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Mr. Budd, Mr. Bryan, Mr. Yorke, and Mr. Harris, they will find melancholy proof of the fearful extent to which the doctrine of justification by faith has been impugned in many of the Society's publications. We are not concerned to defend every statement or doctrinal opinion in those Memorials; but the declension of the publications referred to from the standard of Scripture and the Protestant Reformation, is exhibited with great ability and faithfulness. The doctrine of a remedial law pervades the exceptionable extracts. For instance, the popular author of "The Whole Duty of Man" says:

"The third thing that Christ was to do for us, was to enable us, or give us strength to do what God requires of us. This he doth first, by taking off from the hardness of the Law given to Adam, which was never to commit the least sin upon pain of damnation; and requiring of us only an honest and hearty endeavour to do what we are able, and where we fail, accepting of sincere repentance."

Where do we read in Scripture that God has thus mutilated or curtailed His immutable and perfect law? We read, indeed, that "Christ is the end of the law for righteouness to every one that believeth;" but this is a very different statement to that of the law being mitigated in order that man, with strength from above, may be able to fulfil it. The Apostle Paul says nothing of "taking off the hardness of the law given to Adam;" but he says, "If there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law" evidently meaning that there was no such law; and that fallen and guilty man could not merit heaven by deeds of law, but must be saved freely by grace, through the redemption that is in Christ. The Homily for Good Friday, which we suppose is one of those which Burnet thought required "mitigation," says that "The ONLY mean and instrument of salvation required of our parts is faith; that is to say, a sure trust and confidence in the mercies of God." If any reader think this statement too strong, let him study Hooker's admirable sermon on Justification. The fruits of faith, we repeat, are quite a distinct matter: but at present we are adverting not to antinomian errors but to pharisaical. Two untruths do not make a truth.

ORIGINAL POETRY.

THE OFFERINGS OF THE WISE MEN.
(Paraphrased from the Latin, inserted in the Christian Observer
for Dec. 1838, p. 704.)

WHEN heaven directed Magi from the East,
Before the infant Lord of all appeared,

They proffered from the treasures they possessed,
Gold, Myrrh, and Frankincense to Him revered.

To Him as God they fragrant incense bring;
To Him as Priest, the votive offering, gold;
Myrrh as to man, for born to grief, though king,
Death in the tomb his body shall enfold.

So unto Christ do thou three presents bring,
Love, thanks, and prayer, as incense to the Lord;
For myrrh, the tears that from repentance spring;
For gold, a contrite heart do thou afford;

So shall thy presents at the throne of Heaven
Be grateful unto God, and thou forgiven.

W. S.

ANOTHER PARAPHRASE OF THE SAME.

FAR in the East three heaven-taught sages rose,

And, guided by the star of Bethlehem, sought
The King of kings, to whom three gifts they brought :
Myrrh to the man born to partake our woes;
Gold to the Anointed One; o'er all his foes
Destined to rise from death, triumphant Lord;
And frankincense to the incarnate God,
Symbol of worship which each creature owes.
If thou, like them, would'st be accepted now,
Humbly on Christ three pious gifts bestow.
For bitter myrrh, give tears of penitence;

For precious gold, a heart from sin set free;
And let meek prayers be poured forth by thee
A daily gift of grateful frankincense.

B. M.

THE SAME FREELY IMITATED.

To the King of kings wise men did
bring

Three gifts, a costly load;
Myrrh to the man, gold to the king,
And frankincense to God.
Christian, oppressed with anxious fear,
Thy Lord will not despise
Thy lowly gift; with faith draw near
And spread thy sacrifice.

For myrrh bring tears, for incense
prayer,

And more than gold can buy-
A heart that bows the cross to bear,
Yet hails the Epiphany.

But first those tears in purer flood
Wash bright from earthly stain ;
A heart uncleansed by Jesu's blood,
And prayers unblessed, were vain.
Soon to the King of kings with joy

Pure incense shalt thou bring;
Where gold that knows not earth's alloy
Shall crown thy offering.

