ment of a Cemetery was passed in the year 1823. Whether this was designed for those who used and those who refused the Church's burial equally, we have not been able to ascertain; but there are said now to exist at Liverpool, for which place the Act was passed, distinct Cemeteries for members of the Church (and Dissenters. About twenty Acts have subsequently been obtained, in all of which a single plot of ground is divided in two parts, a wall or a trench forming the boundary. Yet it was not the spirit of Schism that gave rise to these joint Cemeteries, so much as the spirit of Mammon. They were, in their origin, and still are, almost exclusively, private trading speculations, in which the only object proposed is to secure as many burials, and, consequently, as large returns as possible. The Dissenter, or the Jew, or the Mahometan, who brings his money in his hand, is just as acceptable a customer as the most orthodox Churchman. But the question appears now to be assuming something of a more public character. Mr. Chadwick, the Secretary of the Poor Law Commission, who seems to have a special antipathy to all the ancient institutions of our land, has written a voluminous report upon, or rather against, intramural interment, as injurious to the public health; and recommending the appointment of a central Board of Health, with a staff of officers, in every considerable town, whose duty it should be to enter every house which had been invaded by death, inquire into the causes of decease, carry off the corpse, possess the exclusive furnishing of coffins, and ultimately convey the body to the Cemetery, which is to be at some distant spot,-three or four serving for the whole of England. Of this Report we do not like to suffer ourselves to speak. Its offensiveness is only relieved by the extreme impudence and absurdity which characterise it, and the utter ignorance displayed of the feelings of Englishmen. It is amusing, indeed, to find a gentleman at Somerset House quoting Jeremy Taylor and the Fathers; intended as a ruse to catch unfledged Churchmen, we accept it as a homage to the increased value now set upon ecclesiastical lore; and only wonder that the author had not more wit than, in one of the very pages in which he makes this extraordinary display, to speak of a Government Cemetery in contrast with a church-yard, as an object on which the mind may dwell with complacency, a place in which sepulture may be made an honour and a privilege!" as though the shadow of a church and the remains of ancestors for many generations mouldering around into the common dust, was not an object to be regarded with complacency; and as though the blessing of the Church was not a greater "privilege" than the warrant of the Board of Health, and her Majesty's Secretary of State!

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But we will not waste words on Mr. Chadwick. Our objections lie against public or joint Cemeteries generally, and they are shortly these:-1. Individual Churchmen, by cooperating in their establishment, and Bishops, by consenting to exercise their sacred office in their behalf, are helping to embody and give a visible, permanent, corporate existence to Dissent. The burial of the dead is one of the duties of the Christian Church; and she cannot, without dereliction of principle, recognise any body of men acting in that

matter independently of herself. Still less ought she to bring herself within sight of those who transgress her laws, and to encourage them, by uniting them together, and so giving them a kind of symbol of unity. Moreover, (2,) if the only external difference between those who depart with the Church's blessing, and those who are separated from her, is allowed to be the merely lying on the right or the left of some path, or trench, or dwarf-wall, in one common Cemetery, are we not in great danger of casting a stumblingblock in the way of ill-informed persons, and leading them to make light of the distinctions between right and wrong? 3. Another, and a very strong objection to these Cemeteries, to our mind, is this, that they amount to the legal establishment of Dissent. Every such Act of Parliament recognises Dissent, and helps to establish it. Can this be done without sin, both individually to those who concur in the scheme, and nationally? 4. In all Cemetery Acts with which we are acquainted, the Company is invested with the power of making by-laws respecting the use of the Cemetery, and the duties of the officers connected with it, by which the right of Incumbents, and even Bishops, are virtually set aside, -a power which might be made an engine for harassing the Clergy in a most vexatious way, and which, by its very existence, is an insult to the whole Clerical body. Lastly. They render the restoration of ecclesiastical discipline, in regard to burial, altogether hopeless.

But what, it may be asked, is to be done? Parliament, it is probable, will not sanction your exclusive burial-grounds, and what then? Our answer is, and we are indebted to the Oxford Committee for it; no one had before made the discovery,-Do not go to Parliament at all: but go, instead, to the Office of the Commissioners for building Churches, in Great George-street, Westminster, and they will be able to give you all necessary powers and facilities. One of the express objects of their incorporation in 1819, was to facilitate the "purchase of Cemeteries not within the bounds of the parish, for which the same shall be provided;" and if it is wished to unite together burial-grounds for several parishes, the Act will furnish the necessary powers; and the ground, when consecrated, follows in all respects the rule of the old church-yards. For this purpose the Act authorizes the sale of lands under every kind of holding, whether held in trust, by corporations, or colleges, or any other bodies whatever; and if even additional facilities were required for promoting this great sanatory object in the way most congenial to the feelings of Churchmen, they could not consistently be refused by the Legislature. We trust that the Church in many places will see the wisdom of taking the initiative in the matter, now that attention has been drawn to the subject, and will meet the demands of the political economist by providing for the burial of the dead in the great towns, with a due regard to the public health, and without the sacrifice of those great essential principles which the Church Universal has ever cherished. We again repeat our thanks to the Oxford Committee, and especially to the nine Clergy.

