the course of his penance, and obliged him to depart from the church before the commencement of the communion service.1 He proportioned the penance to the sin, and punished in a different manner sins of thought, word, and action. The bishop contented himself with threatening certain sinners: he charged others to do alms, others to fast, and cut off from the body of the church the impenitent and the hardened.3 If, after the sentence of excommunication, they repented, he received them as the infidels; that is to say, he placed them in the rank of hearers, but he did not communicate with them in prayer: and after the reading of the prophets and of the Gospel, he made them depart from the church until they were rendered worthy of assisting in the sacred assemblies. As to ecclesiastical judgments, they generally judged on the Monday the differences which happened amongst Christians; and, when they could not terminate them this day, they postponed the examination of the cause to the Saturday following, in order that there might not remain any contest between them on Sunday. The bishop judged, assisted by the priests and deacons, and they were to judge without acceptation of persons. Each party pleaded his cause, standing in the hall of audience, and after the priests and deacons had heard them, they endeavoured to conciliate the parties before the bishop pronounced his decree; for they did not like it to be known in public that a Christian had been condemned, and THE BISHOP WAS ONLY ACCOUNTABLE FOR HIS JUDGMENT TO JESUS CHRIST. They particularly took these precautions when any infamous case was under consideration. In these cases the ecclesiastical judges were to place before the eyes of the parties, that by their sentence they decided the eternal life or death of the accused; excommunication, when just, having the power of excluding from life and glory the person upon whom passed, and covering him with confusion before God and men. They only received as witnesses people of acknowledged probity, nor did they condemn the accused without having taken knowledge of his previous conduct. If the accuser was convicted of calumny they punished him; and if the accused was found guilty they punished him also, as an example to others. The author states the exactness which secular magistrates should use in their judgments, and remarks that, after having convicted the criminal by his own confession, they should still wait many days before condemning him to the last punishment, assuring themselves by new researches and mature deliberations of the truth of his crime; that then he who pronounced the sentence of death should raise his hands to heaven, taking it to witness that he was guiltless of human blood. But whatever precautions they might take in their judgments, they did not permit Christians to plead before their tribunal, nor that secular magistrates should know ecclesiastical affairs.8 6 The above translation gives a faithful abstract of the penitential and ecclesiastical discipline of the Constitutions. Closely connected with this subject is one lately and painfully brought to our notice; we allude 1 Apostolical Constitutions, chap. 48. 4 lb. book ii. chap. 39. 7 lb. chap. 50, 52. 3 lb. chap. 41. 6 lb. chap. 49. 2 Ib. chap. 41. 5 Ib. chap. 47. 8 lb. book ii. chap. 45. - to administering the Eucharist to criminals condemned for murder. In the condemned sermon of Mr. Carver, he thus speaks of Courvoisier : "The enormous crime itself has been by you tardily, though, I trust, penitentially acknowledged; but the evasions, subterfuges, and inconsistencies, which have appeared in your recorded verbal statements on minor details, have very naturally induced the FEAR that your heart is not right in the sight of God." After again lamenting that Courvoisier's confessions were "not more faithful and explicit from the first," Mr. Carver proceeds :-" But in cases where the offender has acknowledged his crime on its immediate commission, surrendering himself to justice, pleading guilty on his trial, and prostrating himself in distress and despair on account of his direful guilt, it has been my privilege, and ever will be my duty as a minister of the everlasting gospel, upon the authority of God's word (THE ONLY AUTHORITY WHICH I ACKNOWLEDGE), to proclaim pardon and peace to every truly repentant sinner, and to declare, according to the gospel of the day, that there is joy in heaven amongst the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth, wHATEVER HIS FORMER CHARACTER MAY HAVE BEEN, more than over ninety and nine righteous; i. e., self-righteous persons, who, ignorant of the deceit of their own hearts, vainly imagine they need no repentance."1-Did Courvoisier's case answer to this description? Mr. Carver has supposed our Saviour to speak ironically, for if they were self-righteous, it is certain that they were not just, and needed a repentance as much as the one sinner: does the context bear out this ? He also admits the falsehoods and evasions of Courvoisier; were these fruits meet for repentance? When Courvoisier implicated the police in the affair of the gloves, was this mending matters ? But Mr. Carver declares that he admits no authority but the Scriptures that he will be a heathen and a publican. To them, therefore, we appeal. Was Courvoisier a