void and of none effect the mystery of the Divine dispensation; but God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, in whom is our salvation, life, and resurrection."" I consider three things in which my hope consists; the love of adoption, the truth of the promise, and the power of performance. Let my foolish heart murmur as much as it pleaseth, and say, Who art thou, and how great is that glory, or by what merits dost thou expect to obtain it? I will confidently answer, I know whom I have believed, and I am certain, that he hath adopted me in love; that he is true to his promise; that he is powerful to perform it; for he can do what he pleaseth. This is the threefold cord which is not easily broken, which being let down to us from our heavenly country to earth, I pray that we may firmly hold; and may He himself lift us up, and draw us completely to the glory of God, who is blessed for ever." Happy is he alone, to whom the Lord imputeth not sin. To have Him propitious to me, against whom alone I have sinned, suffices for my righteousNot to impute my sins, is, as it were, to blot out their existence. If my iniquity is great, thy grace is much greater. When my soul is troubled at the view of her sinfulness, I look at thy mercy and am refreshed."*

ness.

66

The reputation of Bernard, and his great connexions, permitted him to inveigh with impunity against the luxury and the sensuality of the clergy, of which he was a faithful reprover.' pp. 221-223.

There is much that merits attention in the following observations on the state and principles of parties at the commencement of the reign of Mary, on which we forbear to remark.

The nation very generally sided with the legal heir. Mary had promised to the men of Suffolk and Norfolk, that she would not alter the national religion; and after her accession, declared by a proclamation, that she would force no one's conscience. But in her bigoted zeal for the papacy, and for what she considered to be necessary to the eternal salvation of her people, all these promises were soon forgotten. Nor was it to be expected, upon the acknowledged principles of that religion, that a Roman Catholic, having the power, could act otherwise; for it was maintained, that" no engagements against the interests of Holy Church were binding"" that there was no salvation out of the pale of that communion". "that it was accordingly the duty which rulers owed to God, for the good of their subjects' souls, to reduce them to conformity, even by the severest punishments." If it must be confessed, that some measures of government in the late reign, savoured of this last maxim, they were very far from being the principles of the Reformation. There were none of its esteemed writers but held the sanctity of an oath or a promise, though it were to their own injury. They did not lay it down as a principle, that there was no salvation out of their own respective communions; and although their opponents objected to them, that they held-what

* Milner.

amounted to the same, that none but the elect could be saved, this was a totally different principle in practice; for they did not presume to know the secret decrees of God; much less could they suppose that by civil penalties they could compel people to become of the number of the elect, or that, to save their souls, they must of necessity be subject to their spiritual authority: they did not confine salvation to the pale of their churches. They had, however, so far assimilated with the Roman Catholics, that they thought, where the governments of states or cities embraced their religion, they were bound to provide instructers, to order the public profession of religion according to what they conceived to be the truth of God's Word, and to protect the same by civil penalties. Most of them also thought with the Papists, that the teaching of fundamental errors was to be restrained, as blasphemy against God; and that the promulgators of the same should be treated as a sort of poisoners to the soul. They argued, besides, that as part of the Roman superstition was idolatry, it ought not to be publicly allowed.

But, notwithstanding these false inferences and the general barbarity of the age, the conduct of the reformers, when in power, towards the subject Papists, was very different from the conduct of the Papists towards them, when their circumstances were reversed. The great distinction, however, to be observed, is this: the principles of the reformers admitted, and must have drawn after them, a toleration of dissent from the religion of the majority or governing part of society -at least where no seditious principles were involved, as in the case of some of the Anabaptists, or political crime, as maintaining with the Papists the temporal authority of the bishop of Rome. But the principles of the Papists, when authority was in their hands, never could admit of any toleration, or even leave undisturbed the consciences of private persons; nor were the heads of their church at all scrupulous to avow this. The only hope, therefore, of the people of England at this juncture, was in the legislature: but such was the divided state of the nation, or such their indifference to religion, and so great was the preponderance of the crown, that the houses of parliament, secured in their possession of the property spoiled from the church, suffered themselves to be moulded entirely by the will of the sovereign.' pp. 48, 9.

With the manner in which. Mr. Fry expresses himself in regard to some measures of severity adopted by Queen Elizabeth and Archbishop Parker, we find no reason for being dissatisfied; but there are some other points in respect to which we cannot commend his discernment. "We cannot,' he says, (p. 502, note), sufficiently lament that it was necessary, with respect both to Puritans and Papists, to make conformity to the Protestant Church a test of loyalty to the Government, which gave that the appearance of a religious persecution, which was only designed as the punishment of faction and rebellion.' This, if we mistake not, might as justly be

alleged by a Romish writer in vindication of the measures of the infamous Mary, who had been set aside by the Reformers from the succession. But that Elizabeth was a religious persecutor, Mr. Fry himself has admitted, animadverting on her conduct with that censure which it was impossible for any Christian writer in our times to withhold. In the case of the two Dutch Anabaptists who were burned in Smithfield, and for whose lives the martyrologist Fox was in vain a petitioner to the queen, she considered herself necessitated to this severity; for, having punished traitors, if she now spared the blasphemers, the world,' she said, 'would condemn her in being more earnest in asserting her own safety than God's honour. This is proof sufficient that the severities of Elizabeth were not always the punishment of sedition and rebellion,-that she remembered her ecclesiastical, not less than her temporal authority, and was resolved to shew, that the ' supremacy' which she supported, was not in her account a prerogative of pageantry and form. With respect to the Puritans, some of whose proceedings we should not hesitate to blame, the vindictive proceedings of the Court in their extremest rigour, were directed against them for alleged delinquencies which had no reference but to principles and practices strictly and purely religious.