And praise shall tune thy swelling
harp;-

-Myrrh only is not given;The tomb was dark, the cross was sharp,

But tears are not in heaven.

REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS.

S. C. W.

CHANCELLOR DEALTRY'S CHARGE.

Obligations of the National Church. A Charge delivered at the Visitation in Hampshire, September, 1838. By WILLIAM DEALTRY, D.D., Chancellor of the Diocese of Winchester. With an Appendix, consisting chiefly of extracts from an Article in the Fourth Number of the New York Review, "On the State of the Church of England.

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must be confessed that, in a country avowedly Christian, this is a state of things which may reasonably call forth an expression of surprise. Without attempting to explain the special grounds of this hostility, under circumstances apparently so little calculated to provoke it, one thing is certain, that had we a national church as pure as was the church of the early ages, and ministers as faithful and energetic as were the Apostles themselves, it must needs be that offences would come."

The papers referred to by Dr.

Dealtry is an article in a recent number of the New York Review, on "The Present State of the Church of England." Dr. Dealtry does not inform his readers who the American writer is, but he shews the high value which he attaches to his statements, by filling more than forty pages of close print, in his Appendix, with extracts from his paper. The writer is Bishop M'Ilvaine; and we are happy that we learned this only from general report, not confidential communication; so that we are not obliged to make a secret of what is so much to the Bishop's honour. Dr. M'Ilvaine had large intercourse with Christians of various classes while in England; and the facts which he witnessed, and the conclusions to which they led him, as he stated them in conversation, appeared to us so interesting and important, that we requested him, as an old transatlantic correspondent, to favour us with his ideas in a written communication, which he purposed doing; but we are glad that instead of this he has presented the results of his experience in a fuller manner to his own countrymen, many of whom, even including our episcopalian brethren, are very imperfectly acquainted with the actual state of religion in England, and especially in regard to the claims of the Established Church. Dr. Dealtry's copious extracts from the paper will make its contents generally known in England. We are glad to avail ourselves of his citations, as a copy of the Review, which we expected, has not reached us.*

* It is, perhaps, quietly sleeping at the General Post Office, along with other copies which we happen to know have been returned unopened, on account of the prohibitory scale of charges placed by our Post-office laws upon communications of this nature. Packets of newspapers, reports of societies,

Dr. Dealtry's object in the selection of passages is mainly to shew what are the views and feelings entertained concerning the Church of England at this crisis, by the best and wisest of our fellow-Christians in the United States. As the passages which we shall cite bear upon topics which have been much canvassed in our pages, and corroborate many of our statements, it will be the fairest course to copy them without interlarding them with our own remarks. We will only premise that Bishop M'Ilvaine is a member of a strictly voluntary, not nationally endowed, church; so that his statements lie under no suspicion of partiality.

"We have long had our attention directed, with lively interest, to the numerous books and pamphlets in assault and defence of Church Establishments, which for a few years past have issued in wonderful affluence from the British press. We say British, for Scotland is fully represented in the struggle. Established Presbyterianism

magazines, pamphlets, and even large Post-offices at the ports where ships books, are frequently dropped into the land, which are charged, brown paper and cord included, as if they were so many precious letters. The charge for a single ounce packet from Liverpool to London is three shillings and eightpence. The London Post-office most meanly seals up the packet in such a manner, that the party to whom it is addressed shall not be able to discover what are its contents; so that in de

clining it he may be either refusing a packet of great importance, or a bundle of old newspapers, or other things of no value. The torture of uncertainty often extorts a large sum for what proves worthless to the receiver. We should not, however, have written a note on this commercial matter, but for the sake of adding that the authorities of the Post-office, we understand, have at length been induced to make a regulation, by which the prohibitory duty on such packets is moderated-we do not yet know on what scale. Our American friends will be glad to learn that this barbarous interdict on literary and religious intercourse is about to

cease.

is as much the object of assault on the north of the Tweed, as established Episcopacy on the south; with this exception, however, that the Episcopalians of Scotland do not oppose, but cheerfully support, with their tithe, the Presbyterian Kirk, as by law established; while in England, all denominations of Dissenters unite to oppose the Established Episcopal Church. The general question therefore is not sectarian."

