before the nations. Looking back upon the annals of the papacy, a multitude of forms pass before us," red in their apparel," "arrayed in garments rolled in blood," calculated to make us feel like the Temanite who, when troubled by a spectral form in the night vision, declared, "fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my boues to shake." Some there are amid the throng, "in shape and gesture proudly eminent ;" the evil-minded Dominic, who gave birth to the Inquisition, and called into being its familiars, to smell out victims for its tortures; the fiery Montfort, who laid waste the plains of Languedoc, and gave to the sword a hundred thousand Albigenses between the rising and the setting sun; the haughty Guises, planning by day, and dreaming by night, to get the Hugonots within their toils, from which a speedy death was the only possible escape: the bigot Alva, who measured his merits as a soldier by the number of heretic Flemings he had butchered; the morose and gloomy Mary, who lighted Smithfield with the flames which consumed her martyred subjects; these are the ghastly phantoms that appear, assuredly not "spirits of health, but goblins damned," when we call upon the chronicles of the past to show us the progeny that sprung from the alliance of Rome's ecclesiastical polity with the powers of this world. But the Romish church has not been the only one guilty of setting at nought the royal authority of Christ, and committing "fornication with the kings of the earth." This is one of the points at issue between us and the nominally reformed episcopal Church of England. She not only passively submits to earthly lordship in things spiritual, but glories in an unlawful wedlock, with the power of the State. She places the government in causes ecclesiastical upon the shoulders of the temporal monarch, who, though separated from the common crowd by the distinctions of this life, must at last descend to its level, when the brilliant saloons of the castle are exchanged for the dark chilly vaults of the tomb-house at Windsor. She brings forward a son of earth, terræ filius, and says to all archbishops, bishops, deans, prebends, clerks and laymen, within the realm, "Behold your king," granting to him the conscience as an integral portion of his empire. She keeps up a spiritual tribunal for the correction of all who gainsay her will, and firm concord holds with the secular power, so that the chattels of recusants may be distrained, and the free air of heaven be shut out from them by the walls of a felon's prison. No matter how unenlightened may be the monarch's own mind, hard his heart, and ungodly his life-how tainted with the smell of vice may be the atmosphere of his court, so that modest women are constrained to keep aloof from its precincts; the church embraces him as her chosen spouse, promises to serve and to obey him as a part of conjugal duty, and loses sight of his personal delinquencies in the glories of his official character. We fortify these statements by an appeal to the canons. The first article of the thirtysecond, which every clergyman must sign, declares, "That the king's majesty, under God, is the only supreme governor of this realm, and of all other his highness's dominions and countries, as well in all spiritual or ecclesiastical things or causes, as temporal." The royal declaration printed in the Prayer-Book states, "That we are supreme governor of the Church of England, and that if any difference arise about the external policy, concerning the injunctions, canons, and other constitutions whatsoever thereto belonging, the clergy in their convocation is to order and settle them, having first obtained leave under our broad seal so to do, and we approving their said ordinances and constitutions." The second canon enacts, 66 Whosoever shall hereafter affirm, that the king's majesty hath not the same authority, in causes ecclesiastical, that the godly kings had amongst the Jews and christian emperors of the primitive church, or impeach any part of his regal supremacy in the said causes restored to the Crown, and by the laws of this realm therein established, let him be excommunicated, ipso facto, and not restored, but only by the archbishop, after his repentance, and public revocation of those his wicked errors." The earthly liege-lord, which the Church of England has thus wedded, has not been permitted to slumber quietly by her side. Among the scenes which catch our eye, when gazing back on by-gone time, there is the frequent spectacle of men and women being haled to prison for not foregoing their allegiance to Christ at the command of Protestantism in power. We see a Baxter, standing at the bar, like a common felon, for expounding God's word, and Jeffries fiercely scowling on him for the gross misdeed; a lone woman, with her boy, weeping at the threshold of a jail, that boy afterwards the far-famed Watts, and that woman the wife of his imprisoned father; thousands of Covenanters, roaming shelterless amid the highlands of the north, to escape the sword of Claverhouse, sent to cry" havoc, and let slip the dogs of war." Now, believing as we do, that there is nothing in Scripture to warrant the principle of the church taking to herself a temporal head, that it is a flagrant opposition to the appointment of Christ as "head over all things to the church," and that nothing has been more mischievous to the cause of godliness than the attempt to uphold it by worldly power; we deem it the sacred duty of the dissenting body to bear testimony decidedly and practically against the coalition. Especially is this needed at a time when the oppressive machinery of the ecclesiastical courts is put in motion, to deprive us of the liberty where with Christ has made us