the Church of Rome, which sounds most grating and offensive in the ears of the English Christians, to be considered the mother, and therefore, mistress of all other Churches. For these modes of singing the praises of our great Creator, which move your pious indignation, are, indeed, reliques, but if I mistake not, reliques of "Jerusalem which is above," and which we have the warrant of the Holy Ghost for styling "the mother of us all." The Mosaic Church was, as your Lordship knows, founded upon the model of the heavenly one; "for see, said he, that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed thee on the Mount." In this Church we find solos, duets, and chorusses, introduced into the service of the Almighty; of which the solo of Miriam, and the chorus of the women whom she answered, and the duet of Deborah and Barak, are sufficient instances: while the whole frame and composition of the Psalms in their parallelisms, and alternations leaves no doubt of the correctness of the conclusions to which Lowth and Cleaver, and Horsley and Jebb, and others, have been led, that they were composed for alternate recitations, like our Cathedral chanting. But we may go somewhat higher. It has pleased Almighty God occasionally to encourage his servants in this life by partially withdrawing the clouds which conceal the inhabitants of heaven from our view, and permitting us to catch a glimpse of their employments. We find the holy seraphim engaged in an occupation, the feeble imitation of which by mortal men upon earth, has called forth your severe reprobation. Yes, my Lord, they are actually described as "chanting" the praises of Jehovah by alternate movements. So Isaiah teaches us, "I saw the Lord sitting upon his throne, high and lifted up. Above it stood the seraphim, one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts." But our cathedral service is so cold! Oh, my Lord, if your own heart does not glow at the hearing of those heavenly melodies, do not envy those who are formed of happier temperament the enjoyment and benefit which they draw from them. Many a weary soul, I doubt not, has been refreshed and awakened by them, which else might have remained drowsy and indolent. Many a chord, by means of them, been struck in a sinner's breast, which will vibrate to all eternity with the praises of the Lamb. The great and good departed have recorded their sense of the value of them. It is related of the pious George Herbert, "that he went usually twice every week on certain appointed days to the Cathedral Church in Salisbury; and at his return would say, 'that his time spent in prayer, and cathedral music, elevated his soul, and was his heaven upon earth.' But alas! all these things which have cheered and solaced God's servants in their weary pilgrimage, are about to be removed. That fatal and deadly storm which sour puritanism and envious schism combined to raise against the fairest portion of God's heritage, is about once more to spread its desolating force on our land; the Church of England once more to be overthrown and trampled upon by those whom she admitted into her fold, and nourished with her fruits; our pleasant places to be laid waste, “the carved work thereof to be broken down with axes and hammers." Already are the traitors within, and the foes without, arranging their watch-words, and the self-same notes resounded which were echoed at the former onslaught. Again is our cathedral service, which we copied from the seraphim, cried down as a relic of popery; and the book of Common Prayer, whose almost every petition has been used by Christian saints for upwards of twelve hundred years, denounced as an abomination. These are signs of the times which there is no mistaking. Thanks be to God! the storm will not find us unprepared! Praised be his name! for having delayed it till we had received, both by word and deed, our warning to "set our houses in order," and have, I trust, profited by the warning. There is one ground of comfort, my Lord, in all this, which you will rejoice to hear. The desolation cannot last for ever. When the whirlwind has swept by, and they who thought to ride upon it are blown into oblivion, then shall we again lift up our heads. Either we shall witness the restoration, and hear the voice of joy and gladness once more in our dwellings, see the waste places rebuilt, again hear the pealing organ swell its note of praise, and the merry bells ring out their jocund sound; or our pilgrimage will be over, and we shall have exchanged, through the Redeemer's blood, our earthly choirs for celestial. For your Lordship's sake, I trust that, ere that time arrives, a sounder judgment will possess you in these matters. Lest, haply, when the heavenly portals are flung open to receive you, and the sound of the celestial concert strikes your ear, "the harpers harping with their harps; " the clang of the archangel's "trumpet; some clear voiced angel leading the hymns; the seraphim responding to each other with the trisagion; the four and twenty and the four singing their new song of worthiness; and the full chorus of the one hundred and forty four thousand, pouring forth that song which none but they can learn; your heart be chilled within you, and you show the superior soundness and purity of your piety by turning away in disgust from such "papal" abominations.