On this page
- Departments (1)
-
Text (3)
-
Untitled Article
-
REVIEW. " Still pleas'd to praise, yet not afraid to blame." Pope.
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
Art . I . —A Sermon preached before the University of Cambridge , on the Commencement Sunday , July 4 , 1813 . By Herbert Marsh , D . D . F . R . S . Margaret Professor of Divinity , Cambridge : Printed , &c . Sold by Rivingtons , London . 1813 . 8 vo .
pp . 18 . IF any persons take this discourse into their hands , with the hope of reading a learned Theological Essay , they will , most assuredly , be disappointed . It is plain and practical , and , with very few alterations and omissions , might have been addressed
to any parochial or even dissenting congregation . No elaborate disquisitions , no subtle reasonings , occupy these pages . From the University pulpit Professor Marsh delivers truths which the meanest of the people may understand , and in which all are
interested—the scholar and the illiterate , the great and the low , the rich and the poor , the churchman and the nonconformist , the biblist and the antibiblist . He treats , in a manner highly creditable to his judgment and his feelings , of the Christian law of love , of benevolence considered as the test
of our being the disciples of the Saviour . His text is John xiii . 35 . Before we give an analysis of his sermon , before we comment on some of his remarks and expressions , we must observe that this discourse , far more worthy of the press than many
productions , of the same or a similar class , which issue from it , does not appear to have been printed at the request of friends : nor are we informed why it comes before the public ; though perhaps it will not be less acceptable and interesting when viewed in contrast with the numerous
polemical tracts of the Margaret Professor . How then are we to account for his Commencement Sermon finding its way beyond the walls of Great St . Mary ' s ? Is it that Dr , Marsh
was desirous of making known to the world how carefully he had avoided the practice of many of his predecessors , on the same occasion * who selected controversy * for the instruction ¦ ¦¦ ¦¦¦¦
> >— - — r - •¦ ' - ¦•¦» «" - i ¦ »¦¦ * Hfon . Rep . vi . 447 , &c .
Untitled Article
or entertainment of their academical audience ? We will hazard another conjecture . It may be that , in the progress , and especially towards the end of this pamphlet , the writer glances at certain controversies in which he had been recently engaged . The
passages which we regard as having such a bearing , shall be submitted to our readers , who will determine for themselves whether the fact justifies our surmise . Had the preacher shur > ned all local and personal allusions , we should have considered his sermon
as deserving to be bound up together with Paley ' s on the Dangers incidental to the clerical character ^ and with Dr . Maltby ' son Christian Diligence ;; both of them holding a high rank among the discourses which have adorned the Cambridge
Commencement . In expounding the words , "By this shall all men know , that ye are my disciples , if ye have love one to another , ' Prpfessor M . first points out the connexion and the scene of them ,
and lays , it would seem , great stress on the circumstance that when they were uttered Judas Iscariot had withdrawn , for the purpose of betraying his master . He next opposes this criterion of a genuine Christian to the mark of distinction on which the
Jews , and in particular the Pharisees , insisted—the love of our neighbour to the uncharitableness and hypocrisy which characterized the prevailing sect among our Lord's countrymen . Afterwards he illustrates the efficacy
of this implied precept on the apostles , from whose writings he adducesvarious passages on the duty of benevolence . He laments however that in most of those who profess and call themselves Christians we w itness such a departure from the rule , as if * were honoured rather in the breadj than in the observance . Of this fact he considers the temper and behaviour of many even among the primitive believers as an example : he also traces its existence through the succeeding annals of the church , in the establishment of the Inquisition and m »>
t Sermons and Tracts , 121 , & «• t Mon . Rc » . ii . 99 , &c .
Review. " Still Pleas'd To Praise, Yet Not Afraid To Blame." Pope.
REVIEW . " Still pleas'd to praise , yet not afraid to blame . " Pope .
Untitled Article
( 4 8 )
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1815, page 48, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1762/page/38/
-