As long as the governing power was restricted, either by law or in fact, to persons in communion with the church, so long it was safe and proper to confide to that power the nomination of our ecclesiastical superiors. But now, that neither law secures to us such a government, nor does the existing state of things permit us ever again to hope for it, the question assumes a very altered aspect. "Quel sera la garantie de leur choix?" says one of the able writers of the "Avenir" under circumstances very similar to our own. "Quel sera en effet pour nous la garantie de leur choix? Depuis que la religion Catholique n'est plus la religion de la Patrie, les Ministres d'état sont et doivent étre dans une indifférence légale à notre egard: est-ce leur indifférence qui sera notre garantie? Ils sont laïcs, ils peuvent étre Protestants, Juifs, Athées: est-ce leur conscience qui sera notre garantie? Ils sont choisis dans les rangs d'une société imbue d'un préjugé opiniâtre contre nous: est-ce leur préjugé qui sera notre garantie? Ils régnent enfin depuis quatre mois est-ce leur passé qui sera notre garantie ?" So too with us, according to the wretched principles which it is supposed impossible any longer to withstand. His Majesty's Ministers, in future, must be, and ought to be, at least in their public capacity, detached from religious party-dans une indifférence légale à notre égard: with us, then, as with the Catholics of France; est-ce leur indifférence qui sera notre garantie? Nor is indifference the worst we have to fear; they ought to be indifferent; they may be, on conscientious principles doubtless, our enemies; they may be conscientious dissenters, or conscientious Jews, or conscientious Atheists; est-ce leur conscience qui sera notre garantie? Finally, and with sorrow be it spoken, we have ground for alarm not merely in what they ought to be or what they may be; melancholy indeed is the truth, but nevertheless it is a truth, that we can look with no greater confidence to what they have been. Est-ce leur passè qui sera notre garantie? Ils n'ont ouvert la bouche que pour nous menacer; ils n'ont étendu la main que pour abattre nos croix; ils n'ont signé les ordonnances ecclesiastiques que pour sanctionner les actes arbitraires dont nous étions victimes;

*

ils ne nous ont pas protégés une seule fois sur un seul point de France; ils nous ont offerts en holocauste prémature à toutes les passions. And here too the painful parallel of our situations will suggest itself but too vividly. VOILA LES MOTIFS DE SECURITE Q'ILS NOUS PRESENTENT! VOILA LES HOMMES DE QUI VOUS CONSENTIRIEZ A RECEVOIR YOS COLLEGUES DANS LA CHARGE DE PREMIERS PASTEURS !

Nor need we fear, continues this able writer, to re-assert our privileges; the power as well as the right are ours; let us know our strength and use it. QUE CRAIGNEZ-VOUS! N'ETES VOUS PAS EVEQUES? Bishops of Christ's holy everlasting church, who shall interfere with the free exercise of your indelible prerogative? Consecrate or refuse to consecrate who shall reverse your decree? You can bind: and who shall loose? UNE SEULE CHOSE LEUR EST POSSIBLE; LE RETRANCHEMENT DE NOTRE BUDGET. Evêques de France! nous ne vous en disons pas davantage: c'est à vous de voir lequel vous préférez laisser

sur vos siéges, en mourant, ou d'un Episcopat riche et corrupteur, ou d'un Episcopat pauvre et digne de vous succéder.

Such are the sentiments of a true conservative: a conservative, not of names, but of things; not of appearances, but of realities: a conservative that would conserve, not to a latitudinarian government trusts that had been reposed in an exclusive government, merely because it was a government, and is a government, but to the representatives of the church, rights which have always belonged to the church, though they were once a ruling party, and are now a persecuted party.

And now, good cautious people, you that praise peace and order, and thank Heaven you are not ultras, be at the pains to give these suggestions just so much thought as to see that they cannot be set aside by a shake of the head, or a shrug of the shoulders, or a declaration that "you cannot go these lengths." Look fairly at the question before you; make up your mind, not whether you will "go these lengths" or remain where you are, but whether you will go these lengths or other lengths. Lengths you must go, whether you will or no; lengths you have already gone, and intolerable lengths. Open your eyes to the fearful change which has been so noislessly effected; and acknowledge that BY STANDING STILL YOU BECOME A PARTY TO REVOLUTION.

