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mote th $ 4 spirit and power of reli * gio 4 i , iiid that he laid great ( he cb ' uld h 6 t lay an excessive ) stress on that rational seriousness of temper , and strict purity of heart , without which Christian virtue
can have no existence . We add , that tjie happy and familiar didactic manner which characterizes liis avthorized publicatiorfs , is to fee seen frequently , though by no means uniformly , in this volume . For literary excellencies we did not look , in the first place , in the
sermons of Dr . P . to his parishioners : of these he could not here be ambitious : he had too much good sense and piety to aim at ^ theni ; nor are we disappointed at their absence . What has disappointed us , is the absence of that which is far more material in a
Christian preacher , —the habit of explaining the scriptures upon sound principles of criticism , and in perfect Consistency with them * , selves . A discourse which the Doctor published , many years since , on " Caution in the Use
of Scriptural Language / led us , we own , to expect from . him sometbing better on this head , than we have actually found . In these sermons , his practice is to quote te ^ ts with little or no Regard to the situationof the speaker , writer ,
hearers or readers , to the connection of the passage , or to the sense of the same terms and phras&s in ^ iher $ arts of holy writ . So for Palcy appears , upon the presenjt occasion , as an > n ; dinary man .
Instead of ranking , in this respect , with the / great preachers of his church , he stands upon the v ** jry ^ amegrouDd ^| th the most uneducated teWiielrs of the most un . educated denominations : nor * in ' > tlii , fi # * « *• ' ¦ ¦* ' 1 .. » .. / ... , *
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his . comments on the language of Jesus , the evangelists aijcl tje apostles , can we oftea ireco ^ i ^ e the penetrating jand vig ^ rpus t ^ lncj which produced the Iforce £ au ~ lince and illustrated the evidence ^ ef Christianity *
To justify our opinion of theso sermons , we shall now review them in their orders The first , from 1 Pet . iv . 7 , is on Cc seriousness in religion" a
most lnqispensible disposition ;" it is chiefly employed in an inquiry into the causes of the levit y of temper which e % c ^ jplly obr structs the admission of every religious influence ; arid' it is , on the whole * an admirable and use
ful discourse . If it wants any th |^ it is a . distincter enumera * tioik . of , the several leading thpugjits ana . something more of , personal application , in which latter ex . cellence most of Dr . P . ' s sermon ? are materially defective .
Of the second , the subject is cc the love of God , ' * ( love tg God ) from 1 John , iv . 19 . The author considers the importance of this love , the means of
acquiring it , and the effects of this disposition upon our lives . Upon all these points he makes soneie good remarks ; thoiigh wp have read and heard better discourses on the
S 9 , me topic . The arrangement is less perspicuous than we couW have wished ; no notice is taken of the process by which the affections become disinterested , though it is particularly illustrative of the love ' of God , considered as the crowa nnd p ^ rfeqtipn , of relig ious virtue ; and the wjitei : ipisajiprchends Rqih . v . 5 , ] which te £ t \ tf really li mited to the first believers ; who received rpir ^ ulo qs $ ft ?
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44 p Revie 8 h *—Paley * $ Sermoqs .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1809, page 448, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1739/page/34/
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