to the tempers, and desires, and purposes, the thoughts and interests of the heart. Then to enter into a strict and impartial scrutiny of our own hearts and lives; and comparing them with the law thus interpreted upon the principles of the Lawgiver and the Judge, and carefully watching against the delusions of self-love, to ask of our own consciences, To what extent have I transgressed this very commandment? How many degrees have I advanced upon the scale of this very crime, whose condemnation I am about to sauction and approve which man has branded with infamy and punishment: which God has marked out for vengeance? With what moral aggravations has my offence been committed, and which render it, though perhaps less criminal in the eyes of man, far more heinous in its real nature, and far more hateful in the eyes of the heart-seeing God, than that crime for which my fellow-sinner suffers? Amid how many advantages of education-how many opportunities of better information, denied to him, have I committed it? Against what actual illumination of the understanding, and what convictions of conscience, apparently unknown to him, have I thus sinned with a high hand against God? What strivings of the spirit, unfelt by him, have I resisted? What temporal favours and mercies-what spiritual blessings have I alone abused? Upon what professions of religion have I alone poured contempt in the midst of God's enemies? How have I alone crucified afresh the Son of God, and put him to an open shame ? Contemplations such as these will soften, humble, and evangelize the soul. The faults of an erring brother will be viewed indeed in the light of truth-his sufferings with the eye of charity. The riches of God's goodness, and forbearance, and long suffering towards us, thus heightened by the contrast with his swift and unerring vengeance upon others, will humble the soul with the only genuine and evangelical humiliation,-the mourning of awakened gratitude for offences against love thus will the goodness of God lead to repentance. Self-knowledge will lead to Christ. Conscience of sin will practically teach, what a thousand arguments and a thousand texts could never of themselves teach,—the necessity for an atoning Saviour: and Christ crucified will reveal to us, in a new and stronger light, the baseness and ingratitude of sin. The pure shrinking of the awakened soul from the pollution of indwelling sin, now felt and loathed, yet feebly and unsuccessfully resisted, will teach the absolute necessity for a sanctifying spirit, and the inestimable blessedness of his regenerating influences. The quickened appetites of the immortal soul, thus emptied of sin and self, for an enjoyment which creation refuses, because creation has it not to bestow, will guide it, amid the vanities, the perplexities, the temptations, of this lower world, to the presence of an indwelling God: to Him who is the sympathetic magnet of the heart's attractions: the great centre around which its affections revolve, while at every point they would fly off, if uncontrolled, and lose themselves amid chaos, and confusion, and the creature, and misery: the object, though unknown, of all its hopes and fears, wishes and anxieties: its origin and its end. The interruptions to that peace which God alone can give, and whose substance the world cannot take away, but which daily infirmities from within, and daily trials and sorrows from without, may diminish and disturb, will teach it, practically and habitually, to feel that here is not its rest: that for per manent and unalloyed felicity it must look with patient, believing hope beyond this dark and fluctuating and sinful world, to brighter, purer, and more enduring regions; to a body raised in incorruption;" to a "church without spot or wrinkle ;" to "a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God." : All within us, and all around us, thus calmly contemplated in the light of truth, and in the judgment of charity, will bring us, in a spirit of humility, of penitence, of love, to the foot of the Redeemer's cross there to cast ourselves upon the free grace, the unmerited mercy of God, pleading only the sin-atoning sacrifice of the Saviour. And thence arising, pardoned, comforted, and strengthened, with the boundless realms of eternity stretching in bright and ample prospect before us seeing him who is invisible living by faith of the Son of God, and led by the Spirit of God, we shall walk acceptably unto all pleasing and in the great day of final and universal judgment, when the impenitent shall call upon the mountains to fall upon them, and the hills to cover them, to hide them from the face of the Lamb, when this day of his wrath has come, we shall look, and lift up our heads, knowing that our redemption draweth nigh: and shall receive that blessing which Christ will then pronounce on all who fear and love God, Come, ye blessed children of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Enter ye into the joy of your Lord. J. M. H. RECIPROCAL INFLUENCE OF INFIDELITY AND VICE. To the Editor of the Christian Observer. I was not a little delighted with the justice of J. M. H.'s observations in your May Number, on the "Reciprocal Influence of Infidelity and Vice," with every tittle of which I concur; and which in my own ministry and experience I have frequently seen verified. But I could not help reflecting, while reading them, that the principle upon which your correspondent has so well shewn that the reciprocal influence of infidelity and vice depends, is equally applicable to all those minor shades of infidelity, which, though they pass current among us as mere sectarian opinions, yet by how much they are removed from "the truth as it is in Jesus," by how much they serve to undermine the foundations of faith, or to obscure the object of faith, by so