ART. IV.-Practical Discourses: A Selection from the Unpublished Manuscripts of the late Ven. Thomas Townson, D.D. London. 1829.

THE merits of Dr. Townson are not so well known as they de

serve to be, and we think the admirable and venerable Bishop of Limerick (who is the editor of this volume) has done a good work in bringing them again before the public through these posthumous sermons, even were the merits of the sermons themselves, of which we shall presently speak at large, more equivocal. At the period when Dr. Townson appeared as an author, the theological arena was pretty fully occupied : Warburton had not passed off the stage, neither the host of assailants which the Divine Legation provoked, of whom Lowth was worthy to contend with that Dares of his day-Horsley, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver's beam, was wielding it against Priestley, proving, as Bishop Bull had done before him, the want of scholarship on the side of the Unitarians for the conducting of such a controversy, and the unfairness with which they laid claim to the votes of the early fathers of the church-Paley was in the ascendant, as a writer of evidences destined to eclipse every other-Powell, Balguy, and Ogden were champions of another school of theology-natural religion, in their hands, being made still further tributary to revealed; whilst Wesley and Whitfield were troubling Israel by motions altogether eccentric and beyond calculation; provoking collision, and taking their pastime in the strife. Such were the days upon which Dr. Townson fell, who enlisted himself under the banner of none of these leaders; whose even tenor appears to have been affected by no fightings from without, and whose works, as they were puffed into no ephemeral distinction, so are they likely to suffer no injury by the lapse of years. Yet the most considerable of these was not without its reward even at the time: The Discourses on the Gospels,' Bishop Lowth, the friend and fellowstudent of Dr. Townson, pronounced to be a capital performance, which set every part of the subject it treated of in a more clear and convincing light than it ever appeared in before;' and the University of Oxford bore a public testimony to its worth, alike honourable to themselves and to the subject of their commendation, by conferring on the author a degree of D. D. by diploma. The value of the compliment was probably enhanced to Dr. Townson, by the channel through which it was accidentally conveyed-it was by Dr. Horne, afterwards Bishop of Norwich, a man of kindred spirit to his own; who, reading the scriptures with a lively but not an extravagant imagination, imparted his contemplations to others in a style of singular grace and beauty,

and

and won golden opinions to himself personally by the spectacle which his writings present of a mind perfectly at peace-Quid purè tranquillet, the question of the schools, might be answered by a reference to the author of the Commentary of the Psalms, if to anything:

'And now,' says he, on sending his book into the world, and now could the author flatter himself that any one would take half the pleasure in reading the following exposition which he hath taken in writing it, he would not fear the loss of his labour. The employment detached him from the bustle and hurry of life, the din of politics, and the noise of folly-vanity and vexation flew away for a season-care and disquietude came not near his dwelling-he arose fresh as the morning to his task; the silence of the night invited him to pursue it; and he can truly say, that food and rest were not preferred before it. Every psalm improved infinitely on his acquaintance with it, and no one gave him uneasiness but the last, for then he grieved that his work was done. Happier hours than those which have been spent on these meditations of the Songs of Sion he never expects to see in this world; very pleasantly did they pass, and moved smoothly and swiftly along; for when thus engaged he counted no time. They are gone, but have left a relish and fragrance upon the mind, and the remembrance of them is sweet.'

Such was the Bishop of Norwich, and such, it may be also said, was Townson; whose beautiful sermon on the Nineteenth Psalm, though written in his youth, and (what was more) at Naples, might have been the very manna that dropped from the tongue of Horne.

The sketch of his modest and unobtrusive life prefixed to his works by Archdeacon Churton, who discharged this duty (always a difficult one) to the memory of his departed friend, with admirable simplicity and good taste, has been abridged by the Bishop of Limerick, and may serve to rescue one individual, at all events, from the contempt with which certain of our own time affect to regard the capacity and acquirements of country parsons, presenting to them one portrait at least of a man of this class who was both learned and wise, but not less modest than either; and who, when a most honourable and lucrative post in his Church was offered him by the Crown, offered him exclusively on the score of his own merits, and for no services political or polemical, had the magnanimity to decline it.

It is not our intention to go through the details of an eventful life, concluded near forty years ago. Yet, an incident or two in it may not be wholly without interest. Dr. Townson was educated at a school, which, though in itself obscure (Felsted, in Essex), numbered amongst its sons, Wallis and Barrow; and, it may be mentioned, as one of the things which contributed to the future

purity of Townson's character, that his father expunged from the copies of his school classics which were put into his hands such passages as could only contaminate, at the same time enjoining him solemnly not to frustrate a father's care by indulging, on his own part, a curiosity that was culpable: a precaution this, which he ever remembered with gratitude, and recom mended to the adoption of his friends. Having obtained a Fellowship at Magdalen College, Oxford, he travelled: Mr. Holdsworth, one of his companions, composed on this occasion (we are told) a journal of what he saw, with some care he afterwards made the same tour again, when he abridged it; he went a third time, and then he burnt it-a word to the wise. On quitting college, where he lingered a few years after his return, he retired to the livings of Blithfield, in Staffordshire, and Malpas, in Cheshire, the former presented to him through Lord Bagot his pupil, the latter by Mr. Drake, his fellow-traveller. At Malpas, he had for his co-rector (the parish consisting of two medieties) the father of Bishop Heber; and the future Bishop, then a child, was a frequent visiter of his library, under the inspection, however, of the good Doctor-the boy (as it proved afterwards in the man) being somewhat ungentle in his treatment of books, and apt, when he had squeezed his orange, to neglect it. Happy would this truly Christian Gamaliel have been, if he could have foreseen how fair a character he was then, in some little degree, contributing to form! how beautiful were the feet of that boy one day to be, bringing good tidings, and publishing peace to the East! But thus it is-let us ever act so as to promote the welfare of those amongst whom we may chance to be thrown; and we may sometimes have the satisfaction to find, that we 'have entertained angels unawares.' In his church, which was one of singular beauty, (we speak of Malpas,) he was scrupulous that all things should be done decently and in order, and a handsome pair of silver chalices were one day found in it, of which it afterwards was discovered that he was the donor, inscribed with the text, All things come of thee, O Lord, and of thine own have we given thee.' (1 Chron. xxix. 14.)

