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and others, as numerous and as pressing, disregarded. But all difficulty is at once removed, if we admit (as no sensible man can refuse to do) that church-building, national education, the diffusion of christian knowledge, the provision of additional curates, and the propagation of the Gospel in foreign parts, should proceed simultaneously. Indeed, it is impossible that one object can be prosecuted irrespectively of the others they are all so mutually dependent, that they must be carried on together, or each separate effort will fail of its proper effect.

It was this consideration which gave rise to the establishment of church-society funds, by contributing to which, the humblest member of the Church, however limited in circumstances, may do his part towards inspecting and building up individual Christians, and towards the enlargement of the church of Christ. I read in your last number the affecting remarks of B. C. R. on the religious destitution of New South Wales, and have also perused the appeal of the Bishop of Nova Scotia to "all the members of the Church," on behalf of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. No one can doubt the seasonableness of those appeals, and the duty of promptly and liberally responding to them. But yet we must work at home, as well as abroad. Your last number also states that "the funds of the Additional Curates Society are all appropriated, and that since April thirty fresh incumbents have applied for assistance, and only four have been enabled to receive it." Pitiable also is the state of our towns and villages, in respect of church room; and as regards the education of the poor in the principles of the Church of England, no object can possibly be of greater importance than that, especially at the present moment. Under all circumstances, therefore, what had better be done? I would say, unhesitatingly, Establish without delay an efficient church-society fund in every parish. Nothing can be casier; nothing, I believe, is so likely to work prosperously. The good examples set at Windsor, Stamford Hill, Hackney, Barking, and various other places, should be universally followed. The fund should embrace the Church's accredited societies for Building and Enlarging Churches, Promoting Christian Knowledge, Providing Additional Curates, Promoting National Education, and Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts, and, upon principle, it should embrace those only; it should be placed under the direction of the minister of the parish, and of course under the patronage of the bishop of the diocese ; to it all churchmen should be invited to contribute,-high and low, master and servant, should be encouraged to give as they are able; nothing should be done through strife or vain-glory, but individual and combined efforts should be made quietly and soberly, in humble prayer and faith and love, in view to the glory of God, the edification of his church, and the increase of his kingdom. Thus might each man perform his part in the great work in which the church is engaged, and in which, as a living member of her body, it is his duty to join. Acting from proper motives, and in his proper place, the Divine blessing would rest upon his labours; and in watering others, he would be watered also himself.

Aug. 11, 1840.

X.

ON THE REJECTION OF THE POPE'S SUPREMACY.

SIR,-In reference to some statements contained in your review of Mr. Palmer's letter to Dr. Wiseman, permit me to say, that I doubt the prudence of bringing the rejection of the Pope's supremacy by Henry VIII. so prominently forward in the controversy between the churches. If the rejection of that supremacy after it had been recognised for so many centuries tended to break the unity of the church, surely it was incumbent upon us to show that the step was one of absolute necessity. It was not sufficient for us to say to the Pope, you had originally no good title to this supremacy, and therefore we will now throw it off, not because we can show that it does us any harm, but because such is our pleasure.' We know very well that, if the Pope would have sanctioned Henry's divorce from Catharine of Arragon, he would never have thrown off the Pope's supremacy. I must, therefore, think that the corruptions of doctrine, which that supremacy was the instrument of forcing upon the people of this land, afford the true justification of its rejection. Our ancestors would have done well never to admit it; but having admitted it, they were bound to show good cause for rejecting it, and thereby incurring the manifest risk of dividing the Church of Christ.

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There is evidently on the part of some persons a yearning towards a reunion with the Roman Pontiff as the spiritual head of the church, and a disposition to reject the royal supremacy. But I cannot find, either in Scripture or in the early history of Christianity, any ground whatever for supposing that the appointment of a visible head on earth was designed to be the means of maintaining the union between the different members of the Catholic church; and I know that grievous mischiefs have flowed from the assumption of such a headship by the Bishop of Rome.

ECCLESIASTICAL DUTIES AND REVENUES BILL.

A. B.

RETURN to an Address of the Honourable the House of Commons, dated July 20, 1840, of the several Canonries, Prebends, Dignitaries, and other Offices now vacant in the several Cathedral and Collegiate Churches in England and Wales, and of any other Preferment which, under the Ecclesiastical Duties and Revenues Bill, it is proposed to suppress.