much are infidelity in embryo, and I think not the less dangerous or less to be dreaded, because of their being veiled over with a Christian name, or promulgated by men to whom Providence may have assigned high rank or station either in Church or State. A church or nation may become judicially blinded, and lose its candlestick, and such an event is brought about by second causes; but if the decree is, that at such times "there shall be a bridle in the jaws of the people causing them to err," I ask what symbolically are "the jaws of the people" but their authorised teachers, and what is the bridle" therein that "causes to err," but false doctrines or practices officially promulgated and sanctioned? Such being the case, it is clearly possible, unless the Christian Church has never need to apprehend judicial blindness and apostacy, which one would think some imagine when, like Mr. Sewell in his CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 43. 3 E "Christian Morals," as he terms them, they require that "a pupil should put implicit confidence in his teacher, and that a teacher should never permit his word to be disputed or his character for veracity slighted,"*-it is, I say, possible that there may be times when a people should obey the Divine word, and "cease to hear the instruction that causeth to err from the words of knowledge," (Prov. xix. 27), lest, whilst listening to such teaching they may be imbibing, in an insidious form, THE PRINCIPLES OF INFIDELITY! But I commenced with noticing the reciprocal influence of vice and infidelity, and then applied it to those minor shades of infidelity, indicated by sectarian opinion, subversive of the fundamentals of faith. Now if infidelity in the abstract "be but symptomatic of a mortal disease more deeply seated in the soul; a disease which has corrupted the moral senses and moral powers, and thus poisoned the very fountain of spiritual life," as J.M.H. observes, why may we not consider sectarian infidelity in the same point of view, as indicative " of a previous rejection of God by the moral man?” And if this be true of the taught, why may it not be so of the teachers? If we are to look for the outbreakings of infidelity among our people in proportion as there exists in them "some recorded vicious habit, some unmortified passion, some unsubdued temper," why may we not infer that "the more subtle leaven of pride of intellectual attainment or pride of moral worth," the vices to which the very profession of a clergyman peculiarly exposes him, will be found in close alliance with some correlative opinion of a corresponding infidel character? The publican and the harlot entered into the kingdom of God before the self-justifying Pharisee, or the loose speculative Sadducee but both the one and the other "must have rejected God by the moral man, before the intellectual man could have been abandoned to spe 66 * Professor Sewell strangely argues from the veracity of the teacher to the truth of what he teaches. The pupil ought of course to have" implicit confidence" in the sense that he does not 'dispute his word;" for unless the teacher has been able to secure this moral confidence, his instructions will be heard with suspicion and contempt; but a tutor may believe what he asserts and yet not assert what is true, or what his pupil is bound to believe. Does Professor Sewell really consider that to doubt the truth of any of his opinions is to "slight his veracity?" The writer of the Letters of Junius remarked long ago to Sir William Draper, "You might have learned at the University that a false conclusion is an error in argument, not a breach of veracity." Mr. Sewell is alluding particularly to pastoral instruction; so that if all the people in a congregation do not receive with "implicit confidence" every opinion advanced in every sermon, and all the contradicting opinions advanced in a thousand pulpits; each preacher is to resent this resilence as a personal insult, and to reply "I never permit my word to be disputed, or my character for veracity to be slighted.” And this ipse dixit drivelling of the darkest ages of ignorance, superstition, and mental slavery, is taught, in the year 1841, in a professional chair of the University of Oxford. We blush for our venerated Alma Mater. Maynooth might teach essentially the same doctrines, but would be a little more reserved in the enunciation of them. Assuredly these things must seriously injure the University of Oxford: for what considerate parent can without alarm expose his son to the danger of foregoing all noble, manly, serious, and Christian exercise of thought; in favour of an abject, servile, unreasoning, unscriptural credulity, which substitutes the opinions or the whimsies of every college tutor or parish priest for the word of God, as the sole rule of faith or to the still greater danger of scepticism or Socialism, from the recoil of a powerful and inquiring but not scripturally instructed mind, from such untenable doctrines. culative infidelity, and the physical man to profligacy or carelessness." But if both had rejected God by their "moral man," and so both were practically infidels, how is it that the Scribe and Pharisee who could talk of God, of the law, of sin, and of righteousness, and pretend a zeal for these things; [and who intellectually had not so far rejected God as had the publicans and harlots] were less ready to enter the kingdom of heaven than the latter? Is it bad reasoning to infer, bearing in mind the reciprocal influence of infidelity and vice, that whatever was the degree of the sensualist's infidelity, how great soever in him was the rejection of God by his moral man; yet it bore no comparison with that of the Scribe and Pharisee. If, then, vice and infidelity be reciprocal, and if intellectual vice and infidelity, as we have seen by this example, imply a greater rejection of God by the moral man, than does physical, have we not a clue to that aversion to the simple doctrines of revelation, which too generally characterizes the learned, the acute, the noble and the dignified? If this reasoning then be correct, as I humbly conceive it to be, may we not thence derive the following conclusions? 