IN the sun, and moon, and stars, Signs and wonders shall there be; Earth shall quake with inward wars, Nations with perplexity. Soon shall ocean's hoary deep, Tost with stronger tempests, rise; Wilder storms the mountain sweep; Louder thunder rock the skies! Evil thoughts shall shake the proud, Racking doubt and restless fear; And, amid the thunder cloud, Shall the Judge of men appear! But, though from that awful face Heaven shall fade and earth shall fly, Fear not ye, his chosen race; Your redemption draweth nigh! 3d SUNDAY IN ADVENT.-Matt. xi. OH Saviour! is thy promise fled, Nor longer might thy grace endure, To heal the sick, and raise the dead, And preach thy Gospel to the poor? Come, Jesus! come! return again; With brighter beam thy servants bless; Who long to greet thy perfect reign, And share thy kingdom's happiness !—— A feeble race, by passion driven, In darkness and in doubt we roam, And lift our anxious eyes to heaven, Our hope, our harbour, and our home. Come, Jesus! come! and, as of yore Thy prophet went to clear the way, A harbinger thy feet before, 2 So now may Grace with heavenly shower 4th SUNDAY IN ADVENT.-John i. The Lord shall come! but not the same The Lord shall come! a dreadful form, "Can this be he, who wont to stray A pilgrim on the world's highway; Opprest by power, and mock'd by pride; "O God! is this the Crucified?" Go, tyrants, to the rocks complain, To the Editor of the Christian Observer. MANY persons having been much interested by reading, in the Obituary of the Christian Observer for May last, the affecting circumstance of a young man's selecting his own epitaph, six weeks before his death, and frequently reading it, I have sent you a copy, if you think it worthy of insertion. B. W. Epitaph in Paddington Church-yard, referred to in the Christian Observer for May last, page 331. BASIL OWEN WOODD, The Rev. Basil Woodd, The following lines were selected by himself. In youth's gay prime, for earthly joys I sought; But heaven and my immortal soul forgot. The change I bless'd with my expiring breath, Ascribing life to that which caus'd my death. Farewell, vain world! My soul, exult and sing! *The deceased selected the above lines for his own epitaph, six weeks before his death; had them pinned up over the chimney Grave, where's thy victory now? Death, where's thy sting? ❤ The wages of sin is death; the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. piece in his chamber; and would frequent. ly read them with great feeling, solemnity, and gratitude. REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. Select Homilies of the Church of England, appointed to be read in Churches in the Time of Queen Elizabeth, and no less suitable for Villages and Families. London: Williams. 1811. 12mo. pp. 252. Price 3s. 6d. THIS little volume contains a selection of sixteen from the thirty-three Homilies published by authority. Those which have been selected, have a more direct reference to the fundamental truths of Christianity than the others, and may certainly be considered as the most suitable for general use. The subjects of which they treat, are, The Reading and Knowledge of Holy Scripture; the Misery of Man, and his Condemnation by Sin; the Salvation of Mankind from Sin and Death by Christ; the true, lively, Christian Faith; Good Works annexed to Faith; Christian Love and Charity; the Danger of falling from God; the Fear of Death; Prayer; the Time and Place of Prayer; the Nativity of Jesus Christ; the Passion of Jesus Christ; the Resurrection of Jesus Christ; the Descent and Gifts of the Holy Ghost; that all good Things come from God; Repentance and true Reconciliation unto God. This specification will enable our lay readers, who are as yet strangers to those invaluable relics of the piety of our reformers, the Homilies of the Church, to form some estimate of the instruction and edification which are likely to be derived from the vo lume now brought to their notice. As for our clerical readers, we take it for granted that they are all in possession of the entire volume of the Homilies, and are also familiarly acquainted with its contents. But we are far from thinking that an intimate knowledge of these writings should be confined to the clergy. On the contrary, we think that no member of the Church of England, who can afford it, should be unfur nished with the complete collection of these monuments of our ancient faith: at the same time, for the sake of those to whom such a purchase might be inconvenient, we rejoice that so many of them are now published at a price which renders them accessible to all who are not of the very lowest class in society. We feel very desirous, however, that the benefit should be extended much farther; and that even the poorest member of our church should be admitted to a participation of those rich treasures of scriptural knowledge, and genuine piety, which the Homilies contain. We would therefore recommend it, to all who are in the habit of furnishing the poor with edifying books, to receive this cheap volume into the list of those which they circulate most extensively. Why, indeed, might not the Homilies be published in separate tracts, and widely dispersed among the poor? Each of them might be com prized