It had been formed by the several parties, while the Mosaic precepts had still claims upon them; therefore it can with no justice or propriety be appealed to in favour of any thing like a vow entered into by Christians, whether of the Romish or of the Protestant Communion.

"Let your moderation be known unto all men!" I am a cordial advocate of temperance, and, in given circumstances, of abstinence. At the same time, I would practically distinguish between the Law and the Gospel,-between "the mount which burned with fire," and "the heavenly Jerusalem;" and would enforce silent obedience to the dictates of Truth and Duty.

Acts xx. 35: 66

remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.""

The last clause must not be read as a distinct aphorism, but in close alliance with the verses which precede and follow, as well as with parallel texts.

Paul, in his farewell address to the elders of the church at Ephesus, speaks, with unaffected modesty, of his not having laid them under contributions for his temporal support. In proof of his disinterestedness, he says, [33] "I have coveted no man's silver or gold or apparel.” Still more: [34]"Yea, you yourselves know that these hands have ministered unto my necessities and to them that were with me;" a fact recorded incidentally at chap. xviii. 3, 9. He then adds, [35] “I have shewn you all things [have aimed, by counsel and example, at setting before you a complete picture of Christian BENEFICENCE], how that, so labouring, ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive."" The will and the ability of bestowing, form a more desirable condition than that of even the successful petitioner for the bounty of his fellow-men.*

Still, this truth, however plain and momentous, is not the emphatic, the prominent, subject of the verse where we find it affirmed. The moral of the clause goes further: it teaches that faithful servants of the Lord Jesus should, individually, exercise labour, for the purpose of having it in their power to relieve their necessitous brethren; should be at once honest, diligent and charitable.

Let us compare the sentiment here uttered by Paul with language which fell from his pen.

Turn, for instance, to Eph. iv. 28: "Let him that stole, steal no more; but rather let him labour, working with his hands, that he may have to give to him that needeth;" which command is perfectly iden

*It is probable that "many things" which Jesus spake, like many which he "did," are not related in the Gospels. But this silence of the Evangelists is no presumption whatever of the language before us not having been uttered by him. They could not place upon record all "the gracious words that proceeded from his mouth." The clause, "It is more blessed to give than to receive," comprises the sum, the substance, of not a few of his lessons; see especially Luke vi. 30— 37, xiv. 12-14. In like manner, the very significant maxim, "Knowledge is Power," we have often heard cited-and perhaps have ourselves cited-as Lord Bacon's; that, too, forms the sum, the amount, the substance, of the argument running through a large portion of the noble author's philosophical writings. Nevertheless, I have not hitherto met with it there under the aphoristic form of the quotation.

tical with the apostle's valedictory precept at Miletus, and was, virtually, addressed to the same community.

It was a favourite topic with him; for he also introduces it when he is giving counsel to the Christians at Thessalonica [1 Ep. ii. 9]: "Ye remember, brethren, our labour and travail; for labouring night and day, because we would not be chargeable unto any of you, we preached unto you the Gospel of God:" and again [2 Ep. iii. 8, 9], "neither did we eat any man's bread for nought, but wrought with labour and travail night and day, that we might not be chargeable to any of you. Not because we have not power, but to make ourselves an ensample unto you to follow us."

The texts thus quoted from Paul's letters are very admirable comments on the extract from his farewell speech to the Ephesian elders: they authenticate THAT and each other.

But here the inquiry recurs, Was the Epistle commonly known as "the Epistle to the Ephesians," local or circular-was it intended solely or chiefly for their church; or, likewise, for some of the churches in the district? I must acknowledge that the parallelism of the texts, Acts xx. 35, Eph. iv. 28, gives me pause. There is a close and apparently undesigned coincidence in these passages. I would therefore modify my judgment of this letter itself, and say, "The Epistle professedly inscribed to the Ephesians is, for the most part, CIRCULAR." Even the precept which has called forth these remarks was, as we have seen [Ep. 1 and 2 to the Thessalonians], a precept in which other Christian societies, besides that at Ephesus, were understood to possess an interest. N.

A MODEL PREFACE.

READER, I warn you to peruse this Treatise with great caution, and without any deference to my judgment; for possibly I may have mistaken the sense of Revelation. But as I trust God will forgive the errors of an upright intention, so I heartily wish you may clearly discover and candidly correct them. JOHN TAYLOR.

This is the Preface of Dr. John Taylor, of Norwich, to a tract entitled, "The Scripture Doctrine of Atonement Examined," &c.; published Lond. 1751,-worthy to be stereotyped and prefixed to every work of Biblical Cri

ticism.

IDOLATRY.

