unalterable impreffions in his maturer years. His fatire, if it may be called fo, is benevolent, (like the operations of the skilful and humane furgeon who wounds only to heal) dictated by a juft regard for the honour of God, an indignant grief excited by the profligacy of the age, and a tender compaffion for the fouls of men. His favourite topics are least insisted on in the piece entitled Table Talk; which therefore, with some regard to the prevailing taste, and that those who are governed by it may not be discouraged at the very threshold from proceeding farther, is placed firft. In most of the larger Poems which follow, his leading defign is more explicitly avowed and purfued. He aims to communicate his own perceptions of the truth, beauty, and influence of the religion of the Bible.-A religion which, however difcredited by the inifconduct of many who have not renounced the Christian name, proves itself, when rightly understood, and cordially embraced, to be the grand defideratum, which alone can relieve the mind of man from painful and unavoidable anxieties, inspire it with stable peace and folid hope, and furnish thofe motives and profpects, which, in the present state of things, are abfolutely ne ceffary to produce a conduct worthy of a rational creature, diftinguished by a vaftness of capacity, which no affemblage of earthly good can fatisfy, and by a principle and pre-intimation of immortality. At a time when hypothefis and conjecture in philofophy are so juftly exploded, and little is confidered as deferving the name of knowledge, which will not ftand the teft of experiment, the very use of the term experimental in religious concernments, is by too many unhappily rejected with difguft. But we well know, that they who affect to defpife the inward feelings which religious perfons fpeak of, and to treat them as enthusiasm and folly, have inward feelings of their own, which, though they would, they cannot fupprefs. We have been too long in the fecret ourselves to account the proud, the ambitious, or the voluptuous, happy. We muft lofe the remembrance of what we once were, before we can believe, that a man is fatisfied with himself, merely because he endeavours to appear fo. A fmile upon the face is often but a mask worn occafionally and in company, to prevent, if poffible, a fufpicion of what at the fame time is paffing in the heart. We know that there are people, who feldom fmile when they are alone, who therefore are glad to hide themfelves in a throng from the violence of their own reflections; and who, while by their looks and their language they wish to perfuade us they are happy, would be glad to change their conditions with a dog. But in defiance of all their efforts, they continue to think, forebode, and tremble. This we know, for it has been our own ftate, and therefore we know how to commiferate it in others.-From this flate the Bible relieved us-When we were led to read it with attention, we found ourselves defcribed. -We learnt the causes of our inquietude-we were directed to a method of relief-we tried, and we were not disappointed. Deus nobis hæc otia fecit. We are now certain that the gospel of Chrift is the power of God unto falvation, to every one that believeth. It has reconciled us to God, and to ourselves, to our duty, and our fituation. It is the balm and cordial of the prefent life, and a fovereign antidote against the fear of death. Sed hactenus hæc. Some smaller pieces upon lefs important fubjects clofe the volume. Not one of them I believe was written with a view to publication, but I was unwilling they should be omitted. Charles Square, Hoxton, JOHN NEWTON. |