-Pp. 26―31. On the whole, it is impossible to regard the course Lord Henley has taken without deep regret. We respect him sincerely. He, no doubt, wishes well to the Church, but in the unsuspecting ingenuousness and simplicity of his heart, he seems to have fallen among a class who are determined to play him as a good card for their purposes. We would recommend him, at all events, if his steps can be in any degree retraced, to avow his intention of withdrawing from the arena he has chosen until the Report of the Ecclesiastical Commission shall appear. For ourselves, when the Convocation is granted, we shall very readily state whatever we may deem improvements in ecclesiastical affairs; but, until that happy day shall come, suggestions of this kind can only create needless irritation, as there will be no authority competent to carry them into effect. We do not believe our Church immaculate, because we are not Romanists; but we adore the Gracious Providence, whose hand is conspicuous in keeping her so pure, when deprived of what every Church in the world, except herself, enjoys. Give us the Convocation, and the rust which its absence has contracted shall speedily vanish; give us the Convocation, and we will give the Romanists their O'Connell, the infidels their Hume; Jerusalem shall shake herself from the dust, the captive daughter of Zion shall loose herself from the bands of her neck; and superstition and unbelief shall be fain to shelter themselves in mute retirement from the blaze of the sanctuary. Since sending the above to press, we have been favoured with another pamphlet by Lord Henley, intituled, "Union of Dr. Burton's and Lord Henley's Plans for the Augmentation of Small Livings." Of the merits of the new plan it will be wholly impossible to treat in the present number; but there is one passage which so strikingly confirms the observations we have already made, and which bears so importantly on the former pamphlet, that we cannot pass it without some animadversion. VOL. XIV. NO. XII. 5 D Lord Henley is in his own person an example of what may be expected from the prevalence of the opinion that any property may be the subject of arbitrary legislative confiscation. His Lordship, when he first entered on his measures of reform, distinguished minutely between corporate and individual property: he now finds he has "taken too narrow and technical a view of the question," and that Parliament may deal with advowsons pro arbitrio. It is only in the course of nature that his views on the subject should become more enlarged and liberal; and if he does not enlarge them, there are others who will; and, though their premises are unsound, their conclusion is most just. As far as regards Livings in the gift of the Crown, or of Corporate bodies, my objection to tax them was one only of Expediency, founded upon the consideration of the limited incomes of the parochial clergy, and the various claims which they have upon them. It was not an objection of Principle; for where property is, like this, of a public nature, I never can entertain a doubt but that Parliament has the right (after the interests of present incumbents are determined) to deal with it in any manner which the spiritual wants of the state may require. My great difficulty consisted in a repugnance to impose the tax upon Livings in the gift of private patrons. This, I thought, had the appearance of a violation of private property. I am since, however, induced to believe that I have here taken too narrow and technical a view of the question; and that an advowson is by no means so precisely analogous to an inheritance in land, or to a common rent charge, as I was inclined to think; but that a purchaser obtains it with notice that some reasonable modification of it may take place for the purpose of effecting the great trust with which, as Ecclesiastical property, it is necessarily clothed.-Dr. Burton's and Lord Henley's Plans, pp. 4, 5. This dangerous doctrine is only a foster child of Lord Henley; the real father is an Edinburgh Reviewer, and so his Lordship admits, and even quotes his words, in which he affirms that the Legislature has already dealt with advowsons, in compelling the incumbent to reside, or to pay a certain stipend to his curate, whereby the value of the advowson is diminished. This is very transparent sophistry. A man's life is equally lost whether the state takes it by the hand of the hangman after trial, or by the rack of the inquisitor without any trial at all; but there is every difference in the personal security of the citizen. It is thus with property-a property, or a species of property, may be reduced in value by some act which does not compromise the security of property in general. The value of land is reduced by taxation; yet none doubts the power of the state to tax this or any other property, for state purposes. But it would surely be extraordinary to deduce hence that the state may seize, modify, and transfer to any extent that a temporary legislature pleases. LITERARY REPORT. Remarks on the Principles adopted by BISHOP LOWTH in Correcting the Text of the Hebrew Bible. By J. ROGERS, M.A., Canon Residentiary of Exeter, and Rector of Mawnan. Öxford: J. H. Parker. London: Rivingtons. Cambridge: Deightons. 1832. 12mo. Pp. 38. THE most important sentence of this Tract is an Advertisment, which appears on its cover, informing us that the author is preparing for the press a Critical Edition of the Hebrew Psalter; and the present publication is, we suppose, intended as a statement of the principles which he has adopted in his forthcoming work. The object of Mr. Rogers is, to refute the positions laid down by Bishop Lowth, with regard to the correction of the Hebrew Text, on the authority of the Septuagint and other ancient versions. In common with most of the modern continental critics, he conceives that the Bishop attached far too great importance to these venerable relics; and, accordingly, of thirtyeight emendations proposed by him, (eleven on the first ten Psalms, and twenty-seven on the first three chapters of Isaiah,) Mr. Rogers pronounces all but one, to be "not required by the context." On several of these passages we come to a different conclusion. For in some of them the ancient versions exhibit variations from the present Hebrew, such as no soberminded man can attribute either to the ignorance or to the carelessness of the translators; and in which, though the MSS. hitherto collated do not afford us the means of restoring the text to its original purity, it is, nevertheless, morally certain that the Hebrew words now before us are not those which the inspired authors wrote, and do not express the meaning which the Holy Spirit intended to convey. Judging, therefore, from the present specimen of Mr. Rogers's critical powers, we do not expect that his promised edition of the Psalter will do much towards clearing up the mystery which hangs over this and other portions of the Old Testament; though we shall be ready to offer him our most cordial thanks for collecting and condensing the stores, which are scattered over many ponderous and expensive volumes, and presenting in a commodious form to the rising generation of biblical students, a body of invaluable information, which they now scarcely have it in their power to obtain. The Ordinances of Religion practically illustrated and applied. By JOHN DAVIES, B.D. Rector of St. Pancras, Chichester. London: Hatchard. 