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Of the eighteenth , which is also the last , sermon in the volume , the
intrinsic merit is very considerable : but the occasions and the circumstances * of the delivery of it , give it yet stronger claims on- our attention : " The importance of remembering pastoral instructions , and the uncertainty of their continuance , " are urged , with rare simplicity and affection , from 2 Pet . i . 12—15 : [ " Wherefore I will
not be negligent to put you always in remembrance , " &c ] Agreeable to this title are the two general heads of the discourse ; and the subordinate thoughts are extremely pertinent and well arranged . We shall make some
quotations , by which , we trust , our readers will be gratified and improved . Mr . Toller distinguishes very judiciously between itinerant preachers and the stated ministers of congregations ( p . 316 ) :
" They [ that class of Christlaus we commonly call Methodists ] go into grossly ignorant villages , and among the very dregs of mankind , who have had no ed ucation . The gospel , to such , is , strictly
speaking , new . But where the gospel is established , and has been clearly preached for a great number of years , particularly in such a situation as mine ; the minister appears principally in the character of a remembrancer . "
The following remarks , evince the same power of discrimination , and may serve to correct a current error ( pp . 317—319 ) : iC if a travelling Methodist were
to carry studied sermons among ignorant , profligate people , he would not be very likely to arouse them , or to do them good ; and , therefore , such preachers very properly address their hearers in an off-hand , free way , without any study , because to such congregations every thing
they say is new . But what is very right in them might be very wrong in us . — And it its exceedingly wrong in congregations , to wish their ministers , as L know some do , to preach in that extempore , unstudied way ( however proper aud interesting it may be in itinerants and
occasional village preachers ) ; because when a man has been long settled , the same tnings would necessarily come over and over , there would be no variety , and the very people who are so clamorous for this mode of preaching would soon become weary , and wish to hear somebody else . * See the Memoir , pp . 15 , &c .
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A settled minister , who justly appreciates ttie importance and difficulty of keeping up the attention of a stated congregation , goes through a vast deal more in studying than people in general are aware of , which is not necessary for the other description of preachers , 1 have spent some of the most painful , trying . moments
in my life , and my mind has been upbra the stretch , sometimes almost upon the rack , in preparing addresses for you ,, which , perhaps , you thought were all very easy to me : and sometimes some of you
liave slept under what had cost me many tears in composing , the sight of which has excited many an inward , bitter pang you little thought of , and has sent me home many times with a sunk and dejected heart . "
These hints to auditors , are pursued , ( pp . 319 , 320 ) : " Some people who neglect the house of God , assign as a reason , that if they did attend , the preacher could not tell them any thing new ; they should only hear over again what they knew perfectly
well before . But , by the way , this is not always true . Perhaps these wise men , if they would but condescend to favour us with their attendance , and if , when they came , they would listen and not sleep , might occasionally hear something which even they did not know before . "
The following passage will also be found , with few variations , in our author ' s discourse on the death of the Rev . Samuel Palmer * ( pp . 327 , 328 ) : u Suppose this house were as large again as it is , that there were three times as many hearers , and I were to live here
forty years , caressed , followed , and extoiled all the time , —and this were all ; self , in effect , preached all the while , a carnal religion propagated , men amused and made to wonder ; but no mind really instructed , no heart humbled , no sinner turned from the error of his way , no
Christian graces or Christian duties promoted ;—why these forty years must end by and bye—and what then ? Why to me it would all be as the bursting of a glittering bubble , the retreat of an actor from the stage , amidst clappings which he is to hear no more . There is one
passage of scripture , to realize which is worth ten thousand such caresses and plaudits as these , all put together ; namely , when a dying minister can look round
* Some other sentences in that sermon are taken , as was natural and proper , from the present .
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Reviewo~—Toller * s Sermons on Various Subjects * 295
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1824, page 295, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2524/page/39/
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