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fixed and lasting principles , he care * fully distinguished . In our perusal of his discourses we have never been sensible of the effect described by the biographer . The limits within which Mr , Toller confined himself , prove his acquaintance with the human mind : Iits remarks are the more ^ vigorous , In consequence of their being concise ; because any great amplification is avoided , they are " like nails fastened in a sure place . " If to direct the conscience , and to enlarge the understanding , be of far higher moment than merely to awaken the
passions , ( Mem . p . 33 , ) the course pursued by this - preacher was strictly agreeable to faithfulness and wisdom and manly taste . The frequent repetition of the same things , ia a single address , uaay suit extremely well the school or the lecture-room * bat does
not accord with the instructions of the pulpit : in these more variety is required ; these are ( delivered to a miscellaneous assembly , and aim rather at conviction and persuasion than
at explanation or momentary impression . Condensation of thought and conciseness of style have characterized some of tlie most powerful speakers in every age , and especially the orators of ancient Greece . " There is
a wide difference , too , between repetition in successive addresses and repetitions in the same address : nor has Mr . Hall discriminated between these cases . Other excellencies being
equal , those sermons are the best whose length is moderate : they are the fruits of more intense study , on the part of the preacher ; and they go more closel y home to the business and bosom of the hearer . A decorous
brevity appears to have marked the addresses of our Lord and his apostles : and one of the ablest leaders of a religions body , and most admirable judges of human nature , who ever
lived—the late Rev . John Wesley *—recommended , by his precepts and example , frequent but not long discourses . To Mr . Toller ' s sermons , we are therefore the more warml y attached for their freedom from ail
rhetorical embellishments and super * fluous dilatation of ideas . The sentiments which these dis * - courses support , in respect of theo * . logfcal creeds and eeclesias 4 aeal discipline , constitute a fair subject of our
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attention . It would seem that Mr . Toller ' s religious opinions were , to use his own language concerning a , friend's [ the Rev . Samuel PalmerJ " prevailingly evangelical . " Still , nothing appears like a human and artificial system ; nothing of the technical and obtrusive phraseology , in which ,
among every denomination , the blind leaders of the blind take such great delight , and \ vhieh > in almost every instance where we perceive it , proves that those from whom it proceeds are much better acquainted with current treatises of divinity than with , the original record ' s of revelation . In despite of all which Mr . H . has stated and
repeated , we are unable to discern that the preacher subsequently to his very distressing illness , a few years before Iris death , had less of & general manner of enunciating what his biographer would call the peculiar tenets
of the gospel . The sermons before us may well be supposed to contain as much of reputed orthodoxy as could be discovered in any equal number of others that Mr . Toller wrote and delivered . Of the discourses m this volume the dates are various :
with rare exceptions , they appear to have been taken promiscuously from the papers of the author ; and some of them were composed after that deep and continued depression of spirits , which is affirmed to have rendered
him more evangelical in judgment , in expression and in temper . Now we see ^ no traces of this alleged change . It is still in scriptural phrases , and not in the words which man ' s wisdom teacheth , that Mr . T . declares or
intimates his religious faith . To Calvinism he may be considered as makingapproaches : we doubt of his having been a thorough Calvinist . Whether he were so or not , lie shews that he received his education in a seminary which was consistently and strictly Protestant . From such a man we
differ ( when we differ ) with reluctance ; and we are yet more desirous of imitating his Catholic disposition than of animadverting on what we deem Ms mistake ^ , in p . 23 , he
exclaima , " Surely aucli a Being [ the final Judge ] must be a God ! God fcad need be Judge himself . How utterly incompetent are all creatures to such a business as this ! " Here Mr . T . virtually argues that our Lord tfan-
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358 Revietti < ' - *' TollePs Sermons on Parlous Sulyecis *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1824, page 352, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2525/page/32/
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