CANONRIES AND PREBENDS RESIDENTIARY.

Stall 5th (a), in the Cathedral Church of Canterbury, vacated
February 28, 1835

Stall 10th, in the same Cathedral Church, Sept. 17, 1838
Sub-Deanery and Office of Canon Residentiary in the Cathedral
Church of Exeter, July 31, 1838.

Stall, in the Queen's Free Chapel of St. George, Windsor, July 16,

1835

Stall in the same Free Chapel, Jan. 28,

1840.

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Stall 5th, in the Cathedral Church of Hereford, Aug. 24, 1839.
Stall in the Cathedral Church of Lichfield, July 1, 1838 .
Stall in the Cathedral Church of Norwich, June 17, 1836.
Stall 5th, in the Cathedral Church of Peterborough, Oct. 9, 1836.
Stall 4th, in the same Cathedral, April 3, 1838

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Stall in the Cathedral Church of Rochester, Jan. 28, 1840.
Stall in the Cathedral Church of Wells, Aug. 21, 1839
Stall (b) in the Collegiate Church of Westminster, Feb. 7, 1836.
Stall (c) in the same Collegiate Church, March 31, 1836.
Stall (d) in the same Collegiate Church, Aug. 17, 1836.
Stall in the same Collegiate Church, July 24, 1837
Stall in the Cathedral Church of Winchester, April 16, 1840
Stall in the Cathedral Church of Worcester, March 25, 1839

CHANCELLORSHIPS.

.

The Chancellorship of the Cathedral Church of St. Asaph. (See
the Prebend of Llanufydd, in the same Cathedral Church)
August 9, 1837
The Chancellorship of the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, London,
September 28, 1839

PRÆCENTORSHIPS.

The Præcentorship of the Cathedral Church of Bangor, March 31,

1838

Amount Received.

£ S. d. 293 14 6

0 0

873 2 9

0

2,952
. 2,459 9

3,823 3
0 0

2

160920803

459 10 3

0 0 0

41 10 4

000

The Præcentorship of the Cathedral Church of Brecon and Prebend of Llanfynydd, March 20, 1835 .

95

The Præcentorship of the Cathedral Church of Exeter, August 1,

1839

The Præcentorship of the Cathedral Church of Wells, March 20,

1835

PREBENDS NOT RESIDENTIARY.

4 2

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A Prebend in the Cathedral Church of Exeter, Feb. 7, 1836
In the Cathedral Church of Wells :-

Compton Dundon, December, 1836.
Hazlebere, ditto, February 17, 1839
Litton, ditto, March 20, 1835

9 0 0

20 18 0 000 31 19 04 0 0 0 170

Wanstrow, ditto, November 15, 1837

Wedmore, 5th, ditto, October 17, 1836

SINECURE RECTORIES.

The Sinecure Rectory of Ashbury, in the Diocese of Salisbury, vacated September 13, 1835

ON THE ABUSES OF PHRENOLOGY.

2,346 17 4

SIR,-At Newcastle-upon-Tyne, about a fortnight ago, in a very pópular exhibition, called the " Polytechnic," I saw, among other phrenological specimens, a cast of the head of a person executed for murder, with a ticket affixed to it, on which was this inscription, "No. 36. Steventon,

Executed at Shrewsbury for murder.

To what extent are individuals so organized accountable ?” On this principle, who is accountable? for what action or course of conduct may not equally be referred to organization? How strangely do men suffer the love of a system to lead them away, not only from Scripture, but even from common sense! It is a serious evil, however, that such miserable fatalism should be obtruded upon the public, in a place where people are little likely to be upon their guard. Can the members of the committee (and there are members whose names convey a high sanction) be aware of what is put forth under their authority! August 11, 1840.

C. C. C.

ON THE MODE OF ORDERING THE LORD'S TABLE.

SIR, The following extract from the Injunctions of Queen Elizabeth, anno 1551 (Sparrow's Col. p. 84), attracted my attention in another publication, and as I have not yet seen any answer to it, I should be glad to see it transferred to your pages.

And that the holy table in every church be decently made, and set in the place where the altar stood, and there commonly covered as thereto belongeth, and as shall be appointed by the visitors, and so to stand, saving when the communion of the Sacrament is to be distributed; at which time the same shall be so placed in good sort within the chancel, as whereby the minister may be more conveniently heard of the communicants in his prayer and ministration, and the communicants also more conveniently, and in more number communicate with the said minister. And after the communion done, from time to time, the same holy table to be placed where it stood before.