*The Rector of Bath has munificently given a plot of ground for the benefit of that city, which has been recently consecrated by the Bishop of Salisbury.

Since the above was written, we have received a "Statement of the attempt now making in Oxford to obtain additional Burial-ground, without doing violence to the Parochial principle," (Parker, Oxford,) which persons who desire further information on this subject will do well to purchase. It is written in that healthy and beautiful spirit, which seems to make all the sons of Oxford one family. Though the subject seems eminently unpromising, it is treated with almost touching propriety.

1. Appeal to the Members of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, &c. Second Edition. By WILLIAM SCOTT, M.A. Perpetual Curate of Christ Church, Hoxton.

Burns, &c.

London :

2. Observations on an "Appeal to the Members of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge," in a Letter to the Rev. Dr. Rus-sell. By RICHARD BURGESS, B. D. &c. London: Seeley, &c.

THE " Appeal," which we noticed in our last number, has reached a second and considerably-enlarged edition: it now bears the author's name-a piece of formal information which recent circumstances have rendered necessary, although we believe that it was generally known from the first.

Mr. Burgess' publication we were rather curious to see. At the last meeting of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, this gentleman, in an offensive personal attack on the Author of the "Appeal," thought proper to give out that he was prepared to prove that all the passages produced in the "Appeal" were shamefully garbled, and that it was utterly unworthy of credit. What could Mr. Scott and his friends anticipate from this bold flight? Of course an elaborate proof that Robert Nelson had not been mutilated, that Bishop Wilson had never been falsified, that Ken was intact ;-we expected a mass of documentary evidence to demonstrate that the S. P. C. K. reprints agreed verbum pro verbo with the accredited editions of the old divines. This would have been a conclusive answer to the "Appeal."

But what is the result? Does Mr. Burgess make good his vaunt? From p. 1 to p. 31, there is not one single syllable in defence of the S. P. C. K. reprints: they are abandoned without a murmur! the accuracy of Mr. Scott's collations and contrasts is not disputed in a single instance. Again: Mr. Scott undertook to prove that No. 619 was inconsistent with the theology of the best English Divines, such as Hammond and Bull; with the recognised principles of the founders of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, Nelson, and Grabe, and Melmoth; and with the teaching of the most eminent Bishops of the present day. How does Mr. Burgess answer this? By quietly observing, in an anti-climax almost ludicrous, that

"If I had a little time at my disposal, I should not fear to undertake to prove that the doctrine set forth in Tract No. 619 is in perfect harmony with our Articles, &c. and with our soundest divines of modern times; but the observations I have

taken the liberty to place before you, sir, are coNFINED TO SHOw that, whether the doctrine in the Tract No. 619 BE AT VARIANCE WITH THE AVOWED PRINCIPLES OF THE SOCIETY or not, the author of the Appeal' has" [done what?] "misrepresented the doctrine in the tract, and that there is no judging from his extracts, and from the conclusion he draws, what the doctrine of justification, according to Bishop Sumner's view, is."-P. 30.

and, at the same time, by asserting that he (Mr. Burgess) admires No. 619, that he (Mr. Burgess) is a much better theologian than the author of the "Appeal;" that the author of the "Appeal" is very young, and has no right to have an opinion about No. 619, or to express it, &c. &c. which may be all very pretty platform talk, but is most sorry logic. Indeed, we have come to the very bathos of controversy, when, because Mr. Scott seems to be of the old English school of Bishop Bull, he is quietly told that therefore he knows nothing of divinity, and is coolly referred (p. 19) to Grotius and Whitby! A Dutch Protestant, though one never to be mentioned without respect, and an Arian are to teach us the Anglican doctrine of justification, and we are to burn Hammond and Bull, as well as Newman and Knox!

