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    import of the other . Many , we fear very many , persona pass through life , respectably perhaps , under the name of Christians , and not disgracing their profession by immoral conduct , who yet leave the world as ignorant of the peculiar nature , design , and value of Christianity , as when they came into it ; and though , no doubt , benefited in various ways by its influences , yet insensible to its celestial beauty , and uninitiated into its mysteries of holiness and peace . What have not the instructors of such to answer for ? They

    may have pointed out the path in which men should walk ; they may have inculcated moral truth ; they may have preached a future life : but unless they have ascribed their authority to him who is the way , the truth , and the life , they have not discharged their commission . Let them teach morals , but not to the exclusion of Christian doctrine ; let them open the ears of their hearers to the accepts of nature , but not so as to overpower the voice of revelation . Moral teaching is good ; religious teaching is better ; but Christian doctrine is the treasure which all who have shared are bound to

    ditfuse : and unless they administer it faithfully , though they may save from . gross sin and utter destruction , they fail to work that thorough purification and to establish that heavenly peace which it is their duty and their privilege to impart . It is too well known that , as a body , we lie under the reproach of undervaluing Christianity . How far the censure is founded in truth , or whether there is any justice in it at all , it is not now our purpose to inquire . But

    we are obliged to express our regret that there is little in the volume before us which will tend to abate the reproach , or remove the stigma . In this large collection of sermons , there is but one which can , with any propriety , be included in the highest class of religious discourses . Our surprise is equal to our regret : for we cannot imagine fyow such a deficiency can have been occasioned . The blame , wherever it rests , undoubtedly does not at * tach to the writers of the sermons before us ; for each is answerable only

    for his own ; and each sermon is complete in itself , because it was not the design of any one to shew the nature and value of Christianity . In almost every sermon we find some recognition of its divine origin , some reference to its standard of morals , some appeal to its sanctions ; and this is all which the purpose of the writer , and the nature of hi 3 subject , in most cases , required . But , taking the volume as a whole , this is not enough ; and it does not fully answer the purpose of family religious instruction , while it is

    entirely silent concerning the peculiar duties and privileges imposed and conferred by the gospel . If a Christian and a Deist were to read this volume together , it is probable that the one would wish to add more than the other would desire to omit : that deficiency would be more obvious to the one , than superabundance to the other . But it is not yet too late ' to supply the defect , from whatever cause arising . A new edition of the work is , it is said , likely to be issued ere long : and it is our most earnest

    recommendation , that in the place of a few of the present collection which may be spared without material injury , some discourses on the nature , design , and value of Christianity , should be substituted . We do not mean sermons on the evidences : they would not consist with the plan of the work , and may be had elsewhere . We mean discourses which shew why the moral influences of Christianity are superior to those of all other religions ; how it is adapted to the mind of man , and what human nature may become under its operation , and wherein the surpassing value of its consolations and prpmises consists . There must be stores of such discourses in the study of every

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    Sermons for Families . 463

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1829, page 463, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2574/page/15/