to the feeling of the moment. I would not, however, urge a young preacher to attempt all this at once; but rather never to read entirely-to write the whole or a good part of his sermon for a while then to trust himself gradually more to his extemporaneous powers.

With respect to the course of study to be pursued, and the proper books to be read by a young man who is preparing for sacred orders, I am ashamed to attempt to give my opinion, conscious as I am of being so deficient myself in the knowledge, which, if not absolutely requisite, is yet highly conducive to the profitable discharge of the Christian Ministry.

I suppose the most necessary study of all is the acquiring an intimate acquaintance with both Testaments in their original languages, never losing sight of the Septuagint, which is the best interpreter of the Hebrew words, as well as of the Hellenistic dialect, which pervades the New Testament. This, I presume, should form a part, and a considerable one, of the daily study of a young divine.

Next, Ecclesiastical History will demand his attention, which, without neglecting some modern historians, will be best learned out of Eusebius; and, if he wishes to pursue the history of the church beyond the fourth century, from Socrates and Sozomen. The compilation of Eusebius is invaluable, and the History of Socrates very entertaining, and full of melancholy instruction.

For Jewish Antiquities, I know nothing better than Beausobre and L'Enfant's Introduction to the Prussian Testament; though the subject is handled more fully by Jennings, in two volumes, octavo.

Of Commentators, I am not very competent to speak, having not conversed with them very widely. Grotius is perhaps the most profound and enlightened-particu

larly on the Gospels. His legal views of religion, however, almost always confounding sanctification and justification, require to be strictly guarded against. Matthew Henry, as a practical and devotional Commentator, exceeds all praise, and suggests most matter for sermonizing of any. 1

1 The Editor will stand excused with every one who is conversant with the Family Expositor of the late Thomas Scott, if he ventures strongly to recommend to the Student and the Preacher the comments of that judicious and laborious writer. 'It is difficult,' says a very competent authority, the present Bishop of Calcutta,'' to form a just estimate of a work which cost its author the labour of thirtythree years. Its capital excellence consists in its following more closely, than, perhaps any other, the fair and adequate meaning of every part of Scripture, without regard to the niceties of human systems. It is a scriptural comment. Its originality is likewise a strong recommendation of it. Every part of it is thought out by the author for himself, not borrowed from others. It is not a compilation; it is an original work, in which you have the deliberate judgment of a masculine and independent mind on all the parts of Holy Scripture. Every student will understand the value of such a production. Further, it is the comment of our age, furnishing the last interpretations which history throws on prophecy, giving the substance of the remarks which sound criticism has accumulated from the different branches of sacred literature, obviating the chief objections which modern annotators have advanced against the doctrines of the Gospel, and adapting the instructions of Scripture to the particular circumstances of the times in which we live....... The time is not distant, when, the passing controversies of the day having been forgotten, this prodigious work will be almost universally confessed in the Protestant churches, to be one of the most sound and instructive comments of our own or any other age.' 'To almost every part of this panegyric' observes his reviewer, we heartily subscribe. Perhaps however, we should demur to the acknowledgment that, even in this work the defects of Mr. Scott's style do not materially detract from the value of the work, especially as a work for family reading. Even here there is a considerable want of that perspicuity-of these

1 See his two sermons on the death of the Rev. T. Scott.

As to general theologians, I much prefer Howe to any whom it has been my lot to meet with. He was at once a man of stupendous genius, and of great unction; thought his style is harsh and repulsive. I should recommend a

dense and terse expressions-of those pithy practical counsels-of these tender and pathetie remonstrances-of these cheerful and varied addresses, which abound so much in the Commentary of Matthew Henry. This, however, is to be remembered, in comparing the two writers, that for one offence against taste in Mr. Scott, it would be easy to find a hundred in his predecessor; and that the modern commentator is as much distinguished by forbearance and propriety in the exposition of scripture, as the ancient expositor by the strained and imaginative interpretation so common in the days in which he lived. Matthew Henry appears to us to surpass Mr. Scott and every other writer in his Exposition of the Gospels: Mr. Scott to have considerably the superiority in his Commentary on the Epistles. And as a textuary, Mr. Scott is, we think, without a rival. We fully anticipate the increasing celebrity of his Commentary; and, with it the extension of sound and scriptural views of religion. Without pronouncing any opinion on his sentiments as to some disputed and most difficult points, we entertain the deepest reverence of his judgment on all the principles of that 'common Christianity' recognized in the confessions of the Protestant churches. And when we consider the circumstances to which Mr. Wilson so justly refers, namely the originality' of his exposition, or, in other words, how much he drew from himself, and how little from others, and contrast the fulness and explicitness of his judgments upon many dark and perplexing passages of scripture, with the leanness and ambiguity of certain modern interpretations avowedly casting far and near for authorities, and living to the utmost possible extent upon borrowed light," we cannot but consider the work as an astonishing evidence of the powers of honest energy in well doing. It reminds us more of those days in which,' as our old and revered monarch George III. was heard to say, 'there were giants in theology,' than' of these puny and dwarfish days in which writers give us indeed a 'meadow of margin,' but a 'rivulet of text:' and in which the prettiness of the book is transcended only by the barrenness of the matter.'

young man who is entering on the ministry to make himself intimately acquainted with our older writers, Barrow, Tillotson, Hooker, Milton, Chillingworth, Pearson, &c.-of whom, in comparison with later writers, I should be disposed to say, with very few exceptions, "No one, having tasted old wine, straightway desireth new; for he saith the old is better."

Thus I have attempted very briefly to comply with your request and with my sincere prayers and wishes that you may be enabled to " approve yourself to God a workman that needeth not to be ashamed,"

I remain, with sincere esteem,

Your's most respectfully,

ROBERT HALL.

NOTES..

(1) PAGE 3. When a young minister sets out, he should sit down and ask himself, how he may best qualify himself for his office?'

'How does a physician qualify himself? It is not enough that he offers to feel the pulse. He must read, and inquire, and observe, and make experiments, and correct himself again and again. He must lay in a stock of medical knowledge before he begins to feel the pulse. The minister is a physician of a far higher order, He has a vast field before him. He has to study an infinite variety of constitutions. He is to furnish himself with the knowledge of the whole system of remedies. He is to be a man of skill and expedient. If one thing fail, he must know how to apply another. Many intricate and perplexed cases will come before him: it will be disgraceful to him not to be prepared for such. His patients will put many questions to him it will be disgraceful to him not to be prepared to answer them. He is a merchant embarking in extensive concerns. A little ready money in the pocket will not answer the demands that will be made upon him. Some of us seem to think it will, but they are grossly deceived. There must be a well-furnished account at the banker's.' -CECIL.

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