free. The employment of carnal weapons on the side of the Establishment, renders it necessary that we should keep our spiritual ones duly polished and attempered. We call to mind, therefore, the sayings of our Master, "Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great, exercise authority upon them, but it shall not be so among you.' "Be not ye called Rabbi, for one is your Master, even Christ, and ye are all brethren; and call no man your father upon the earth, for one is your Father which is in heaven." "Be not ye the servants of men ;" and making use of all constitutional means, and maintaining an unruffled temper, we would recommend our friends to contend for the truth thus plainly declared, patiently submitting to whatever measure of obloquy or violence may be encountered in so doing. IV. We would further have the practical and experimental nature of true religion prominently inculcated. Man is naturally a fallen, but not an irreligious being. He comes into the world the child of sin, but not a convert to infidelity. The desire is strong and deep within his heart, upon his own terms, to reconcile himself to the claims of the Deity; and that system is likely to find favour in his sight, which sanctions the delusive idea of his doing it, without violence being offered to the unhallowed lustings of his nature after forbidden things. Experience proves that men will submit patiently to much onerous external service, and become willing drudges under any burden that may be laid upon their shoulders, if, upon these terms alone, they may satisfy their consciences. The fabrics of ancient Paganism were erected to gratify this propensity; and when they were overthrown, the author of all evil, as one remarks, would have been the "arrantest fool,” had he not contrived a scheme to answer the same end. The papal perversion took, in this respect, the place of Paganism, and threw out the tempting bait to mankind, of being religious without being virtuous, and of acquiring the peace of God, while retaining, in its full strength, the plague of their own hearts. Thus Popery has remained to the present; a place of harbourage for the soul anxious to avoid a conflict with its own passions; the modern Babylon, enticing men to its gates with the potent spell, that fellowship with light and darkness, concord with Christ and Belial, may be enjoyed within its walls. For the people, indeed, to be told this in words, would be too gross a delusion to be attempted with success; but such is the doctrine substantially taught, by holding out salvation as dependant upon the observance of outward rites and ceremonies. The Romish church assumes to be Peter's boat floating upon the troubled waters of this world; it declares that, like Noah's ark, out of it there can be no safety, but that in it, there is security from the deluge of the divine wrath, no matter how unsanctified may be the lives of those whom it encloses. The same features are stamped upon the creed of our high-churchmen, the Protestant sympathisers with Popery. They hold it forth as a matter of doubt, whether any out of the episcopal communion can be in a salvable condition, unless they repent and come into their fold. They proclaim the sacraments administered by an episcopally ordained ministry to be the only authorized and ever unfailing means of grace. They call upon their flocks to rejoice in having these conduits of heavenly benediction in their midst, and not to peril their souls by straying off from them among the sectaries, though they may have the sincere milk of God's word to dispense. Far above the "weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith," are the sacraments exalted, when received from duly official hands; and thus practically are the people under such teaching, trained up to consider the discipline of the heart as of inferior moment, when compared with "meats, and drinks, and divers washings," under clerical superintendence. It is needless for us to show how utterly subversive of the whole tenor of the New Testament these notions are; neither we, nor our fathers, have ever been in doubt as to whether the gospel is intrinsically a ceremonial dispensation or not; we have learnt, from competent authority, and sure experience, that the "kingdom of God conieth not with observation," being righteousness, peace, and joy, in the Holy Ghost;" but enlightened dissenters must beware of supposing, that, because the spiritual nature of religion is a truth written down clearly enough to them on the inspired page, therefore they can afford to smile upon 66 the efforts of those who would rob it of its internal empire, and resolve it into a mere physical operation. Let them remember, that the "natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him;" let them reflect upon the ease with which the conquest of human nature may be achieved, by any superstition which offers to pacify its fears, without rigorously retrenching its indulgences; let them think of that immense class of society, who, opposed from thoughtlessness or vice to Christ's yoke upon the heart, are therefore inclined to receive any substitute for it; and let them contend for that prostration of the soul before God under a sense of its demerit, that practical faith in the atonement as the only medium of access to the Father of mercies, and that personal sanctification through the Spirit, without which all knowledge is vain, all observances are useless, and the solemn meeting is iniquity. We have thus suggested a few topics, which commend themselves to our judgment, as forming, in the language of the Church of England, "a godly and wholesome doctrine, and necessary for these times.” If coming events cast their shadows before, it seems highly probable, from