"The opinion which we have expressed, as to the present condition of the Church of England, is not of a kind which, under any circumstances, would admit of very definite proof in the comparatively small space which we can devote to the subject. It relates to the Church in Ireland, as well as England; since the Established Church embraces the United Kingdom. It is founded upon a general survey of facts, and is too universally acknowledged by Christian people in England to need any formal proof. In what we shall say of its evidences, our object will be rather that of illustration than of argument. To those, indeed, who have little knowledge of the English Church but as the traditionary tales of a past century still retailed, as if fresh gathered, would represent it; who take as sober truth all the trash of our newspapers, and of the flippant tourists whose mess of intelligence is culled from the way-side, and mixed with as many sour things as could be collected to give it savour; to those whose ideas are thus a mere compound of pluralities, and non-residences, and tithe-exactions, and field-sports, and luxurious wealth, and lordly pomp; never suspecting gross exaggeration, nor seeking explanation, nor remembering that many evils of external arrangement may attach to an Established Church which, the State alone being answerable for them, afford no criterion of the spiritual character of her pastors or their flocks; to such persons it may be almost new that any good can be spoken of the Church of England.

"But, very excellent things are spoken of thee, thou city of our God.' If it be a sign of the favour of God to his Church on earth, when, for many successive years, and progressively, she is visited with reviving and strengthening influences of the Holy Ghost; when her fleece is wet with the dews of heaven, and, from a state of great depression in spiritual character and zeal for Christ, she is raised up to newness of life, energy, and activity, so that a new spirit to confess the Saviour and promote his gospel appears in her laity; and her chief seminaries of learn

ing are leavened with a great increase of love for the truth in its simplicity, and of zeal for its maintenance and publication; while her ministers are seen, in numbers and a devotedness of spirit unexampled in her history, preaching and teaching Christ, publicly, and from house to house;' then must the Church of England be considered as at this time, and as having been for several years past, remarkably honoured of God.

"It would occupy too much space to go into anything like a view of the state of religion in that Church during almost all of the last century, for the sake of a contrast with her present aspect. We can only glance at it. The works of Bishop Horne happen to lie before us. They remind us, that, in 1776, he published at Oxford the first edition of his work on the Psalms, and that, however unlikely that book is-pious and excellent though it beto be called in this day enthusiastic, with any evil meaning, it was SO treated, very generally, when it appeared. Horne was far beyond his day, says his biographer, (Jones of Nayland,) in evangelical sentiment. The learned and excellent Secker, to be sure, had died but a few years before the above date. Porteus was then at his labours. In that year Cecil and Thomas Scott were ordained. Hervey, Walker of Truro, and Grimshaw, had been some years at rest. Romaine was in the fortieth year of his work. Venn, Fletcher, and John Newton, were then in the midst of their usefulness. The influence of the Wesleys and Whitefield had begun to be widely felt as early as 1740. These good names, so identified with the history of all faithful ministrations of the Gospel during the eighteenth century, certainly indicate that, at the period we have selected for the sake of illustration, (1766,) new life had sprung up among the clergy of the English Church. But there is too much evidence that such revival was, as yet, of very limited extent.'