IDOLATRY may be a child of the imagination, but it is a child that has forgotten its parent. Idolatry is the worship of the visible. It mistakes forms for substances, symbols for realities. It is a bodily sight and mental blindness,-a doting on the outward, occasioned by the want of the poetic faculty. So that Religion has suffered its most grievous injury, not from too much imagination, but from too little.-Guesses at Truth.

It is idle to endeavour to cure the world of any folly, unless we could cure it of being foolish.-HORACE Walpole.

* Paley's Horæ Paulinæ, in loc.

FOXTON'S POPULAR CHRISTIANITY.*

THIS is one of the many painful but interesting books which keep pouring forth from the very bosom of the Church of England, from the inner thoughts and feelings of her clergy themselves, shewing her utter heedlessness of the most crying wants of the age, or else her inability to adapt herself to them, sadly pointing out the hollowness of the existing conformity to her obsolete creeds and forms, and darkly portending reform or destruction, according as the former may be sought in time, or delayed much longer.

Mr. Foxton's book exhibits its author as driven, by that reaction of mind which is so common and natural, from Church-of-England Orthodoxy into Antisupernatural Christianity (if the two terms can, without a contradiction, be put together). And he would have us believe that the minds of thinking Christians in general are in a state of "transition" to the same views, if they have not already reached that "development."

"Popular Christianity" is quite a misnomer for the contents of this work. It is rather what the author deems Philosophical Christianity, as the motto from Epicurus on his title-page shews: "Non Deos vulgi negare profanum; sed vulgi opiniones Diis applicare profanum." Nay, if we apprehend him aright, he admits an esoteric and an exoteric form of doctrine; and for any thing that appears on the face of this book, he is still a minister of the Church of England, though repudiating all her doctrines. If we read him right and may believe our own eyes, he advocates principles of accommodation which would allow a man who has given up not only orthodoxy, but a belief in the miraculous of Christianity, to retain his position as a minister of the Church of England, using or disusing, as he may prefer, her "insignificant rites and obsolete forms," on condition simply of "not defending them ;" and relying upon the indulgence of his Episcopal superiors (supposed to be as "philosophical" as himself) to connive at his laxity. We must, however, quote the passage on which we found this grave charge of lax morality. If any other meaning can be put upon the following language, we should wish to find it, and to believe that the author himself is not still, but only was formerly, "Perpetual Curate of Stoke Prior and Docklow." It occurs near the end of the last Chapter, on "Prospects and Conclusion:"

"As I have no belief, however, in the possibility of devising a cultus which shall express the religious sentiment of the age, I am content to leave untouched the established forms of public worship until they are gradually amended by the diffusion of a sounder theology. Of the ministering clergy I require, alone, that they suffer, as far as possible, that 'judgment should go by default,' where they have no rational plea for the defence of an insignificant rite or obsolete form. If the Church will not speak the truth, let her at least be silent. If she will not inform-if she fears to enlighten the consciences of her hearers, let her, at least, cease to mystify and deceive them. The concession I require is far less than her bigoted supporters are willing to believe, for her authority is hourly decreasing, and every attempt to restore it but

Popular Christianity: its Transition State and probable Development. By Frederick J. Foxton, A.B., formerly of Pembroke College, Oxford, and Perpe tual Curate of Stoke Prior and Docklow, Herefordshire. Chapman. 1849.

hastens its decline. I demand nothing more than the silence of ecclesiastical authority where it has no jurisdiction-that it cease to dogmatize where it has no longer the power to coerce. I would not destroy the corrupt religious system under which we are living, but, by removing extraneous support, allow it to die a natural death; thus making way for the free expression of those spiritual instincts which produce the real and significant cultus of every nation. The language of our forms no longer describes the actual feelings and wants of the worshipers, except in the expression of those general sentiments of natural religion which are common to all times; and its hold on the affections of the people (if hold it has) is founded on a sickly sentiment for antiquity alone. It is thus, by for ever looking back, that the Church neglects her office as the leader of Christian civilization, and allows the world to outgrow her ordinances and neglect her instructions. To the best and purest of her ministers, her cumbrous and antiquated machinery is daily becoming more and more an incumbrance and a snare; and the brightest ornaments of her communion are those who virtually renounce their allegiance to her laws."