F.

WARNINGS FROM CLARENDON.

"Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? It hath been already of old time, which was before us.

66

SIR,-Lord Bacon observes of modern heresies, that they are not usually new, but only the posterity of old ones; and Sir Thomas Brown, much to the same purpose, that they are transmigrations," the identity of the opinions being clearly traceable, and the actors and circumstances only exchanged. Historical parallels drawn upon this principle may have a good or an evil tendency: they may be so drawn as to act as warnings to restrain the misguided or the careless in one age from following up principles which have been ruinous in their issues in another; or they may so fall in with the bad spirit of the times as to direct the evil minded how to fill up all the outlines, and, like prophecies which work their own fulfilment, to complete the ugliest features, in which a later may resemble a former generation. Clarendon may be easily pressed into the service on either side; he may be made to teach men the readiest methods of overthrowing established order, by shewing how established order has been overthrown before; or he may be made to speak in a tone of solemn warning to those who may be unsuspectingly betrayed by the spirit of the times into an indolent acquiescence in the plausible insinuations of puritanical perfectionism or factious infidelity.

The following sketch of the manner in which our forefathers were sucked under and lost in the stream of public opinion on the most

momentous of all subjects, may be useful to those sons of the Church of England, who, as yet, "apparent rari nantes in gurgite vasto' in the present day; and may serve to warn them from trying to swim according to their method. "Mutato nomine de te Fabula narratur" is a reflection which will occur to every one who reads this extract from the fifth Book of the History of the Rebellion, at every sentence. One might well imagine it to have been written for the very days in which we live.

"To confirm and encourage the factious and schismatical party of the kingdom, which thought that the pace towards the reformation was not brisk and furious enough, and was with great difficulty contained in so slow a march, they (i.e. the two Houses) had a little before published a declaration, That they intended a due and necessary reformation of the government and Liturgy of the church, and to take away nothing in the one or the other but what should be evil and justly offensive, or at least unnecessary and burdensome; and, for the better effecting thereof, speedily to have consultation with godly and learned divines; and because that would never of itself attain the end sought therein, they would therefore use their utmost endeavours to establish learned and preaching ministers, with a good and sufficient maintenance, throughout the whole kingdom; wherein many dark corners are miserably destitute of the means of salvation, and many poor ministers wanted necessary provision.'

Such was the declaration of the two Houses; now for the reflections of the master-mind that saw through it.

"This declaration, printed, and appointed to be published by the sheriffs in their several counties, in all the market-towns within the kingdom of England and dominion of Wales, was not more intended to the heartening of those who were impatient for a reformation (who, in truth, had so implicit a faith in their leaders that they expected another manner of reformation than that publicly promised) than to the lulling those asleep who began to be awake with the apprehension of that confusion they apprehended from the practice and license they saw practised against the received government and doctrine of the church, and to be persuaded that it was time to oppose that current. And in this project they were not disappointed: for, though this warily-worded declaration was evidence enough to wise men what they intended, and logically comprehended an alteration as great as has since been attempted and made, yet to lazy and quiet men, who could not discern consequences, and were not willing to antedate their miseries by suspecting worse was to come than they felt or saw in their view, their fears were much abated, and the intentions of the Parliament seemed not so bad as they had been told by some that they were: and as this very declaration of a due reformation to be made of the government of the church and the Liturgy, would, a year before, have given great umbrage and scandal to the people, when, generally, there was a due submission to the government and a singular reverence of the Liturgy of the church of England, so now, when there was a general fear and apprehension inculcated into them of a purpose utterly to subvert the

government, and utterly abolish the Liturgy, they thought the taking away nothing in the one or the other but what should be evil and justly offensive, or, at least, unnecessary and burdensome, was an easy composition; and so, by degrees, they suffered themselves to be still prevailed on towards ends they extremely abhorred; and what, at first, seemed profane and impious to them, in a little time appeared only inconvenient; and what, in the beginning, they thought matter of conscience and religion, shortly after they looked upon as somewhat rather to be wished than positively insisted on; and consequently not to be laid in the balance with the public peace, which they would imagine to be endangered by opposing the sense which then prevailed. And so, by undervaluing many particulars (which they truly esteemed) as rather to be consented to than the general should suffer, they brought or suffered the public to be brought to all the sufferings it since underwent.” Yours, C. T. C.