in about a sheet of letterpress, and sold for a penny or three half-pence; and their general cir culation would doubtless strengthen And here we would ask, is it not a Is it not somewhat remarkable, not to repeat the term opprobrious, that while there is scarcely a bookseller's shop in a country town, or the pack of a hawker, which is not crammed with halfpenny and penny tracts, cut from the massy works of the most esteemed dissenting divines, we should in vain inquire for tracts of a similar description drawn from the inexhaustible stores of our own church? To what is this to be attributed, but to the lamentable want of zeal in the best of causes which pervades the Establishment? There is no end, indeed, to our violent and acrimonious attacks on Methodists and Dissenters, nor to our querulous reflections respecting their progress: here our zeal is fully awake. But we hesitate not to say, that such modes of proceeding have ever been found, and will ever be found, to be worse than useless. They add to the evil which they are intended to cure. They are unhallowed weapons, which cannot possibly serve the cause of the Church, built as it is on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets. If but half the zeal which flows in this noxious channel were directed to the diffuion, among all classes of society, and especially among the poor, of such sound religious knowledge as our Homilies convey, we should have comparatively little cause to whine Let us not here, however, be over the progress of Methodists and thought to object to the circulation Dissenters. Their progress, indeed, of the excellent practical writings of we regard as an evil, or not, accordsuch men as Howe, Baxter, Owen, ing to circumstances. The religion Flavel, Henry, or Doddridge. We of Methodists and Dissenters we think that their circulation cannot doubtless think very inferior to that be too widely extended. But why of the Church of England; but we should our own divines, whose works think it infinitely preferable to no breathe no less of piety, and the con- religion, or even to those heathen geniality of whose sentiments on all ethics; or to those cold, heartless, points with our own, render them, on barren generalities, but little raised the whole, less exceptionable guides; above heathen ethics; which too why should they be thrown aside as many in the present day substitute useless rubbish? Why should not for the true, spiritual, efficacious, our Homilies, why should not the life-giving Gospel of Jesus Christ. writings of our Halls, our Hopkinses, For ourselves, we are free to own, and our Beveridges, contribute, in that, until the great body of our a cheap and circulable form, to the clergy, both high and low, shall apgeneral stock of improvement?-ply themselves, with zeal and dili gence, to the careful instruction of their people in sound religious knowledge; until they shall generally feel the awful responsibility which attaches to those who neglect that cure of souls which they have undertaken; until they shall learn to be" instant in season and out of season," in public and in private, in building up their flock through faith and holiness unto eternal salvation; we cannot condemn, with the same severity of censure as some of our brethren, the efforts which are made, whoever the parties may be who make them, to supply our lack of service. We would gladly render, if we could, their intrusion unnecessary; but if, through our supineness, any part of the land should remain in ignorance of what it most concerns man to know, we dare not load with abuse those who may labour in our stead to remove that ignorance. Their methods of teaching, we admit, may be liable to many objections. These, in the spirit of Christian meekness, we should do well, by appeals to reason and Scripture, to point out, and to endeavour to guard our people against. Their motives, in many cases, may also be questionable Still, if by their instrumentality the knowledge of Christ and of his salvation is extended to places to which it would not otherwise have reached, we must and will rejoice. What avails it that every parish in the kingdom has its regularly constituted pastor, if our own land! We do not deny, indeed, that the state of the church has greatly improved even in the present day; and that perhaps at no pre ceding period, since the reign of the first Charles, has there been amon; its ministers a greater proporti of able and faithful men. Stil we do not keep pace in this re spect with the exigency of the times. The fields are ripe for the harvest; but our labourers, thes at least who are disposed to bear the burden and heat of the day, are to few to occupy the ground: others, therefore, naturally enter upon For this we know no remedy but an increase of piety, and zeal, and på tient industry among the clergy May the great Head of the church pour out his spirit upon them from on high, that our reproach in this particular may be taken away, and that our Jerusalem may become, what she is so eminently calculated to become, "a praise in the earth." We have been insensibly led into this digression, but we now return from it to the work before us. The preface by the present editor states, what is generally known, that