the aspect of the religious world, that we are on the eve of a struggle, in which it will have to be determined, whether the Fathers or the Apostles, the traditions of men or the counsel of God, the enactments of the Parliament or the sceptre of Christ, shall have the supremacy. The authority of the Bible, the spirituality of religion, and the integrity of our Lord's mediatorial office, are the points in dispute between us and the Roman and Anglican state churches; and let us be prepared to give a public, solemn, and scriptural testimony in favour of these truths, avoiding any feeble compact, or timid alliance with their impugners, so as to bring our fidelity to them into suspicion. Reproach we may have to suffer, and friendships we may have to resign, but in a righteous cause, obloquy is honour, and suffering renown. We deem it, however, of importance, to be on our guard against an error, which has been committed upon an extensive scale to the detriment of the truth, that of recurring to certain ancient maxims floating in the church, right in themselves, for the purpose of finding repose in them, without being stimulated into activity by them. It will not do while the storm of cunningly devised fables is sweeping around us, to sit by our bright fire-sides, calmly repeating the proverb, Magna est veritas et prævalebit. The saying is, indeed, a verity, but to allow it to act as an opiate upon us, lulling our susceptibilities, and suspending our exertions, is not the way to prove it one. What the Greek orator mentioned as essential to effective eloquence, is necessary, on the part of the friends of truth, to secure its triumph, Action! Action! Action! Then, with God's blessing upon their efforts, we may hope, in the words of our great poet, that TRUTH, though "hewn like the mangled body of Osiris into a thousand pieces, and scattered to the four winds, shall be gathered limb to limb, and moulded, with every joint and member, into an immortal feature of loveliness and perfection." CRITICAL NOTICES. Christian Duties in the various Relations of Life. By T. Lewis, Islington. 12mo. pp. 362. London: Ward and Co. THE venerable author of these discourses has now sustained, for nearly forty years, the pastoral charge of the church and congregation assembling at Union Chapel, Islington, and we rejoice in the evidence which this volume supplies, "that his eye is not dim, nor his natural force abated;" and though, as he informs his present flock, there are not now six individuals amongst them who united to choose him as their pastor, yet still he is surrounded by a numerous and deeply attached people, who know how to appreciate his public and pastoral labours, and his useful and devoted life. Of the character of his ministry the present volume supplies a fair and very favourable specimen. It contains six discourses on Christian Duties, viz.; the Observance of the Times; Duty of Christians at the present Time; Duties of the Heads of Families; Duties of Children and Servants; Duties of the Members of Churches; Duties of the Hearers of the Word. If not original and profound, the reader will find these discourses perspicuous, evangelical, and eminently practical, characterized by scriptural sentiments and faithful appeals to the understanding and the conscience, and well adapted to the circumstances of our times. A former volume from the same pen, entitled Christian Characteristics, was very favourably received by the public; we wish that the present useful volume may have an equally extensive circulation, so that its esteemed author may be encouraged to publish a third and concluding volume, which he contemplates, on Christian Privileges. Harley Street Chapel, The Preacher's Determination: a Sermon delivered at Bow, Middlesex, on Lord's Day, December 8, 1839. Dobbin, B. A. of Trinity College, Dublin. pp. 40. THIS sermon was delivered on occasion of its esteemed author commencing his pastoral duties at Bow. The text is well chosen; "I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified." The exposition is good; though we differ from our author in the opinion that Apollos was chosen by his admirers as the head of a party. We are inclined rather to the opinion, that the false teachers were the chosen heads of the sections into which that church was divided, and that the apostle represented himself, Apollos, Cephas, and Christ, as leaders only by a figure of speech. Tavra-μerασxηματισα εις εμαυτον και Απολλω. Ch. iv. 6. A careful examination of his passage and its context, and a comparison of it with the 2d ch. and the character of the false teachers at Corinth, will, we believe, evince the correctness of this view. The limitation of the text we deem important, and our author has illustrated it copiously, as well as defined it strongly. The substance of the sermon is devoted to the IMPORTANCE OF MAKING SUCH A RESOLVE as that of the apostle. Mr. D. argues, that it will help us to overcome the natural apprehensions connected with the office of an evangelist; will lead to an effective method of preaching; and that it will be pleasant to reflect upon for ever. In the conclusion, the preacher dwells on the reciprocal obligations of minister and people. He says, "So long as I observe this determination of the apostle which you have heard me appropriate this morning, so long (ought) you to be my respectful and deferential hearers. By your cordial and unanimous suffrage I occupy the desk of the teacher: your relative position, by the providence of God, is the chair of the hearer; let it never become the chair of the scorner. I believe no man ever slights God's ministers without a cause, that does not suffer for it. We know who has said, 'Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm.' |