ON SUBDEACONS.

SIR,-Among the various publications which have lately issued from the press on the subject of Reform in the Church is an anonymous Pamphlet, in which, after some very pertinent observations on the disadvantage to which an establishment is subjected by the want of an order which should be intimately connected with the middle or trading classes of society, it is suggested that the obsolete order of subdeacons should be revived for that purpose. Now, without meaning any disrespect to the author of this publication, who is utterly unknown to me, I must beg leave to protest, on behalf of the church of England, against this and all similar projects, which, instead of completing the excellent work of our Reformation, would lead us back, like the sow that was washed, to our wallowing in the mire. Surely we had better try what can be effected by lawful and ordinary means before we venture upon irregular ones. I wonder it should not have occurred to the writer to restore to its proper functions the Apostolic Order of Deacons, which is at present in an anomalous position, and which, under proper regulations, might be made to answer very perfectly the purpose he alludes to. If the proper endowments* of the church were restored and secured to it, I see no reason why every parish should not support a priest and one or two deacons, who might undertake all the duties now devolved on the lay churchwardens and overseers, besides assisting the priest in reading Prayers, baptizing, &c.

Your humble servant, H. CODDINGTON.

The composition of my parish, made in the thirteenth century, awards to the vicar the tithe of the profits of all lucrative trades. This, which in a very large country town must have amounted to a considerable sum, is now entirely lost to the church (with the single exception of the tithe of corn mills). It surely behoves the Legislature to restore it, or to provide some substitute for it which might furnish a maintenance for clergymen in such situations, where they are notoriously very much wanted.

UNIFORMITY IN PSALMODY, ETC.

SIR, I wish to draw attention to the want of uniformity with which the hymns, subjoined to the new version of the psalms, are selected in the different editions of the Prayer-book ;-one edition contains thirty or forty hymns, another contains two or three, another none. This, to a clergyman who is anxious to confine every devotional exercise of his congregation strictly to that which has received the sanction of the proper authority, is a cause of great embarrassment. He is willing to indulge the church singers in whatever variety he can conscientiously, as a minister of the established church, allow; but the measure of that variety depends upon the edition of his Prayer-book, or, at any rate, upon his acquaintance with the different hymns which have in different editions been admitted. It is also exceedingly embarrassing to the congregation, some of whom can find the hymn selected for the day, while others are engaged in a fruitless search, instead of attending to the voice of sacred melody. I would beg leave to ask two questions:-what course ought a clergyman to pursue? and, why should that uniformity, which is so wisely and advantageously observed in the rest of our liturgy, be neglected in so important and so edifying a part of devotion as the singing the praises of God? I remain, Sir, your obedient servant, A VILLAGE CURATE,

COMMUNION ON GOOD FRIDAY.

SIR,-On my first coming to my parish, I found that the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper had, for a century, been constantly administered on Good Friday; and for thirty years I have retained the practice, with, I trust, a beneficial effect, as I have always had a large number of communicants on that day. One of the soundest members of our church, (a layman, whose very name is his eulogy,) who for many years resided in my neighbourhood, on that day alone left his parish church to partake of the holy communion in mine.

Of the probable intention of the Church of England" we can speak only from conjecture; and I will now assign the ground of my conviction that she did intend the sacramemt to be administered on that day.

If the objection to its administration be founded on Good Friday's being a fast, and the sacrament a feast; and that, therefore, the one would be inconsistent with the other, I answer that every Friday is enjoined by our church to be observed as a fast; yet in the first Common Prayer Book of Edward VI. it was ordered, "that on Wednesdays and Fridays, if there be none to communicate with the Priest, yet, &c.," evidently implying that on those days some might "be disposed

When, indeed, will "our hearts" more "burn within us," when shall we with more true repentance, more steadfast faith, more lively hope, more diffusive charity, (if ever we experience those feelings,) commemorate our redemption than on the day on which it was wrought?

VOL. IV.-July, 1833,

I