A Clergyman may say strange things; the Bishop of London may say any thing; otherwise I confess, that even the bright jewel of my faith, which is of such transparent purity, that any body may see through it, would have been much sullied at being told, that our blessed Saviour, after all, was little better than the Son of a Carpenter, that " he was without education and without learning; and that the persons into whose hands his religion came after his death, were a few fishermen, as unlearned and uneducated; and for the purpose of framing rules of morality, as unpromising as himself." This surely might have been taken for the language of an unbeliever; but to do its author justice, we should view it in connection with the whole purport of the proposition that he is maintaining, and then, however little we may approve of the conclusion, we shall find that he has proceeded to it through such bold and dashing premises as no unbeliever would have been the author of. For where is the infidel or sceptic, where the man who did not himself take every thing in faith, nothing doubting, and required every body else to do so too; who would have had the moral courage, like our good Bishop, to have told us, in the first sentence of his proposition, that "there is no where to be found such important information, and such just and noble sentiments, as in the Scriptures of the New Testament;" and then seconding the bold assertion by attempting to shew us in the New Testament what nobody else could ever see in it but himself? Certain it is, that the blessed Scriptures must be read by the help and teaching of that Spirit by which they were written, or otherwise the various beauties which they contain will be fated to escape our observation, and, like the roses in the wilder

ness, must

"blush unseen,

And waste their sweetness on the desert air."

For except with the eye of faith, which we know seeth the things which are invisible, no man could ever discover those sublime doctrines and pure morals in the Scriptures of the New Testament, which I dare say are all there, nevertheless,

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They teach us," says our good Bishop, "that there is one Almighty Being of infinite power and wisdom, whose providential care is over all his works, and who is the Governor and Preserver of this world." You see how smooth the music runs when thus played off at hand; but compare your glee with your gamut, and it grates harsh discord, for not a crotchet is there in your book, not such a word, nor word to bear such sense, as "infinite power and wisdom," as "providential care," or a "Governor and Preserver of this world." I deny not that these things are truths; but I deny that these truths are contained in the New Testament. For instead of the New Testament setting before us a Being of infinite power and wisdom, and of providential care, we have one,

I beg pardon, one, two, three, which in divine arithmetic makes but One, of whom I shall say nothing; but to prevent mistakes, if by the Governor and Preserver of this world, we are to understand the God of this world, that is, none other than the Devil, whom St. Paul, in the 4th of the 2nd Epistle to the Corinthians, designates by that title," in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not," and for which, of course, they ought to be much obliged to him; while those good Christians to whom the Devil alloweth the privilege of seeing things so clearly, should say their Catechism, and "submit themselves to all their governors, teachers, spiritual pastors and

masters."

I shall not follow the Learned Prelate (and I hope no one else will) through his induction of the sublime doctrines which he tells us are contained in the New Testament, not one of which, nor of the like of which, is there to be found; but I leave to the reprehension of every good man's conscience that measureless hardihood of assertion that would presume to tell us, that "the meanest peasant in this country is better acquainted with the Supreme Being than were any of the greatest sages of ancient times." Ask, then, the meanest peasant in this country, or ask its most profound philosopher or learned divine, "Hast thou by searching found out God, hast thou found out the Almighty to perfection?" But ere thou answer, remember that eternal axiom, "Scire tuum nihil est, nisi te scire hoc sciat alter"-He knows nothing who can communicate nothing and if thou knowest no more than the contents of this proposition, then may our cattle teach us as much, and not the peasant only, but the peasant's dog may bark about the Almighty.

To the moral precepts (or rather to what are CALLED the moral precepts) of the gospel, for this alone is Terra Firma, shall I confine my observations. Our Divine Master, says the Bishop, has laid down two great leading principles for our conduct, from which what dost thou chiefly learn by these commandments, “I learn two things, My duty towards God, and my duty towards my neighbour." From the first I fear, with all his learning, he shall learn nothing at all, for with respect to any reference to human conduct, it is utterly useless; the other is rendered utterly impracticable by the bisections and interruptions of its mystical adjunct. With respect to God, we are commanded to love, fear, worship, and obey him; to set him always before us; to do all things to his glory; to seek first his kingdom and his righteousness; and submit with patience and resignation to every thing he sees fit to bring upon us." Now, suppose a man will not do any thing of this kind; suppose he will not love, fear, worship, and obey, what he knows nothing about; will not set any thing before him that he cannot eat; will not seek what can be of no use to him; and will not resign and submit, as I confess for one; I No. 5. Vol. XIII.

neves will resign nor submit to every thing God sees fit to bring upon me; I will not. What then? Is a man any the worse for this? Or would he be any the better, or mankind the better for him, for his bowing down his head like a bulrush; saying his prayers till he frightened himself, or cringing like a beaten cur to the man in the clouds, for joining himself in villainous confederacy against the general happiness of his fellow-creatures, and pocketing the grist, which they call DOING IT to the glory of God. But I opine that we should never have heard of its being our duty to submit and resign to every thing that God sees fit to bring upon us, had not the sequitur of this sly villainy been, that we should consequently submit and resign to every thing that his vicegerents and representatives may see fit to bring upon us; that so the resigning, submitting, slavish, coward people might learn to lay their necks in the mire for Kings and Priests to tread on. That unrivalled form of prayer, "thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven," with its significant,thy kingdom come," and "thine is the kingdom," is in a sense of which the Commons never dreamed the Lord's Prayer. If Republican Greece and Rome were not blest with so sublime a form of devotion, neither were they curst by that master-stroke of State policy, which would break in the mind to the yoke of oppression, and reconcile us to tyrants upon earth by the habit of prostration to a Tyrant in Heaven. Now, that's the riddle out, Go," said the Priests, "Go, cowards, say your prayers, that you may learn to kneel, and cringe, and bend to our authority."

