BUTLER, THE ETHICAL PREACHER. SERMONS by the Right Reverend Father in God, JOSEPH BUTLER, D.C.L., late Lord Bishop of Durham. A New Edition. Oxford: At the Clarendon Press. MDCCCXXVI. Professor Mozley, Bishop Butler's modern representative-Was Butler a preacher ?—The essentials of preaching-How both Paley (in his 'Natural Theology') and Butler are preachersDeficiency of evangelical reference in Butler's Sermons, and the reason of it-No argument against his personal faith in Christ— His Sermons not only evidential, but also indicative of the line of human duty-His style needs to be popularised-His Sermons may be regarded as masterly expositions of certain great truths of Holy Scripture-(1) They show that human nature was made originally in God's image-The consistency of benevolence with reasonable self-love in the Divine Mind-All the moral attributes of God resolvable into love-Exhibition of benevolence and selflove in the Passion of Our Lord-Christ exemplifies the indignation against moral evil, which Butler intimates to be part of a perfect character-(2) Butler illustrates the text that man is "fearfully and wonderfully made"-The appetites and affections -Vicious affections only excesses and morbid developements of innocent ones-Self-love and benevolence-The conscience regarded by Butler rather as an eye than a light-How Butler's theory of human nature may assist us in self-examination and self-discipline and show the mistake of a morbid pietism—and give the sound and healthy view of resentment-(3) Butler's view of the corruption of human nature-The deceitfulness of the heart analysed and exhibited in the Sermons on the Character of Balaam, and on Self-deceit-Revelation adds to the description of the effects of the Fall, which may be gathered from reason, this further particular, that man's faith was disabled by it-Combination in man of gratification of present passion with faith in a foreseen future would have been a topic worthy of Butler-Identity of what is called Faith in the language of Revelation with what Butler would call Reason-Gen. iii. furnishes the explanation of the moral convulsion of which Butler finds such evident traces in our nature. A VOLUME of Sermons, published in the course of last year, probably, in knowledge of the human heart and analysis of human motives, one of the two greatest contributions to religious literature which the nineteenth century has made,*—recalls to us the ethical discourse which has too much gone out of late, and of which Butler's Sermons are the great model and archetype. Joseph Butler, Bishop and Prince Palatine of Durham, is not dead; or rather, "he being dead, yet speaketh" in the pages of Professor Mozley. The Professor's great discourses on "The peaceful temper" and on " Our duty towards equals," and his method of showing how war is bound up in that distinction of the human race into nations, which is part of the present system of things, are conceived in Butler's happiest vein, and differ from his Sermons chiefly in being much easier reading, and couched in a style far less ponderous. *The other being the Sermons of the Rev. John Henry Newman, late Vicar of St. Mary-the-Vir gin's, Oxford. Qui cum talis sit utinam noster adhuc esset. But ethical Sermons generally give rise in some minds to a question, the answer to which will throw light upon the true character of preaching, and may be given, we think, quite suitably from the pulpit, without any blinking of the sacred objects which should be paramount there. That Bishop Butler was a profound religious thinker, and a great moral philosopher, will be admitted on all hands. But there are many who would demur to his claim to rank among great preachers. No doubt he wrote discourses, which he entitled Sermons, and which were delivered from the pulpit. These, however, are but the accidents and accessories of preaching; and before any person's claims to be a preacher can be satisfactorily made out, it must be shown that his discourses are essentially sermons, sermons in something more than the name. In attempting to do this for Bishop Butler, we shall gain an insight into the distinguishing character of his preaching. Every one understands what is meant when a sermon and an expository lecture are spoken of as distinct. But it is doubtful whether the terms employed represent the real and essential distinction between the things.* All preaching is, or ought to * Probably the more correct | ture, the lecture an exposition definition would be to call the of an entire context with all sermon an exposition of a single the sequences of thought which detached passage of Holy Scrip- link text to text. In the first be, expository; that is, it ought to be an exposition or setting forth of some part of the Word of God. If any discourse is not this, it is not preaching. And, conversely, if any part of the Word of God, whether promise or precept, warning or consolation, forms the subject of a discourse, it is properly called a sermon, and the person delivering it is a preacher. But in this definition the expression, "the word of God," must be understood in its full legitimate breadth of meaning. There is a word of God, for those who have ears to hear it, in Nature as well as in Revelation,a word not by any means so explicit as Holy Scripture, but yet which serves sufficiently, as St. Paul tells us, to render those "without excuse "* who do not heed it; the word of which the Psalmist speaks, when he says, "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handy work. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard." Now these works of God, whereby His "eternal power and godhead" are understood among men, are not merely—and one may say not chiefly-outside us. The noblest work of God is man himself. Man's there is more or less unity of thought; in the second there is no other unity than that which is given by tracing the stages of the argument, if the passage is argumentative, or the develop ment of the narrative, if it be *See Rom. i. 20. mental and moral anatomy, and its adaptation to his circumstances and surroundings, bears a stronger testimony to the Creator's power, wisdom, and goodness, than even the architecture of the heavens or the structure of animals. The expounders, therefore, of the works of God, seeing that His works are a true revelation of Himself, though dimmer and less explicit than His word, may rightfully, if only they point upwards continually from the creature to the Creator, claim the title of great preachers. Paley, in his Natural Theology,' is a great preacher, his object being to discover and disclose the traces of an intelligent and benevolent Creator, which are scattered so thick over the whole realm of nature. And not less surelyrather much more—is Butler a magnificent preacher, whose Sermons discuss and expound that great subject, which the Apostle lays down* as the foundationstone of his argument on the justifying efficacy of faith, the law "written in the heart," and the "witness" of conscience. Hence comes the deficiency of evangelical reference, or rather of reference to revealed religion, in these Sermons, a fact which is patent upon the surface of them,† and which to See Rom. ii. 15. † A remarkable instance of this absence of reference to Holy Scripture is to be found in Sermon IX. ("Upon Forgiveness of Injuries "), where the moral ground of capital punishment is thus stated: "What justifies public executions is, not that the guilt or demerit of the criminal |