1st. That a man's infidelity will be analogous to his vice. 2nd. That every profession or rank in life has temptations to some peculiar vice, and consequently to an infidelity analogous to it? 3rd. That such professions as give a scope for intellectual attain ment, or a pretension to moral worth, are more especially exposed to that highest species of infidelity, which is symptomatic of the highest degree of the rejection of God by the moral man. Lastly, that the clerical function is, therefore, more than all others, in danger of being infected therewith. I fear that whatever may be thought of the premises which I conceive bring us to these conclusion, the conclusions themselves are confirmed by all history, especially ecclesiastical. The two dominant features of Antichrist are pride and ambition; and accordingly, the infidelity of Antichrist has ever developed itself in doctrines which, professing to be Christian, have yet so warped and twisted the Christian scheme, as, under the name of religion, to lay a secure foundation whereon to erect a superstructure, in which those vices, as in a shrine, may be cherished and idolized. Thus "the abomination that maketh desolate is made to stand in the holy place," and God, who is a jealous God, is driven from his sanctuary. I am grieved to add that I fear these reflections apply too much to the Oxford Tract writers, both in their spirit and writings, notwithstanding the reputation of some of them for external holiness. God knows their heart; but I think that the infidelity which would tell me, as Mr. Sewell does his pupil, that "God, in giving us a revelation, has not given it to us all perfect and every part in place, but left a window in the palace of truth, that man might have a share in the work;" while, on the other hand, "the Catholic body preserves the truth, just as nature has formed different lenses in the eye, in order to transmit the light;"-such an infidelity as ascribes a perfect transmission of the Divine mind, as by a lens, to the Catholic Church, but denies the same property to the revelation of God in the Scriptures, argues the existence of a state of mind morally hostile to the reception of the Gospel in its truth and simplicity. FORM OF RECANTATION OF POPERY. IT has been adversely argued, whether in the case of Roman Catholics renouncing the errors of popery, and conforming to the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England, it is advisable to insist upon a solemn public act of recantation. The reception of the Lord's Supper according to the Anglican rites, is a silent but decisive and overt abjuration of Romanism, and confession of Anglican Protestantism; and this, it is alleged by some, is all that is necessary, and perhaps as much as the Church has a right to demand; at least as much as it is wise to ask for; since it is enough that error is forsaken and truth embraced; and the requirement of a formal public act might deter timid or reserved persons from taking the decisive step. Perhaps the best course, in regard to the laity, is to deal with Roman Catholics wishing to conform to the Church of England as with Protestant Dissenters similarly circumstanced; that is, for the clergyman to examine them as to their knowledge and faith, and to ascertain that their conversation is becoming the Gospel (just as, if discipline were kept up, he ought in every other case), and then to admit them, if approved, without any test or overt renunciation, beyond that implied in the reception of the Lord's Supper according to our ritual. But the case of a Romanist Priest, as of a Protestant Dissenting Minister, is different. The parties are leaders, not private persons; they cannot claim to walk the quiet vale of retirement; the flocks over which they are to be placed have a right to demand a reason of the hope that is in them; and those they have quitted ought to be certified that they have acted thoughtfully and conscientiously; and lest the change should have been prompted by worldly motives, the church has a good warrant to institute a diligent scrutiny, and to demand a solemn protestation. But even in these instances a public form of recantation is not essential. In regard to Protestant Dissenting ministers it is never required; for their application for episcopal ordination, and their subscription to the Anglican Articles of faith, are the most stringent tests; and anything farther, of a public character, would be uncandidly suspicious. But the Romanist priest, though he has more difficulties to encounter than the the Protestant Dissenting minister in most respects, has not the formidable one relative to ordination; for upon his conforming to the Church of England he is in point of fact regarded ecclesiastically as an Anglican clergyman; though I do not know by what legal authority he can be licensed to officiate in our churches (much less to hold a benefice) any more than, till the late act of Parliament, could a clergyman of the United States; for why should popish orders be preferred to those of our daughter or sister Protestant episcopal churches? or by what law are they recognized as a qualification for officiating in the national Church of England? I do not mean that episcopal ordination, though obtained in a corrupt church, should be repeated, when the party conforms to a pure confession; but the offices of the Church of England have been by law confined (till of late) to persons ordained by our own |