon. It is a duty which the family owe to the elders and congregations of Miles Lane and of Wells Street, and to their many other friends out of their religious connexion, most gratefully to acknowledge the sympathy, the respect, and the liberality which they uniformly manifested during the long period of his illness, and after his death.

SERMONS, &c.

SERMON I.

CHRIST CRUCIFIED: THE CHOSEN THEME OF ST. PAUL'S PREACHING.

1 Cor. ii. 2.

I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

THE first impression of these words, is the extraordinary spirit of the apostle it is so determined and enthusiastic, so unqualifiedly definite and exclusive in its object. The history of the personage adds to the singularity of this moral phenomenon: the change in this mode of feeling was so extreme; from the feeling of the persecutor, to the zealous follower the proud despiser, to the absorbed, and devout adorer-from national and religious bigotry, to all the liberalities of the most unbounded charity it was from Judaism to Christianity. And this change of feeling was not progressive, was not the result of tardy thought, moving warily towards a conviction, by which the active principles were to be

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planted, but an instantaneous effect: there was no twilight in the transition; light and darkness met in him with a palpable limit, and a succession preternaturally rapid; and the affection, and the zeal corresponding to the new opinions, accorded with them; and not only in their nature, but in the mode of their formation, were equally decided, and equally instantaneous. It is impossible for the most superficial observer of the varieties of human character, to contemplate this with indifference. It is indeed competent to awaken the most intense interest. We shall attempt in vain to account for its production on common principles: the circumstances by which, in other cases, character is modified and determined, are insufficient for the analysis of this-this was not formed, but created. Admitting, then, in the first instance, a supernatural agency, were there any circumstances conspiring with this great primary movement, to produce the result exhibited in the text, and elsewhere? Yes: the manner in which these new habits of thought and feeling were acquired, was, upon every reflection, calculated to inspire new energy; every reflection would present him to himself, as one for whom Heaven had miraculously interposed, and that not, as in other instances, by a silent operation on the

judgment and affections, imparting the personal blessing without distinguishing the person, but with a procedure conspicuous and splendid, pointing him out to the sight of mortal and immortal powers, while he should run his high and untrodden career. Feeling his dignity, by the responsibility of that dignity, he would naturally devote himself with a proportioned ardour to cherish the spirit of his office.

Another co-operating circumstance, was the novelty of the opinions. He had not been brought up in the knowledge of them, far less in the belief: they had not been disclosed to him, part after part, during a protracted education, where the impression made by one limited discovery is effaced while the mind is gaining strength to effect another; but at once the veil was drawn, and there rose before him the lofty structure of religious truth, high as the heavens, and broader than the earth! The effect of such a disclosure on a mind capable of contemplating it, must be incalculable. Our gradual acquaintance with religious opinions renders us callous to their importance: for to our eyes, objects are every moment appearing in a different light, as they are new or familiar, so that when they lose their freshness they lose their power. If under this disadvantage, a disadvantage of our constitution, we are yet

capable of receiving a deep impression from these truths, we can conceive that they would powerfully conduce, with the aid of novelty, on so susceptible and energetic a mind as that of Paul, to produce that total Christianity of feeling now under our consideration.

But there are other circumstances, which, although they would not operate by the same sort of necessity upon his passive, perhaps unconscious feelings, would yet, by their obvious propriety, influence his judgment in yielding, and advancing himself in the direction to which he was thus predisposed. The ministry, for example, to which he was called, was more peculiarly that of converting than of edifying. Unlike his successors in the

church, he had not to work upon a Christianised population, a population among whom the history and the doctrines of Christ are admitted. No-the world lay before him in heathenism: he was invested with the power of miracles, to attest facts and to prove truths. When he opened his mouth, it was not so much to warn the hypocrite, to detect the mere form of godliness-not to lead on to perfection those who were no longer babes in Christ, illustrating the relations and harmonies of the system to make known the facts of the Gospel-to gain an assent to these, and to establish upon them

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