Indeed, we are not much surprised at Mr. Burgess's reluctance to grapple with the question of Anglican divinity; he is much more at home among Swiss than English Protestants. Mr. Burgess, we find, has the singular honour (see the Report for 1840) of being, with Mr. Hartley, of Nice, the only English clergyman who figures as Membre honoraire et externe du Comité de la Société Evangélique de GENEVE. This Society is under the control and management of the somewhat notorious Merle d'Aubigné. It is on the Bible-Society plan, and something more. Hear Mr. Vice-President Merle d'Aubigné's Rapport de l'Ecole de Théologie:

Oui, appelés avec d'autres frères, que nous avons la joie de voir en partie au milieu de nous-nous donnons la main à toutes les églises Protestantes nationales qui sont demeurées dans la vérité-à nos frères Calvin, Farel, Luther, Zwingli, Cranmer, Latimer, Knox; mais ce n'est pas trouver en eux des hommes, des formes, une hiérarchie;-nous donnons la main à l'ancienne église Catholique mais ce n'est pas pour avoir une succession humaine, une consécration valable, une mission assurée, (Dieu nous la donne et non les hommes!)-Et s'il est des gens qui s'attachent avant tout à tel ou tel gouvernement d'église-nous nous hâtons de la rejeter. Ne voyez-vous pas que ce que ces hommes imprudens appellent église, et veulent nous imposer comme puissance première, est une épaisse vapeur, sortie des lieux bas de la terre," &c. &c.-P. 35.

This is but the Bishop of Chester's "Satanic doctrine" in another form; but if this be the view of unity held by "Rev. Burgess à Chelsea," is not he the very man to teach us who are "our soundest divines?" We only remember one parallel to this absurdity,-Dr. Chalmers lecturing on the Church of England!

But, says Mr. Burgess, the "Appeal" has assumed importance because it has been adopted by the Lichfield memorialists (see our Intelligence department, p. 516). "True," seems to argue Dr. Russell's correspondent, "the Appeal' consists of two distinct parts; one a criticism of No. 619, and one an examination of the reprints of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge: true also that the Lichfield memorialists do not say one word about No. 619, and I do

not intend to say one word about anything else: true that the Lichfield memorialists only refer to the Appeal' on the allegation of altering the old Divines, and this is a subject on which I cannot say a single word; but then, somehow, if I can get up a prejudice against the Appeal,' as far as relates to No. 619, perhaps the Lichfield memorialists, and the thick-headed rustics who compose the Society, will be good enough to consider this as tantamount to having replied to the Appeal' on the mutilation question." In other words, if I can prove that A is not B, I flatter myself that I have demonstrated that A is not C. Mr. Burgess has not, we believe, had the benefit of academical training; a ten-year man, however, who quotes Epiphanius, might have heard of the ignoratio elenchi.

6

The sum and substance of Mr. Burgess's pamphlet is a coarse and ungentlemanly tissue of the most vulgar and silly personal abuse of Mr. Scott, who, through one-and-thirty pages, is sneered at for being young, and, therefore, unfit to protest against tract No. 619, while at p. 30, Mr. Burgess, meaning we suppose some hidden piece of humour, which few will be skilful enough to discover, affects to doubt whether Mr. Scott wrote the pamphlet at all! or "whether such a person exists"!! The absurdity of such "observations" requires no

exposure.

We now await the promised report of the standing committee on the mutilation question; and in the meantime we commit to our readers' attention Mr. Scott's re-statement of his case, which we extract from a manly and straightforward, and at the same time very conciliatory, advertisement, which he has prefixed to his second edition:

"1st. That the charge against the present governing body of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge confines itself mostly to the publication of Tract 619, and I argue that the tone of theology in this tract, thus adopted by the Tract Committee, is the last and most important proof of the ascendancy of principles foreign to those of the founders of the Society; and, therefore, that the publication of Tract 619 is a doctrinal change lately introduced into the series of tracts circulated under their authority.'

"2d. That the charge of corrupting or of suppressing the text of deceased authors applies not so primarily to the present governing body; but so far to them, because having had their attention called to it, they have not repaired this wrong. It does not apply, nor was it meant to apply, to them as having wilfully corrupted the text of deceased authors; but it applies to the whole Society, because the corruptions and changes exist as a fact, whensoever or by whomsoever introduced. So that even admitting that it may be proved that these changes have been gradual, and that some of the mutilations are of long standing, it will be quite useless to produce old copies of the Society's own reprints, of Bishop Wilson, for example, as authorities for the present state of the text. There may be precedent for it, and yet the corruptions may and do exist. The charge is, that the Society's reprints are corrupt: it is no answer to this to say, as was said some years ago in the case of one of Wilson's Family Prayers, that an edition sixty years old had the passage in the words complained of. Do the Society's reprints agree or disagree with the authorized, genuine, accredited editions of the old divines? This is the only question to be answered; and it is quite beside it to say, We did not change the text.' It may turn out that the practice of mutilating commenced early in the Society's career. Be it so: our business, now such practice is known, is, not so much to fix the blame as to undo the injustice and to retrieve our character. And when we refer to Nelson and Wilson, we do not quote them as infallible, nor do we say that their language might not be improved: the theology of the eighteenth century falls very far below the best standard; what we now complain of is, that, low as it is, we are sinking even lower. The changes are not only bad, as changes, which is our point, but as for the worse, which is another."-Advertisement, pp. iv-vi.