heathen, who had never heard the sound of the gospel? No. Had he never professed the Christian covenant- was he never baptized-had he never approached the altar? justified in promising a free and full salvation" to Courvoisier, when the apostle St. Peter declares that now "judgment must begin at the house of God;" and, if the righteous scarcely are saved, where shall the ungodly and sinner appear? He quotes David in the Psalms, saying, "Blessed is he whose transgression is covered.” True; but when persons of his school are so fond of producing the example of David's fall and recovery, it should be remembered that he was a Jew; that he had not been washed in the blood of the Lamb; and that if it shall be better for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for wicked Jews, what shall it be for wicked Christians ? Mr. Carver says:" It is my duty to announce to even you that there is a fountain opened for all sin." True again; but as "he that openeth, and no man shutteth, is the same as he that shutteth and no man" openeth," it was Mr. Carver's duty, perhaps, to have told Courvoisier that he committed him to the mercy of God, in the hope that he would meet with that absolution and peace in another world which the church declined granting him here. According to this gentleman's own state 66 Yes. Was Mr. Carver 1 St. James's Chronicle. ment, the penitence of Courvoisier was every thing but satisfactory; yet, in the face of this he administers the sacrament, and acts exactly as he would have done if one of the most pious of his congregation had been dying. Was the crime of Courvoisier committed in self-defence, in the heat of the moment, to avoid capture? Was it committed in a fit of anger or passion, or under the pressure of want? No, in cold blood. Mr. Carver evidently belongs to a party in the church who would talk to baptized Christians just as they would to Jews and Pagans, thus rendering void the cross and death of Christ; who tread under foot the Son of God, and count the blood of the covenant wherewith they were sanctified merely human, and do despite to the Spirit of grace. As there are persons who do not refuse to hear the Church, let them hear Tertullian :-" Neither idolaters nor murderers are restored to the peace of the church." The seventy-third canon of the council of Eliberis precludes a murderer from communion even at the hour of death. St. Basil appoints twenty years' penance. The council of Ancyra appoints penance all their lives, and communion at the hour of death. The Gallican (and for some time, perhaps, the British) churches refused the communion to murderers at the hour of death, and this practice continued till the year 1396. Thus, though the practice of these churches might differ, yet they evidently thought that all sins were not alike in the sight of God (as I have frequently heard it asserted in the pulpit), and side with the apostle when he declared that the sin of one of the Corinthian church was such as was not even named among the Gentiles. Penance was prefigured in Miriam being shut out from the camp for seven days, and enforced by St. Paul-" Put away from among yourselves that wicked person." Even in the Roman Prayer Book, a confession, in order to be of any avail, is required to be "full and entire, lest ye be found to lie to the Holy Ghost." It is singular that whilst clergymen of Mr. Carver's school are declaring that there can be no just man, forgetful of our Saviour's words, " Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile," they do not hesitate both publicly and privately to say that they are God's only people, and speak of any one that differs from them with contempt. I cannot understand this. As the assertion, that Christians were both kings and priests, appears to have given some offence, it is necessary to explain my meaning. Scripture does say, "that my kingdom is not of this world;" but it also says, "the kingdom of God is within you." Then the kingdom of God is in the world, though not of the world; and Christians commence God's kingdom here below, where they reign over the world, the flesh, and the devil, and even over death itself, as was exemplified in the martyrs who triumphed over all the powers of the world, and defied kings and potentates. W. P. Biography. THE LIFE OF THE REV. CHARLES LESLIE, D. D., CHANCELLOR OF THE CATHEDRAL OF CONNOR. THIS celebrated man was the second son of Dr. John Leslie, bishop of Clogher, who was descended from the ancient family of Balquhaine, in the county of Aberdeen; but we shall give some account of the bishop, before we begin the life of his son. Bishop Leslie commenced his university education at Aberdeen, but was sent to Oxford, where he completed his studies, and afterwards travelled through Spain, Italy, and Germany, and resided a considerable time in France. He could converse in the language of those countries, with the same ease and fluency as the natives; and spoke Latin with so much accuracy, that in Spain they said of him, "Solus Lesleius Latine loquitur - Leslie is the only man who can speak Latin.” He remained twenty-two years abroad, and was at the siege of Rochelle, and also in the expedition to the Isle of Rhè, under the Duke of Buckingham. His constant intercourse with the great personages of the courts abroad, and frequent