the first part of the Homilies appeared in the reign of Edward the Sixth, and is supposed to have been written by Cranmer assisted by Latimer. The second part, published early in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, is attributed chiefly to Bishop Jewel. A copy of these Homilies was given to every parish priest in the kingdom, who was commanded to read them diligently and distinctly, that they might be understood by the people. We cannot help wishing that the same practice were revived in the present day, at least among those of thodox divines who assume that they only are true churchmen. They would thus afford a pregnant proof of their churchmanship; and we are persuaded that their professed would thus be far more effectually our bishops and object of upholding the church answered than it will ever be, either by their own frigid expositions The hungry sheep look up and are not fed? What avail to the people of a particular parish our august hierarchy, our scriptural creed, our admirable liturgy; if the man who is appointed to minister to them the bread of life is unfaithful to his trust, if his love be cold, his zeal lukewarm, and his very principles unsound? O for the revival among us, and especially among clergy, of the spirit which animated the first promulgators of the Gospel, and the venerable reformers of Christian doctrine, or by their more animated, but equally unprofitable comments on Methodists, Dissenters, and Gospel ministers*. The editor has favoured us with the testimony of two modern prelates, the late Bishop of St. David's and the present Bishop of Lincoln, in favour of the Homilies. Speaking of the doctrines of grace, justification by faith, &c. the former says, "These doctrines are delivered with admirable perspicuity and precision in the Homilies of our church on these subjects; The Misery of all Mankind; the Salvation of Mankind by Christ; the true, lively, and Christian Faith; and good Works annexed to Faith. These discourses I would earnestly recommend to your frequent study, as an unexceptionable summary of doctrine upon these important points, and an excellent model for popular instruction." In this eulogium, we most entirely concur with this departed prelate. We are still more anxious, however, to avail ourselves of the favourable testimony of the present Bishop of Lincoln, to these" very extraordinary compositions," as he calls them, "when compared with the age in which they were written." The bishop, it is true, a little qualifies his commendation, (we do not blame him for so doing); "perhaps every argument and expression in them is not to be approved." But he adds, "whosoever will peruse them with candour and attention, will be convinced that they contain a godly and wholesome doctrinet." Our solicitude in this instance arises from Lest the objects of this remark should be mistaken by our readers, we think it right to advertise them, that the persons we have in view, are such writers as those who were engaged in a work lately deceased, called the Orthodox Churchman's Magazine; or who are engaged in another work which still continues to subsist, called the Antijacobin Review; such sermonizers, also, as Sydney Smith, Dr. Bidlake, Dr. Gleig, &c.; and such pamphleteers as Mr. Spry, Mr. Sykes, &c. &c. Elements of Christian Theology, vol. ii. P. 536. the entire conviction which we feel, that in these oracular writings of our church, a very powerful antidote is provided, to what we must, with all due deference, consider as unscriptural, and therefore as pernicious, in the productions of the Bishop himself." In thus setting the Homilies in opposition to the Bishop of Lincoln, we are not to be understood as meaning to affirin, or even to insinuate, that the Homilies are Calvinistic. On the contrary, we have no hesitation in saying, that we cannot discover, in any part of these writings, a single expression which can be regarded as exclusively Calvinistic. There are even one or two passages which appear to have an opposite leaning; though even these are of doubtful import, as affecting the questions at issue between Calvinists and Arminians. With such admirable wisdom and moderation, have these popular formularies of Christian instruction been framed, that all, who take the Scripture for their guide, may meet together to be built up by them in their most holy faith, however they may differ from each other on the abstruse and unessential questions which the consideration of predestination involves; and will find the edification they are in quest of, without having their minds, for one moment, disturbed by controversial niceties or unprofitable speculations. But if we do not regard the Homilies as Calvinistic, which we certainly do not, how is it, it may be asked, that we should set them in opposition to the Bishop of Lincoln, whose last work, at least, is a professed refutation of Calvinism? To this we reply, as we have already done, that had the Bishop confined himself to the prosecution of his professed object, we should have had comparatively little to say respecting his labours. Bishop's misfortune, and ours too, (for we are really concerned to appear as the antagonists of his lordship), is this, that he has con But the |