For "best and purest," surely we should here read "most intellectual;" the good and pure among whom, in the popular and true acceptation of those terms, as implying sincerity and religious principle, must cease to ornament the communion of any Church to whose laws they have virtually renounced that allegiance which they formerly vowed, under a sincere belief of doctrines which they now no longer believe. Our author goes on, more explicitly still, to give his idea of what clerical honesty and spirituality require on the part of a man who has thus renounced the views which once legally fitted him for Church preferment and the cure of souls:

"The honest defenders of the spirituality of the Church amongst her clergy are simply called upon openly to profess what so many of them secretly believe. Let no honest preacher any longer continue to teach what he believes to be unreal and untrue" [drop reading the Athanasian and Nicene Creeds, for instance, and alter to his own liking the doctrinal expressions in the Liturgy], "even though it may be consecrated by the formularies of the Church" [to which, as his qualification for his office, he has sworn his assent as scriptural and true]. "Let the people, at least, be freed from the burden of rites and ceremonies no longer significant, or which have a positive tendency to divert their minds from the spiritual objects of their faith." [Very good advice, truly, to the Members of Convocation, whenever they shall meet to reform the rites and ceremonies, or very proper language for a petition to Parliament to promote such reform; but very wrong advice, surely, to a parish vicar or curate, who is bound by the act by which he "signed himself slave," to impose upon the people the burden of those very rites and ceremonies.] "Let them no longer be taught that the imposition of hands can convey the gift of the Holy Ghost, that the water in Baptism can wash away our sins, or that the Eucharist is more than a commemorative rite." [Very rational and scriptural doctrine, truly, for those who owe no allegiance to Bishops and are not in fear of Ecclesiastical Courts; but a bitter taunt, or else an instigation to rebellion, to the slaves who have sold themselves to the Mammon of the Church, and mixed treason and blasphemy to those really honest men who still serve her in the sincerity of their souls.] "The abrogation of rites and ceremonies, confessedly obsolete or actually pernicious, would be at least a step towards a more earnest and genuine belief." [Truly so; but who is to abrogate them? Where does the authority reside? In the Crown? or in Parliament? or in the Convocation? Nobody knows where; but everybody knows it does not reside in the clergyman of each parish. He would be no better than a Dissenting Independent if he attempted to do thus; and if he only will dissent

like a man, he may do precisely thus within the limits of Voluntaryism, which gives correlative rights and liberty to the Dissenting congregation and their minister. But our author seems to think it is all fair in a parish clergyman to accommodate the Church ritual to the advancing science of the day, or rather to his own, and that it is for the Bishop to object if he chooses. And, living in the diocese of Hereford, he dares to assure himself and his readers that there is no danger of being visited with Church discipline for introducing such manifest improvements into the Church doctrine and service. For he goes on:] "The clergy who shall thus vindicate their principles [principles, indeed!], have really little to fear from the severity of episcopal authority. In every sense is the corrupted Church divided against itself. Rural deans are petitioning the Legislature for security for the faith of their Bishops, and whole parishes for staying the episcopal crusade against seceding clergymen.” Pp. 220–223.

Has Bishop Hampden seen this? We fancy it will be too much for his presumed latitudinarianism to sanction, "heretical Bishop" though Mr. Foxton calls him (p. 17). And has the author forgotten "the severity of episcopal authority" in the neighbouring diocese of Exeter? If Mr. Shore and Mr. Gorham are made to smart for their laxity about Baptismal Regeneration, how would a man of Mr. Foxton's "principles" fare, if he tried the experiment of abrogating rites and ceremonies, and teaching that the Eucharist is commemorative, and imposition of hands an imposition indeed? We are curious to know whether he is actually ministering thus at Stoke Prior and Docklow. Surely he must have illustrated his own principles !

That there are many clergymen in the Church who no more believe its fundamental doctrines and pretensions than Mr. Foxton does, we have, alas! too much reason to know. But we have always regarded it as their personal shame, as well as that of the Church which has tempted their insincere conformity. We should never point to such men as "her best and purest ministers, and the brightest ornaments of her communion" (though some of her best scholars and philosophers perhaps). We always regard such instances as among the most damning proofs of the mischief done to pure religion and morals by a worldly Ecclesiastical Establishment on a doctrinal basis. They proclaim the hollowness and rottenness of the system. And Mr. Foxton attests the fact without horror, nay with complacency!

Reformers of the Church must be men of a different cast of principles. They must be men" fearing God and hating covetousness." They must be sincere in all points;-not merely in disowning the false doctrine which they once sincerely professed, but (the practical test) in relinquishing the worldly wealth and station which they gained by its profession. They must be men like those, from Lindsey to Baptist Noel downwards, who, from whatever reason of doctrinal or ecclesiastical scruple, when unable any longer truly to assent to the positive requirements of the Church of England, could make up their minds to leave it ;-men who, rich or poor, are not too poor to keep a conscience, and who never suppose that to eat the bread of insincere conformity can entitle them to rank among " the best and purest," or to be called "the honest defenders of the spirituality of the Church," or earn for them any other title than that of personal dishonour, or for their Church any reputation but that of worldliness and time-serving.

66

There is, we are well aware, a large and increasing body of conform