e the jury, decided against the minister, contrary to my
humble opinion; and several of them expressed themselves with
indignation against him. He was an aged gentleman, formerly a military
chaplain, and a man of high spirit and honour. He wished to bring the
cause by appeal before the house of lords, but was dissuaded by the
advice of the noble person, who lately presided so ably in that most
honourable house, and who was then attorney-general. Johnson was
satisfied that the judgment was wrong, and dictated to me the following
argument in confutation of it." As our readers will, no doubt, be
pleased to read the opinion of so eminent a man as lord Thurlow, in
immediate comparison with one on the same subject by Johnson, we refer
them to Boswell's Life, vol. iii. p. 59. edit. 1802; from whence the
above extract is taken.]

Of the censure pronounced from the pulpit, our determination must be
formed, as in other cases, by a consideration of the act itself, and the
particular circumstances with which it is invested.

The right of censure and rebuke seems necessarily appendant to the
pastoral office. He, to whom the care of a congregation is entrusted, is
considered as the shepherd of a flock, as the teacher of a school, as
the father of a family. As a shepherd, tending not his own sheep but
those of his master, he is answerable for those that stray, and that
lose themselves by straying. But no man can be answerable for losses
which he has not power to prevent, or for vagrancy which he has not
authority to restrain.

As a teacher giving instruction for wages, and liable to reproach, if
those whom he undertakes to inform make no proficiency, he must have the
power of enforcing attendance, of awakening negligence, and repressing
contradiction.

As a father, he possesses the paternal authority of admonition, rebuke
and punishment. He cannot, without reducing his office to an empty name,
be hindered from the exercise of any practice necessary to stimulate the
idle, to reform the vicious, to check the petulant, and correct the
stubborn.

If we inquire into the practice of the primitive church, we shall, I
believe, find the ministers of the word exercising the whole authority
of this complicated character. We shall find them not only encouraging
the good by exhortation, but terrifying the wicked by reproof and
denunciation. In the earliest ages of the church, while religion was yet
pure from secular advantages, the punishmen