force respecting a composition that is recent, and towards which the writer cherishes a fond regard, as possessing a sort of identity with himself. It was the tendency of both the above causes, especially the latter, to pervert a man's judgment of his own performance, that occasioned the precept of the Latin critic, nonum in annum prematur.' And with reference to the same tendency, a modern writer, of good sense, remarked; The attachment felt to the defects of our style, at the moment of their production, is to be ranked with the sort of oblique taste manifested by idolaters; who usually most reverence those idols, which are most deformed.' This, I apprehend, is peculiarly true of those faults which spring from the heedless darings of affectation, or the sallies of wayward fancy. Pride is always at hand to volunteer its approbation, or at least apology, for our own defects. After the assassination of Cæsar, when Brutus was about to make a speech in the Roman Senate, some of his friends urged Cicero to prepare that speech for him. Cicero replied-No orator ever believed that another man could write better than himself.'

These principles, especially the latter, which sober experience, and even piety, do not exterminate from any human bosom, may be expected to operate, with peculiar strength, when combined with the ardent temperament of youth. Accordingly, I have always observed in circles of ministers, that, other things being equal, the youngest men are least patient of criticism. In any one of ingenuous and intelligent mind, the desire of improvement is in proportion to his intercourse with men and books; his knowledge of himself; in a word, his attainments in real wisdom. In such a man, of course, a partial attachment to his own productions, and his own errors, always abates with the progress of years: but

there is danger of its continuing, to an unhappy extent, till the best period of improvement is past. Instead of shrinking from the scrutiny of judicious criticism, therefore, he who understands his own interest will invite it; he will prize it, as the invaluable, indispensable auxiliary of his own efforts. He will seek this aid seasonably, before his defects acquire insuperable strength by indulgence. And he will desire that such criticism should be 、 impartial and thorough; that it should not spare real blemishes, though he himself might regard them as minor defects, or even as beauties. No one, in the plastic' age, ought to be indifferent to small faults; because the carelessness that overlooks these, at twenty, if unchecked, will grow into intolerable blundering by forty. In a sermon, peculiarly, no error of sentiment should be deemed too small for animadversion. Let the empiric tamper with his patient's life by random prescriptions, and be comparatively blameless; but let not the preacher tamper with the Bible, and the souls of men. The faults of one sentence from the pulpit, may produce mischief through a century, nay through eternity.

Let me add, however, one caution to these remarks. See that the habit of criticism does not withdraw your attention from the great end of preaching. There is no necessity, I must say again, that this consequence should follow from attention even to minute accuracy. And yet there is a tendency to this result, which, in minds of a certain cast, ought to be guarded against with unceasing vigilance. Gross blunders in language are inexcusable in a scholar: but it is a thousand times better to violate grammar and rhetoric, and preach the gospel clearly and powerfully, than to be an accurate, dry, uninstructive, phlegmatic preacher. 2

1 Hæ nugæ seria ducent. Hor. Ars. Poet. 2 Note (3)

LECTURE II.

HISTORY OF THE PULPIT.

A

IN discussing the large class of topics which come under the head of Homiletic Theology, frequent allusion to facts will be necessary: and to avoid repetition, it seems proper here to exhibit a brief sketch of the preacher's work, as it has been conducted in different ages. complete account of the pulpit belongs indeed to the department of ecclesiastical history, in which it deserves a much more prominent and ample consideration than it has hitherto received. But as I cannot devote ten or fifteen lectures to this subject, I must be content to give a mere outline of facts, imperfect as this of necessity must be.

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In the early history of the world, we find no evidence that the business of public religious teaching was reduced to method. Enoch, the seventh from Adam," we are told in the epistle of Jude, " prophesied." The brief history of this patriarch as given by Moses, makes no mention of him as a prophet. But the language ascribed to him by St. Jude, renders it plain that he spoke under a divine commission; and that as a public instructor of his cotemporaries, he taught the unity and moral perfections of God, and the difference, as to present character and final retribution, between saints and sinners.

St. Peter calls Noah "a preacher of righteousness ;the eighth person who was saved in the ark," as our

translators understood the place; or as others, with less reason, render it, "the eighth preacher of right

eousness.

In the patriarchal ages, the worship of God was confined chiefly to families, the head of each family acting as its priest. Moses, Aaron, and Joshua, in their day, often collected the people in solemn assembly, especially in the Tabernacle, and addressed them with powerful effect, in the name of the Lord.

At a still later period, schools of the prophets were established at Bethel, Naioth, and Jericho, which seem at first to have been places of worship, where the people assembled, especially on the sabbaths and new moons, for purposes of religious devotion and instruction; and which afterwards became places of education for young men designated to the sacred office. In the reign of Asa, it is said, that Israel had long been "without the true God, and without a teaching priest." In the next reign, Jehoshaphat sent out a great number of itinerant preachers, who taught in Judah, and had the book of the law with them, and went about throughout all the cities of Judah, and taught the people." The peculiarity of garb, the sanctity of manners, the bold and often splendid imagery, and the violent action of these ancient preachers,

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1 The same apostle says that to those who in his day were "spirits in prison," Christ preached the gospel by Noah, before the flood. And St. Paul, in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, alludes to the warning of the approaching deluge, which Noah gave his cotemporaries, in which he acted under the spirit of prophecy.

2 The tabernacle was a tent about fifty feet in length and seventeen in breadth. It was divided by a rich curtain into two parts, the sanctum, and sanctum sanctorum; the latter containing the Ark of the covenant, &c. In this tent, which was so constructed as to be taken down and moved, the Congregation of Israel offered sacrifices, and performed other religious services.

need not here be described, being only circumstantial appendages of their sacred work.

After the captivity, when the inspired code assumed a more regular form, exhibiting the genealogies, the system of jurisprudence, and the sacred ritual of this peculiar people; and when their language was corrupted by a barbarous mixture of foreign dialects; religious teachers were obliged to become students, for the purposes of exposition and interpretation; and their employment, to some extent, became, of course, a learned profession. In the eighth chapter of Nehemiah, one very interesting example of Ezra's preaching is recorded. About fifty thousand people were assembled in an open street. learned scribe, with a large number of preachers on his right and left, stood on an elevated pulpit of wood. When he opened the book of the law, "all the people stood up," and continued standing, during the remainder of the service, which lasted from morning to midday. The preachers alternately "read in the book of the law of God, distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading; and all the people wept, when they heard the words of the law."

The

It is foreign from my purpose here to enter into the controverted question about the origin of synagogues ; except to say that I am satisfied with the arguments which assign their origin to the period after the captivity. The exercises of the Jewish public worship, were prayers, reading the Scriptures, exposition, and miscellaneous exhortation. The prayers, which at first were few and brief, had become in the time of our Saviour so tedious as to be censured by him for their length. The reading of the Pentateuch, in such portions as to finish the whole every year, was a long established custom, which Antiochus Epiphanes having forbidden by a