His manner of preaching was such, that you would pledge your soul (says his biographer) on his sincerity. You were sure he longed for nothing so fervently as your salvation; your heart glowed within you, and you went home resolved to love God above all, and your neighbour as yourself.'

In distributing Bibles and other books of piety, he would often add to their value, in the eyes of those to whom he gave them, by an autograph to some such effect as the following :

his baptism, that he should renounce the devil and the sinful lusts of the flesh; that he should believe all the articles of the Christian faith; and that he should walk in the commandments of God all the days of his life. God grant that these promises may be faithfully and religiously kept, for the comfort of him who made them, and the happiness of him for whom they were made.'

Amongst his various literary labours, Dr. Townson had composed with great diligence an exposition of the Apocalypse; he had some misgivings respecting the soundness of his fouudations; he made it his special prayer, that if his system was wrong, his work might by some means or other be prevented from seeing the light; obstacle after obstacle held his hand whenever he was about to revise it for the press, and at a later period he said, in allusion to this work, I once thought I had it all very clearly before me, but I now suspect we know very little of the matter.' The French revolution, it seems, had fractured his theory. It was after a second tour upon the continent, made six-and-twenty years later than the first, and with the son of his former companion, that he settled down to the works on which his character as a theologian is founded, and which recommended him for the Regius Professorship to Lord North. But his leaf was now in the sere-ambition had spared him its noble infirmity; the rural duties of the pastor were those in which he delighted, and he declined the chair. His years were now numbered, symptoms of dropsy having begun to show themselves; nevertheless, on New Year's day, 1792, he was able to preach to his people on Prov. xxvii. 1. 'Boast not thyself of to-morrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth'-a text with which he opened his ministry in that congregation, and with which, as it happened, he now closed it, for this was the last sermon he ever delivered. In his illness, which was of some continuance, he read Herbert's Country Parson, and Izaak Walton's Lives; and, as a proof of the calmness with which he contemplated his approaching dissolution, he desired his friend and curate, Mr. Bridge, in the following distich, to pray that his passage might not be long nor painful.

Funde preces Domino, ne transitus huncce per angi-
portum sit longus, neu mihi difficilis.

He had his prayer, his death, like his life, proved a happy one; his eye had indeed long become dim, but, in other respects, the natural force either of his senses or faculties had not abated, and, without a struggle or a sigh, his heart fixed on heaven, and his look directed thither,' he breathed his last on the 15th of April, 1792. The clergy of his neighbourhood carried him to his burial; the people thronged about his grave weeping; and to this day the memory of Dr. Townson is fresh and unfading in the

parish of Malpas. Such honour is due unto those who are saints indeed.

Before we introduce our readers to the sermons of which the title stands at the head of our article, we are anxious to recall their attention to the principal work of our author, 'The Discourses on the Gospels,' because the subject on which it treats is one that has excited of late much learned investigation in the critical world, in the course of which the name of Dr. Townson has been almost overlooked; and because we think that it may furnish a popular answer to a popular objection against the authority of the Gospels which has been recently revived, grounded not on the differences, but on the resemblances to be found in them, 'both in their language and in the order and collocation of their narratives.' *

The Discourses on the Gospels' may be regarded as at once offering a body of internal evidence for the truth of the Gospels, and a probable explanation of the agreements and differences which they severally present. Now, a principle which at one and the same time yields testimony to the authenticity of Scripture, and a solution of the difficulties which encumber it, has a double claim upon our confidence: just as we may be supposed to have a right key when it both fastens and opens the lock. Dr. Townson's theory is this-that

The progress in planting the Christian faith was from a Church purely of the circumcision, Samaritans included, to a mixed community, and from thence to distinct churches of the Gentiles. And there is a strong presumption (he thinks) that the Gospels were published successively, as they were wanted by the churches to whose use they were immediately adapted: that St. Matthew wrote for the first; St. Mark for the second; and St. Luke for the third settlement of the faith; and that this view of things presents us with the order in which the Gospels have all along been disposed.'

Here, then, Dr. Townson takes up his position; the four Evangelists have been almost invariably placed, from the earliest times, in the order in which they now stand; the presumption, therefore, is, that such was the order in which they were originally published. Again, the progress of Christianity was this: (the history of it, as given in the Acts of the Apostles, were there no other, testifies as much :) it began with the Jews, who were the first Christian congregation; it proceeded to a mixed society, consisting both of Jews and Gentiles, who were the next; and it ended with a body composed of Gentiles chiefly or altogether. Let us, then, observe whether the historical order of the Gospels does not

Edinburgh Review, No. cii., p. 529.-We cannot advert to this rash passage without expressing our sense of the greatly improved general tone of that journal, on religious topics, for some time past.

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