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on the other . Criticism and interpretation are more sparin g ly employed than we could have wished : yet in one or two instances the preacher has corrected the received Version ; and this in the most unostentatious maiiner . *
Mr . Toller ' s peculiar cast of Imagination , seems , in general , to have been under the controul of admirable good sense and judgment . But his compositions indicate his originality . There is something in the style and manner of his addresses from the puUpit , which it has not been our fortune to discover in those of other
writers of sermons , and which , we think , must be referred , in part , to bis familiar language , and , ia part , to the frequency and usual happiness of his illustrations . Volumes of the class to which the work under review belongs , are marked by the variety which characterized xhe authors of
them o With few exceptions , however * they have rather light shades than broad lines of difference . The diversity is seldom very prominent . We , of course , speak concerning re * spectable writers in this department .
Of the pulpit discourses with which we are best acquainted , hardly any are so impressive in point of style , as those of Dr . Pawlet , St . John , f Ogden , Charters of Wilton , J Hugh Worthington , and Toller of Kettering . § We would not be understood
* See p . 88 , and 2 Tim . ii . 6 , which Mr . T . lias rightly and faithfully rendered . t The author of " Fourteen Sermons on Practical Subjects . 1737 . " Notices
of this clergyman , and of his works , may be found in Nichols' Literary Anecdotes , &c , Vol . I . 241 , &c . His discourses are particularly adorned by a most beautiful and elegant incorporation of scriptural expressions with his own style .
X A clergyman , still living , of the Scottish Church . For " Remarks on his Sermons , see an article in The Christian Miscellany ( 17 92 ) , 52—58 . The critique 13 signed PtutoTHEON , and has heen attributed to the late Professor
Kichardson , of Glasgow . To the majority of ouv readers . Charters , probably , is less known thai * Ogdea and Hugh Worthington . . § The Rev . T . N . Toller had a relation ( we believe ap uncle ) of nearly the saiue name , who was the author of
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to say , that the productions of these authors possess no higher qualities than what belong to language : far from it ; thougtx we may safely affirm that in this view , they are more conspicuously distinguished than in any other from a large body of valuable sermons which are before the public
Of Mr . Toller ' s " style of composition" his biographer observes that it " was eminently colloquial ; it bad all the careless ease * negligence and occasional inaccuracy , which might be looked for in an extemporaneous address . ( Mer » . p . 43 . ) He appears never to have turned his attention to
composition as an art . " This is a deserved eulogy of his style $ a jusC description of its most striking effects as well as features . In reading hid discourses , we not unfrequently could imagine that the preacher is conversing
with us , and even speaking to us iudividually . The first person oftea recurs , and not rarely is joined with the second : simple and idiomatic expressions are preferred to leas
intelligible words ; and Mr . Toller , while he writes , without any affectation , from the dictates of a well-regulated understanding and a feeling heart , sometimes exemplifies , with , great effect , tire Horatian maxim ,
Dixeris egregie , notum si caliida verbum Rcddiderit junctura novum : — In the following passage a general truth is stated more forcibly , as the consequence of the preacher appearing to describe his own case ( Serin , pp . 27 , 28 ) : " — in proportion as self is trodden under foot , so that it is not yours but you that I seek ; not your applause , wot your attendance merely , not your money , not your mere external attachment ; but
your real growth in scriptural knowledge , your improvement in evangelical humility and love , innocence and patience , heavenly-mindedness and meetness for heaven ; in proportion as that is the case , I am a fellow labourer with God , * &c .
Such instances are very frequent . At other times , this preacher speaks " Sermons to Tradesmen , ' * and of other excellent discourses , aud a Dissenting minister in the metropolis . W « j perceive that Mr . T . N . Toller ' s single sermon upon the Evidetwes of Christianity was published in 1797 .
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Meviewr- ^ ToUer * & Sermons on . Various Sx&jecfa . * 349
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1824, page 349, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2525/page/29/
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