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The good Bishop next calls us to a far more rational and intelligible view of human duties-those which we owe to our neighbours and ourselves; but in quoting that great maxim, that “we should do unto all men as we would they should do unto us," you may observe the effect of education and learning enforcing some degree of candour on the mind in spite even of its interests and its prejudices. An ordinary Methodist Preacher would have blotted out the bold falsehood at once, and claimed honour for this, (which happens to be the 24th maxim of the philosopher Confucius) as a property of Christianity, upon which it has been engrafted, without growing there indeed, for if a definition of the Christian character, more statistically accurate than any other, were to be given, it would be, that this is the rule which Christians never practise. The Bishop has been content to say, that it is admirable, without implying that Christ was its author, as he knew that he was not; nor has he shut the door so entirely as he might have done against the detection of its plagiarism. "You may perhaps in some of the Greek or Roman writers," says he, "pick out a few of Christ's precepts, or something like them." Yes, you may indeed! of those precepts ascribed to Christ, which can in any sense be termed moral, you may pick out six for every half dozen, and find them as common as a cough and hoarseness

in damp weather. And surely it is not necessary to prove that Christ was not the plagiarist; that he was a particularly great dunce; and had never studied at Athens or Rome; and therefore could not have stolen the maxims and precepts of their orators and philosophers: unless we are to be told that it was impossible for any body else to have done it for him.

As to the duties which concern ourselves, and which one would therefore suppose nobody else ought to have any thing to do with, with the single exception of our obligation to live soberly and righteously, Christianity, on the Bishop's shewing, has taught us nothing but the most absurd asceticism and barbarous misanthropy. "We are commanded," he says, " to keep ourselves unspotted from the world." Why, it is impossible to do so this dirty weather. Even our dandy Christians that but cross half a dozen streets, will get splashed up to the knees in sin, although they should say, "Our Father, which art in heaven," at every step of the way. But if this is not to be taken literally, then tell me what is meant by a moral precept that is to be understood allegorically, or what is the morality of saying one thing and meaning another. If by the "world" be meant the people in the world, our fellow-men, and that we are to consider that contact with them would defile us, how is this duty to be reconciled with that of loving our neighbour as ourselves. Again: we are, says the Bishop, to keep under our body, and bring it into subjection. Under what, pray? Subjection to whom? To ourselves and our own volitions; it is a violation of all proprieties of language. To any body else, and their wills, it is an outrage against all principles of reason. To possess an absolute command over our passions would be, in reality, to have no passions at all; since the very word implies their essential sway and influence over us. We must indeed act as men, but in order to do so we must first feel as men. And the monster that had acquired such a command over the sweet and powerful influences of Nature, as to be able to control her operations, and bid his passions truckle to his purposes, would not be a better but a worse man than any body else; he would be, in short, of those in whom consummate art outwits the honesty of, Nature, and "who can therefore smile! and smile! and murder while they smile!"

From this general view of the duties which our Bishop chooses to class under the head of the moral precepts of Christ, although so far to his honour it is, that they happen to be no precepts of his, we are referred to the more particular injunctions given us in our Saviour's admirable Sermon on the Mount. Sermon on the Mount!! On the Mount!! I wonder his Lordship did not at once call it a mountebank sermon, since he chose to speak of it in this degrading manner, as if it had been delivered from a molehill, or from a mere grassy bank, from which the people could have heard it whereas, the Sacred Scriptures sacredly assure

us that it was from the top of a mountain, and I dare say it was, from that same exceeding high mountain, as much o'ertopping Dhawallagiri as Dhawallagiri o'ertops a hay-rick, from which we know that the Devil shewed him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, in a moment of time. "For as the hill of Basan, so is God's hill, even a high hill as the hill of Basan." The Bishop may be as impious as he pleases-but I will exalt thee, O Lord, and set thy glory above the heavens.

Then we are told, that those most excellent rules of life contained in this mountebank sermon (although it shocks me to call it so) were short, sententious, solemn, and important, full of wisdom, and dignity, yet intelligible and clear. Intelligible and clear, forsooth! When will these men learn to read? And if they were intelligible and clear," then were they exactly what Christ himself never intended that they should be; for we are expressly assured that the people were astonished at this doctrine, they were stultified and dumbfoundered at it;" and I suppose people are not astonished, stupified, and dumbfoundered at any thing they find to be very clear and intelligible, " for he taught them as one having authority"--and that style we all know was never intended to be over and above clear and intelligible to any body.

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Nay, and as if on purpose that our vanity might never dream of this, Christ has himself honestly owned, that it was not his intention that any body should ever be the wiser or the better for his doctrines, and I am sure they never were. "For to you, (said he to his disciples, that is, you know, to the Clergy) unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: (that is, I'm a Clergyman myself, and I won't tell!!!) but unto them that are without (that is, to the people, the canaille, the lower ranks, the common cry of curs) all these things are done in parables, (quiddities, quirks, conundrums, and double-entendres, the words here and the meaning there) that seeing they may see, and not perceive, and hearing they may hear, and not understand." This is in the 4th chapter of the Gospel of St. Mark, and perfectly tallies with what we find in the 2nd of the 2nd of Thessalonians, "that God himself sends the people strong delusion, that they may believe a lie, and that they may all be damned." So that by comparing spiritual things with spiritual, the Gospel with the Epistle, the beautiful parables of Christ Jesus, on the one hand, and the kind intentions of God Almighty, on the other-it is not my fault if this is not as clear an explanation of the Mountebank Sermon as the Bishop himself would have given you.

But as for those sublimest precepts of all this sublime morality, about plucking out your eyes, and chopping off your arms, I only beg that my congregation may wait awhile till some other The highest mountain in the world.

+ After a long pause of hesitation and significant demur.