NOTES ON CHURCH USAGES.

NO. 1.-PUBLIC THANKSGIVING AFTER CHILD-BIRTH.

A PRACTICE prevails now almost universally in our churches of presenting to God public thanksgivings on behalf of those mothers who desire to acknowledge their deliverance from the perils of child-bearing.

As there is reason to fear that this observance is not very clearly understood amongst our people, a few remarks upon its origin and import may not be without its use to many readers.

In the Jewish church, every woman in child-bed was accounted unclean, and was for a prescribed period debarred from the society of her family, and from the tabernacle of God.* Amongst a semi-barbarous people it may be easily imagined that there were physical considerations which required the enactment of such a law, the need of which was felt even by the heathen; so that the Greeks and Romans established analogous usages. In the early Christian churches there was enough of corruption in doctrine, and viciousness in interpretation, to make this physical law appear to sanction the contempt with which marriage was treated, and to insinuate, if not openly to assert, that some moral defilement was connected with the act of child-bearing. Hence we find that all the western rituals, and those of the patriarchate of Constantinople,† contain an office relating to "the purification of women," which in due course found its way into the English Service Book. That suspicious title, together with the requirements of the Rubric, led our Puritan fathers to say that "the purification, or churching of women after child-birth, is an apish imitation of that old legal ordinance of God in Levit. xii. 1-8, for the purification of women."‡

This, however, was warmly repelled by Richard Hooker, who replied, "It is but an overflowing of gall which causeth the woman's absence from church, during her lying-in, to be traduced and interpreted as though she were so long judged unholy, and were thereby shut out, or sequestered from the house of God, according to the ancient Levitical law. Whereas the very canon law itself doth not so hold, but directly the contrary."§

This may be very true, but certainly the church in this, as in most other things, has mystified and perplexed the matter so, that it may be very easily misunderstood. "The Purification of St. Mary" is observed by the Church of England; and Brady says, " From her pious submission to

* Leviticus, xii, 1-8. This question is considered in Michaelis's Commentaries on the Laws of Moses, book iv. chap. 4, part 2, art. 214, vol. iii. p. 315.

+ Palmer's Origines Liturgicæ, &c. vol. ii. p. 258.

Samuel Mather's Types of the Old Testament, 4to ed., p. 286.

§ Ecclesiastical Polity, book v. sec. 74.

the law arose the present religious rite of churching in this country after child-birth."

The requirement also that the woman should be "decently apparelled," which church authority has determined to mean being "covered with a white veil,"* like a token of shame, as if some folly had been committed that she shall "kneel near the place where the holy table stands," to which special sanctity is attached-that she "must offer accustomed offerings,"—all these must suggest to an ill-informed person, that she is passing under some spiritual lustration, and that she will return from her "churching" more pure than she went to it.

The Puritans also objected, that the forms prescribed by the Church of England were not suitable; and there was sufficient force in this objection to compel an alteration.

Before the Act of Uniformity, the 121st psalm was appointed to be read in "the thanksgiving of women after child-birth," the sixth verse of which in the old version reads, "So that the sun shall not burn thee by day, nor the moon by night:" this John Milton classed "with impertinencies"-"those thanks in the woman's churching, for her delivery from sun-burning, and moon-blasting, as if she had been travailing, not in her bed, but in the deserts of Arabia."

The 116th or 117th Psalm is now used, but still out of the old version, so that Samuel Mather remarked, "In the Book of Common Prayer they have omitted some gross things, but retain the title, 'Churching of Women,' and order the woman 'to speak in the church,' and say the 116th or 117th Psalm, wherein they leave the good and sound translation which we have in our Bibles, and follow a corrupt one, wherein they make the woman talk of giving a reward to the Lord and moreover they appoint absurd broken responds, and tossings of their prayers, like tennis balls, as is common with them in other their offices."+ The justice of this oft-repeated satire was felt by Bishop Sparrow, who vindicates the usage as "the remains of a very ancient custom. What the reason of it was, I will not peremptorily determine."‡

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Cartwright also urged that there was no occasion for a solemn and express giving of thanks for this more than for other and greater mercies, which, if presented on behalf of every individual, would leave no time for other duties of public worship.§

In this objection modern Nonconformists do not generally sympathize. They regard the deliverance wrought to be a special one, for alas, not a few perish in their sorrows; and as requiring public acknowledgments, seeing that the birth of a man-child into the world is necessa

* Burns' Ecclesiastical Law, art. Child-birth.