It has been a favourite position with many clerical writers in defence of the Established Church, that her formularies are the safeguards of Christian doctrine; and that, in particular, the reading of the Liturgy, in cases where instructions delivered from the pulpit are in opposition to evangelical truth, is an important advantage which that Church possesses, compared with other religious communities in a state of religious declension, which are not possessed of a liturgical service. Mr. Fry would seem to adopt this opinion. In his account of the state of religion in the Established Church and among the Dissenters of this country, in the former part of the last century, he observes that, except in some few churches and congregations, the doctrines of the Reformation were in a manner lost, the Dissenters who continued orthodox were driven into the corners,' and that in the general church'-'the most admired preaching, and that which almost universally prevailed, insisted chiefly upon the practice of moral virtues.' desk, indeed,' he goes on to say, held another language; ' and on this very account, a parish church could not be so 'destitute of all evangelical light, as an Arianised presbyterian 'meeting-house,because all did not depend upon the officiating minister. The church, in regard of her liturgy, was still "a pillar of the truth." In a subsequent passage, Mr.

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Fry appears to appreciate the reading of the Holy Scriptures as a means of religious instruction, more highly than even the reading of the Liturgy. But, among the falling presbyterian societies of England, the reading of the Holy Scriptures was a part of their public service, and this advantage, therefore, equally attached to their institutions. It is, however, altogether unnecessary to determine to which of the parties the superiority might belong; since Mr. Fry himself, who cannot be supposed to estimate the utility of the Liturgy below its proper value, has given us in some paragraphs which immediately follow our last citation, such a description of the Church of which he is a minister, during the times referred to, and has so reasoned on the facts adduced, as to deprive his previous assumptions relative to the efficiency of the Liturgy, of every measure of importance.

The church, in regard to her liturgy, was still a pillar of the truth;” and a congregation in the church of England, could not attend at morning and evening prayer, and at the communion-service, without hearing and rehearsing a full declaration of Gospel truth, in all its most essential points. But still it is remarkable, how little this was understood or perceived. The multitude both of priests and people, too often drew near to God with their lips, when their hearts were far from him," and offered indeed "the sacrifice of fools." This state of things, not yet every where gone past, and never altogether unknown, as to some parts of the most enlightened congregations, illustrates that great truth of revelation the necessity of a spiritual illumination: the things of God are foolishness to the natural man, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."

It also seems to shew, that the raising up of faithful preachers of the Gospel, is still the usual method which the great Head of the Church is pleased to employ, in saving them that believe. Instances of conversion and of spiritual edification have not been wanting in the worst of times, from the using of the Liturgy, and from reading the Book of Common Prayer; but, judging from all appearance, the instances have been very rare, in comparison of the blessing which has generally attended the poorest efforts of the weakest of Christ's ministers, who have been truly taught by him, and have been raised up as heralds of his mercies. We can assign no reason for this, but that such is the sovereign pleasure of God. Appearances may perhaps deceive us, and in some measure they probably do, in this matter; but hitherto, if we include all other means of instruction, even the reading of the Holy Scriptures themselves, except in connexion with a preached Gospel, it seems, that in all ages, from the times of the apostles, the great public work of divine grace has been carried on by sending messengers, according to our Lord's representation, "to open the dark eyes, to turn men from darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive remission of sins, and an inheritance among them that are sanctified through

faith in Christ." This we certainly know, that in those congregations in the church of England, where the pulpit contradicts the desk, or is silent on those "mysteries of the faith" on the foundation of which our public services are constructed, the state of religious knowledge is deplorably low; worship is for the most part mere formality, or much tinctured with superstition. Some go about to establish their own righteousness, and are outwardly moral and charitable to the poor; but for the most part, a cold indifference, and sometimes an absolute pagan ignorance of Christianity prevails.'

pp. 593, 4. From several passages which presented themselves to our attention in perusing Mr. Fry's pages, we were not a little curious to learn, in what manner he would describe the conduct of the heads of the English Church at the era of the Revolution. We certainly are prepared to go as far as Mr. Fry himself in allowing, that it were better for the world and for ' religion, were all those who addict themselves to the work of the ministry to have done with worldly politics.' But, knowing as we do, the secular character and relations of his Church, we are somewhat jealous of the exhortations which we occasionally hear from its ministers, when they admonish us to submit to every ordinance of man. Were our obedience to be conformable to their rule of duty, it might but too frequently commit us to the politics of the world. When we found Mr. Fry describing the doctrines of passive obedience' and non' resistance,' as demanding the serious consideration of all denominations of Christians who desire to learn and practice the will of Christ, we felt anxious to have his judgement on a practical case; and this he affords us in his account of the Revolution. But he has not enabled those of his readers who may have to learn the facts of that memorable era solely from his pages, to estimate either fairly or fully the conduct of the established clergy at that period. The famous Oxford decree, which asserted the doctrines of passive obedience and nonresistance, and declared all manner of resistance damnable and infamous to the Christian religion, is not once adverted to; but, of those who published this decree through the na tion in 1683, and in 1688 resisted the authority of King James, Mr. Fry is the panegyrist.

'Men,' he says, who carried to the extreme their notion of the duty of obedience to the king, were now compelled to make their choice between that obedience and the sacrifice of their church and of the Protestant religion. In such a dilemma they could not hesitate, and were soon put to the proof. The bishops could not but feel themselves on this occasion strong in the support of public opinion; yet, their conduct must be considered as bold and magnani

mous.'