1832. 8vo. Pp. xvi. 308. To divest religion of the mere formality of outward observances, and at the same time to render its ordinances effective, by exhibiting them in their due subservience to spiritual edification and vital devotion, is the object of this treatise. The work is truly valuable and important; and though somewhat involved and metaphysically distinguished, it will repay the attention which is requisite for a just apprehension of the argument. Divine Worship, the Sabbath, Baptism, and the Lord's Supper, are considered in their design, their obligations, and the benefits and privileges resulting from them; from whence it is inferred that a neglect of these ordinances is a neglect of religion itself. Although, indeed, the heart must be warmed with religious sentiment, yet these acts of ritual observance form so essential a constituent of the sense of the sanctuary, that it is imperfect without them. A Manual for the Afflicted; comprising a Practical Essay on Afflic tion, and a Series of Meditations and Prayers, selected and arranged for the use of those who are in Sorrow, &c. By T. H. HORNE, B.D. London: Cadell. 12mo. Pp. 275. 1832. OUR old friend is again in the fieldfor so we may take leave to call him— as who has not experienced him a friend? The biblical student-aye, and the practised divine too-have found him a friend in need; and now he appears in the character of a friend in the greatest of needs, in sorrow and affliction; with weapons drawn from the same holy armoury which supplied his warfare against scepticism and ignorance, he now combats tribulation and calamity. This little work is comprised in two great divisions, which are very extensively subdivided. In the first of these, Mr. Horne details the doctrine of Scripture relative to affliction, in a very valuable digest of what occurs in the word of God on the subject. The source and design of afflictions, and the duties of the afflicted, are pursued in the language of Scripture; preparations for affliction, and the advantages of prayer, are detailed in Scripture language. In Part II. we have consolations and devotions of every description from Scripture, from the Liturgy, and from approved autho rities. It is impossible to commend the idea of the work too highly; and we do not apprehend our readers will find the execution defective; and when we say that nearly one-half is in the words of Scripture or the Liturgy, ("pronounced," says Mr. Horne, "by a late learned and candid dissenting minister, to be the first of uninspired compositions,") and the rest in those of our most eminent ancient divines, selected and arranged by not the least distinguished of moderns, we feel that we should vainly attempt a more elaborate recommendation. On the Duties of Christian Electors. By the Rev. S. C. WILKS, M. A. London: J. Hatchard & Son. Pp. 30. 1832. MR. WILKS in some measure apologizes for his subject, but no apology is necessary. Our theological readers will be doubtless reminded of a passage in Tillotson's Sermon on Tit. iii. 2, and will be surprised that so minute a coincidence should be found in a writer of so different a school. We thank Mr. Wilks for the acknowledgment, which is, indeed, what the Clergy of his views have been combating, in union with the Dissenters, from before Tillotson's time. Mr. Wilks's subject was so far from uncalled for, that it might rather seem the duty of a faithful pastor, so circumstanced, to treat it. The Sermon, on the whole, is good-the object of it, to shew what men the Christian Elector should return. Mr. Wilks tries them by their general Christian principles; their love of order; their resolution to uphold the established Church; and their hostility to the West-India Planters; on this latter subject he falls in with all the vulgar misrepresentations of the Aldermanbury Society, and is decidedly for immediate emancipation. He might have added, repeal of the beer bill; state of factory children; and the desecration of the Sabbath. All these might have been profitably treated at length. The principle, however, of the Sermon is excellent; and, if treated with equally spiritual and Christian feeling, the subject may be profitably discussed in the pulpit of any district similarly circumstanced with Mary-le-bone. The noble Office of the Sunday-School Teacher. By the Rev. G. W. DOANE, A.M. Rector of Trinity Church, Boston, United States. London: R. Davis. 1832. Pp. 31. A REPRINT from the Sunday-School Teacher's Magazine, already praised by us. We can only say, that it is a most useful publication; and we recommend it to all our brethren as fit to be put into the hands of their assistants in the great work of parochial instruction. We wish it was on the list of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. An Address, delivered at an Examination of the St. John's Church Sunday Schools, June 15, 1832. By EDWARD WIX, M.A. Archdeacon of Newfoundland. 12mo. Pp. 12. 1832. OUR clerical readers, and indeed our readers generally, would do well to refer to this address, in proof of what is doing, for the diffusion of the Gospel, in our transatlantic colonies. It was delivered preparatory to the approaching visit of the diocesan, for the purpose of administering the solemn rite of confirmation in Newfoundland. |