Types of the Old Testament, 4to, 286.

Rationale upon the Book of Common Prayer, p. 231.

§ A Replye, &c. p. 151.

N. S. VOL. VII.

rily connected with the interests of society, and the church of God. Hence there may be very frequently heard in our places of worship thanksgivings for this deliverance. As, however, we separate ourselves from the ritual of the established church, it is our peculiar duty to see that all the observances we practise are free from that uninformed, if not superstitious state of mind, which we suspect prevails with very many who go to be "churched." We would respectfully ask, whether there is not, on the face of many of the notes sent to dissenting pulpits for public acknowledgments, such indications of ignorance, as to excite the suspicion that the party is not about to perform an intelligent service, but is conforming to a custom strenuously enforced by monthly nurses, and performed at chapel rather than at church, in order to escape from "the accustomed offerings?" It is worthy of consideration, therefore, whether it would not be well to prepare a perspicuous tract, to be addressed to mothers in such circumstances, who should be requested to read the same before public expressions of thanksgiving be offered on behalf of persons, of whose state of heart and conduct the preacher knows nothing. In all cases the parties should be required to add their names * and addresses, that the pastor may recal the character of the party, or if they be strangers to him, that he may employ in prayer phraseology not likely to mislead. The Rev. Job Orton has remarked, in a letter to a young clergyman, that in prayer for others, "even common appellations, as thy servant, thy handmaid, may, in some cases do harm, as you know, and will know, how prone persons are to catch at any shadow of hope, without penitence and faith." It is the happiness of our churches that we are not bound to observe and perpetuate usages that are but little understood, and easily perverted.

B.

CORRESPONDENCE ON THE CLAIMS TO LADY HEWLEY'S CHARITY.

THE REV. RICHARD HUNTER IN REPLY TO VERUS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE CONGREGATIONAL MAGAZINE.

SIR,-On opening the December supplement to the Congregational Magazine, which was yesterday put into my hands, I found a lengthened article, entitled, "Scotch Presbyterian Claims to Lady Hewley's Charity." As the writer has withheld his name, and as the most of his arguments, especially with regard to the hollow and ephemeral " union of 1691,"

* The writer believes it is usual in the Wesleyan Methodist connexion, for the preacher, before he commences prayer, to read aloud all the notes requesting intercession or thanksgiving. He remembers to have heard the venerable Joseph Benson, on one occasion, read, “A woman desires to return thanks to Almighty God for safe delivery, &c., but she is ashamed of her name!"

have been elsewhere repeatedly refuted, I consider it a waste of time to attempt to pursue him through all the sophistries by which he labours to show that Lady Hewley and her Presbyterian contemporaries were not what they hypocritically professed to be, but real and zealous Independents. But, as he has ungenerously endeavoured to convict myself and two of my Presbyterian brethren of a wilful perversion of historical truth, it would be injustice to ourselves, were I to allow his lucubrations to pass altogether unnoticed. Allow me, however, to assure him, that I am not less averse to magazine controversy than to Chancery litigation; and that it is to me a matter of deep regret, that the Independent representatives-with whose determinations he seems to be thoroughly acquainted-are as indisposed as ever to cultivate towards the Presbyterian claimants the things which make for peace.