presentation to royalty, gave him an ease of manners and address, which imparted a peculiar grace to his preaching, and procured him the favour of many foreign princes, and the friendship of Charles I. On his return from the continent, he was made doctor of divinity at Oxford, and admitted a privy councillor in Scotland, by James I. It does not appear at what time he had entered into holy orders, but Charles promoted him to the bishopric of the Isles, on the 17th August, 1628, as successor to Dr. Thomas Knox, who died in 1626. He was translated from the Isles to the bishopric of Raphoe in Ireland, on June 1st, 1633, on the death of Andrew Knox, father of the above bishop of the Isles, in 1632. Dr. Leslie was the same year admitted a privy councillor in Ireland. Whilst he sat bishop, he recovered a considerable part of the revenue of the diocese of Raphoe, which had been seized and appropriated by several gentlemen. He built also an episcopal palace, or rather castle, at Raphoe, for the benefit of his successors, and which he maintained a considerable time against Cromwell, who took it after a siege in 1641. It was the last castle which held out in Ireland, and had been of essential service to the royal cause, by curbing the neighbouring barbarians. After the surrender of his castle, he retired to Dublin, where he always used the Liturgy in his own family, notwithstanding the penalties which the usurping government had inflicted on those who read it. He also held frequent confirmations and ordinations in his own house during the usurpation, when the church suffered a violent persecution from the Independents and other sectaries. After the restoration of the church and monarchy, he went to England, to wait on the king; and so great was his zeal to see Charles II., that he rode from Chester to London in one day, a distance of a hundred and eighty-two miles. On the 17th June, 1661, he was translated to the see of Clogher, having refused a better office, because he was resolved to finish his labours among those with whom he had suffered persecution, and where his influence was greatest. He died in 1661, at his seat Castle Leslie, or Glaslough, and was buried there in the church which he had himself erected, and procured an act of parliament to make it the parish church. He was of extremely temperate habits, and of a very generous temper. At the time of his death, he was reckoned the oldest bishop in Europe, being upwards of a hundred years old, and having been fifty years a bishop. He wrote several curious and learned works with the design of publication, but which were destroyed, together with his library, of many years collection, besides several valuable MSS., which he brought from foreign countries, during the barbarities of the rebellion.1 Charles Leslie, his second son, was born in Ireland; but it is not known in what year, nor in what place. He was educated at the grammar-school of Inniskillen, in the county of Fermanagh, and in 1664 he was adınitted a commoner of Trinity College, Dublin, where he continued till he took his degree of M.A. On the death of his father, in 1671, he removed to London, and entered himself in the Temple, where he studied law, but becoming disgusted with its dryness and intricacy, as well as chicanery, he relinquished it, and applied himself to the study of divinity. In 1680 he entered into holy orders, and in 1687 he was made chancellor of the cathedral of Connor, and very soon rendered himself obnoxious to the Popish party, by his zealous opposition to their heretical doctrines and practices, which they openly attempted to propagate under the sanction of the court. On the death of Roger Boyle, bishop of Clogher, in the year 1687, James II. made Patrick Tyrrell, a Papist, the titular bishop, and assigned to him the revenues of the see. He immediately established. a convent of friars in Monaghan, in which he fixed his own residence, held a most pompous public visitation, and challenged the Protestant clergy to a public disputation. Dr. Leslie accepted the challenge, and defeated their most subtle logicians, to the entire satisfaction of the churchmen, and the confusion and indignation of the Papists. Dr. Leslie afterwards held another public disputation in the church of Tynan, in the diocese of Armagh, with some Popish divines, before a very numerous audience of both sides; the happy effect of which was, that Mr. John Stewart, a Popish gentleman, solemnly renounced the errors of the Romish creed. Having succeeded in appropriating an episcopal see, the king next appointed a Popish sheriff for the county of Monaghan, which excited universal and just alarm, Dr. Leslie was at this time confined to his house by the gout; but the county gentlemen applied to him for advice, who informed them that "it would be as illegal for them to permit the sheriff to act, as it would be in him to attempt it." They urgently insisted on his appearing himself on the bench at the quarter sessions, promising to be guided by his advice in their opposition. Notwithstanding the pain he suffered from the gout, he was carried to the quarter sessions, and inquiring whether or not the new sheriff was legally qualified, that officer pertly answered, "that he was of the king's 1 Keith's Cat. of Scottish Bishops; Wood's Athen. Oxon. &c. VOL. II. |