"If the state of the Universities may be regarded as any true index of the state of the ministry of the English Church, considering that from thence come the candidates for orders, it cannot be supposed that, so late as 1782, the increase of a right spirit, though rapidly progressive, had as yet extended to a large number of the clergy. Then it was that Simeon (clarum et venerabile nomen) began to preach the Gospel in Cambridge, so much alone, so little sympathised with; the object, indeed, of aversion among those occupying place in the University, and of actual indig nity and expressions of contempt and

opposition, amounting to constant per-
secution, among the multitude of the
gownsmen. Then it was that such a
witness for Christ had scarcely one to
stand with him on ground which, before
his death, was crowded with advocates;
and that, unused to little else than at
least a negative disrespect in his walks
of faithfulness, a poor man, who saluted
him with affectionate and humble
respect in the street, received his spe-
cial thanks as having done what was
a strange thing to him in those days.
How wonderful the change! Perhaps
in no single point of view could a more
striking indication of the change which
has since been wrought in the ministry
of the Church of England be obtained,
than by a comparison of the University
of Cambridge, in point of evangelical
spirit and doctrine, at the beginning and
at the ending of Simeon's ministry, or
by a contrast between the attitude of the
Church towards such a preacher as
Simeon when he first appeared, and the
veneration, affection, and thankful
praise for almost unequalled usefulness
with which his name is now everywhere
mentioned. He lived to see all Cam-
bridge filled with the belief and love of
the truth which he preached; every
parish church therein occupied with a
ministry of kindred spirit, and crowded
with devout attendants; hundreds of
gownsmen counting it a privilege to
hear the word at his mouth; many of
them constantly seeking his spiritual
counsel in private; a noble company of
spiritually-minded youth, among whom
were often the bearers of the highest
honours of the University, preparing,
under his training, to go out year by
year to the pulpits and high places of
the nation; the whole taste and tone
of that great institution decidedly
changed and elevated; a corresponding
improvement general in the Church,
not only among the clergy, but influen-
tial laity also; and this whole revival
of religion, in college, pulpit, and parish,
peculiarly marked by that very feature
of sound and healthful piety in which
the last century was so defective,
attachment to, and a decided exhibition
of, the spirit of the Scriptures.'

"Were we to single out any one feature which might be considered as specially characteristic of the recent growth of religion in the English Church, we should select its beautiful singleness and simplicity in searching after the mind of the Spirit,' in His word, and in following it, when ascertained, with a noble decision of character, untrammelled by the artificial systems of doctrine which man's wisdom has contriv. ed. It might be confidently expected,

that under such influence the piety of the Church would present many examples of very eminent attainments in godliness; and that, considering the high intellectual culture prevailing in the upper ranks of English society, and the sound mental discipline acquired in the schools and Universities, there would appear, in union with elevated growth in personal piety, a remarkable symmetry of christian character, a harmony of proportions peculiarly attractive. Such, in truth, is the case. It is not merely in the great increase of the number of faithful ministers, or of parishes well leavened by their doctrine, that the revival we speak of is seen; but also, and strikingly, in the style of personal religion that has grown up and ripened; the pureness and simplicity of spirit which are general among those whom this influence has reached, and the eminent attainments in godliness, in union with the highest degree of intellectual culture and refinement, by which many individual examples are distinguished the pearl of great price, beautifully set in the most fine gold. We have heard it said by a leading dissenting minister not far from London, and in a truly Christian spirit, that in a certain class of the clergy of the Church there is a purity, elevation, and consistency of Christian character, surpassing those of any other set of men to be found in the English ministry. We believe it may be said without hesitation, that those who have recently visited England, from different denominations in this country, and have obtained an intimate association with the spiritually-minded clergy of the Established Church, have generally returned (we know not an exception) most favourably impressed with what seemed to them an unusual beauty and elevation of Christian character. In these adornments of piety, it is truly delightful to see how many persons in the highest, wealthiest, and most influential walks of life partake; how many of the nobles of the land esteem it their honour to be followers of God, as dear children,' and to set a bold and stern example against all ungodliness, and in favour of all good works. And, especially in a country like England, it is easy to conceive how powerful and extensive is the influence of good example set by the higher classes. In the substance of the above remarks we are happy to find the concurrence of distinguished dissenting ministers."

The ministers cited are the late Robert Hall, Mr. James, and Dr. J. P. Smith. To these are added

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