I. The first charge brought against the Presbyterian representatives in the Hewley snit is, " their bold and reiterated assertion, that Lady Hewley, at the time of founding the charity, belonged to the body called Presbyterians." If this be a bold assertion, it is made on the authority of Drake, the York historian, who affirmed that "Lady Hewley died a Presbyterian." If it be a bold assertion, it is made on the unexceptionable testimony of one of the Independent deponents-Dr. James Bennett, who at the commencement of this suit declared, that "there is a pew in St. Saviour's Gate Chapel, York, commonly reported and considered to be the pew formerly occupied by Lady Hewley; that Dr. Coulton and Mr. Hotham were the first preachers at said chapel, and that they were of the denomination called Presbyterian."+ And finally, if it be a bold assertion, it is made on the authority of the present lord high chancellor, who, in his decision against the Unitarians, in 1836, thus expressed himself:-"There can be no doubt," said he, "that Lady Hewley was, in her religious faith and opinions, a Presbyterian. It is a matter of history that she was so. It is proved that she attended the chapel which she herself built and endowed-St. Saviour's Gate Chapel, and which is admitted to have been a Presbyterian chapel. Dr. Coulton, the preacher at that chapel, was an acknowledged Presbyterian. He was her religious adviser. He was executor to her will. He preached her funeral sermon. All these circumstances lead satisfactorily to the conclusion, that she was in her opinions a Presbyterian."+

II. A second charge brought against both sets of Presbyterian claimants is, "that they rigidly adhere to the standards of the Westminster

* See Congregational Magazine for December, p. 934.

+ See Appendix to Appellants' Case in the House of Lords, between Samuel Shore, Esq. and others, appellants; and Thomas Wilson, Esq. and others, respondents.— p. 106.

See Lord Lyndhurst's Decision against the Unitarians, published by his lordship's permission. 1836.--p. 20.

Assembly, which they say were the standards of the old English Presbyterians." Baxter is acknowledged by Mr. Joshua Wilson-a gentleman closely connected with the relators in this suit-to have taken "a prominent part in the affairs of the Presbyterian body;" and, as one of the most distinguished representatives of the old English Presbyterians, his sentiments are entitled to the utmost respect. In Baxter's Narrative of his own Life and Times we meet with these remarkable words: "I have perused oft the Confession of the Assembly, and verily judge it the most excellent for fulness and exactness that I have ever read from any church; and, though some few points in it are. beyond my reach, yet I have observed nothing in it contrary to my judgment."* Such was the estimate formed by this "prominent" Presbyterian leader, of the merits of the old English Presbyterian standards. They continued to be regarded with veneration by his immediate successors in the Presbyterian ministry. Dr. Edmund Calamy, and all his Presbyterian contemporaries, were ordained "according to the Directory of the Westminster Assembly." And in a letter published by the Doctor in 1717, that is, seven years after Lady Hewley's death, he expressly states that his brethren "generally agree to the Confession of Faith and larger and smaller Catechisms compiled by the Assembly of Divines at Westminster." But I need not go so far to show that this was the case. The fact is elsewhere admitted by an historian well-known to our anonymous assailant. In 1835, Mr. Joshua Wilson published a work entitled, "An Historical Inquiry concerning the Principles, &c. of the English Presbyterians:" and in remonstrating with a learned Unitarian apologist, he very properly challenges him to prove that—during the Hewley era the successors of the Westminster divines had ever "rescinded or revoked the standards of the original English Presbyterians." Nor is this all. In the same page, Mr. Wilson denounced the Rev. Joseph Hunter, and the nominal Presbyterians with whom he contended, "for having relinquished their original standard—the standard adopted by the founders of the Presbyterian churches, who, during the period in question, and for many years after, adhered to the same standard, and generally believed the doctrines which it contained." further evidence be wanting, at page 23, we find Mr. Wilson—in full confidence of its correctness-reiterating the statement that "the Presbyterian divines, after the Restoration, still adhered to the Confession of Faith and Catechisms of their Assembly, and professed the doctrines contained in them." And that there may be no defect whatever, in the proof that the standards of the Westminster Assembly continued to be regarded with undiminished affection by the Presbyterians of the Hewley period itself, Mr. Wilson triumphantly asks, "May I

*Folio edition, part i. p. 21.

+ See evidence of Dr. J. Pye Smith, in Appendix to Appellants' Case.—p. 102. Historical Inquiry, &c. by Joshua Wilson, Esq.-p. 18.

If