I am not in the habit of attaching much importance to forms and ceremonies for which we have no direct and positive authority; and provided such matters are conducted decently and in order, I should not myself be disposed to alter existing practices, which from habit are become familiar, even for what I might consider an improvement; nevertheless, as the mode of ordering the Lord's table and of administering the holy Sacrament, has been much canvassed of late, I think that the practice referred to in this letter, resting on such alleged authority, is at least entitled to its fair share of attention. It is the practice, I believe, of many clergymen, who profess to pay particular attention to the ritual, to say the prayer of consecration standing before the table, that is, with their backs to the congregation; but this, as it seems to me, defeats the very object which they profess to have in view, which is, to break the bread, &c., before the people; whereas, the mode here referred to, in Sparrow's Collections, not only avoids this inconvenience, but is in itself significant and appropriate; and most conformable to what we may imagine to have been the original appointment of this holy ordinance.

It would, thus administered, he very similar to Raphael's (?) celebrated picture of the Last Supper; the posture of kneeling, as used by our Church, only excepted. A. BERCEAN.

ON THE NATIONAL CHURCH.

SIR,-The people of England seem not to have a due sense of the immeasurable superiority of their National Church over the religious Establishment of any other country in the world, from the circumstance of its being episcopal (i. e. catholic), yet without any alloy of idolatry, which cannot be said of any Church on the face of the globe that is in alliance with the State. The Greek Church allows its members to bow down and worship before pictures; Rome's idolatry is notorious; * therefore it behoves every one baptized into the Church of England to be grateful for such distinguished blessedness. Non-episcopalian establishments, called "churches" (merely because they have been taken in alliance with the State), must defend themselves as well as

All the northern Lutheran Churches have been secularized-their bishops are mere laymen; our late Duke of York was one of those lay bishops, viz. Bishop of Osnaburg. Vide Christian Remembrancer, Feb. 1839, article "The Church of Sweden."

they can against Mr. O'Connell's "Address to the People of England," published last September. In that "address" it is evident that he wishes to confound our glorious catholic and apostolic Church with all sorts of foreign and domestic non-episcopalian Protestants, whether in alliance or not with the State under which they live.

July 31, 1810.

A CONSTANT SUBSCRIBER.

COMMENTARY OF THEODORET, BISHOP OF CYRUS, IN SYRIA, ON ST. PAUL'S EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS.

(Continued from page 621.)

CHAPTER XIII.

1. Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. Whether a man be a priest, or a bishop, or profess a monastic life, let him be subject to those who are invested with authority; evidently if it be consistent with duty to God, for any opposition to the divine laws leaves us not the power of obeying our rulers. For there is no power but of God; the powers that be are ordained of God. And these come from the providence of God; for He, consulting the general well-being, ordained some to govern, and some to be governed, imposing the fear of the magistrate to serve as a bridle on evil doers. But we must observe, that it is the ordinance of ruling and being ruled, which the holy Apostle derives from the providence of God, and not (so much) the elevation of this or that specific individual to power; for it is not (so much) the sway of the unjust, but the constitution of the office itself which is of God's appointment. And yet, when kindly-disposed towards any, He gives them rulers who respect and keep justice, for " I will give them," says He, "pastors according to Mine heart, which shall feed them with knowledge" (Jer. iii. 15); and again," I will give your judges as at the first, and your counsellors as at the beginning" (Isa. i. 26); and when again desirous to chastise transgressors, He suffers them to be governed by evil governors also; for "I will place over them," says He, "children to be their princes, and scoffers shall rule over them” (Isa. iii. 4); but it is time to return to the rest of the exposition. 2. Whosoever, therefore, resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God. He fitly deters them. And they that resist shall receive to themselves judgment; that is, will become obnoxious to punishment. And then he points out also the use of government. 3. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil; for they chastise those that live in wickedness. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same; 4. For he is the minister of God to thee for good. He shews that he is worthy of all respect in calling him the minister of God; and he exhorts also to the performance of good deeds, in saying that rulers are applauders of good. But if thou do that which is evil be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain; for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. If thou lovest what is good, honour then the government which enjoins these same things; but if thou pursuest the reverse fear then its judg ment, for it is appointed of God for the punishment of the evil. 5. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for censcience' sake. By wrath he means punishment; and on both grounds he

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