World. Were the Christian Observer ever to be confounded with certain other periodical works which. have ostensibly the same design, and make far greater professions, I should really consider the public as having sustained a serious loss; for it is perhaps the only correction that there is to the works to which I allude. It is too much to be feared, that many readers of works, which their editors, perhaps, imagine to have the same beneficial tendency as yours, console themselves under the unpleasant convictions which the awful truths of which they are unquestionably the vehicle, may bring upon their minds, by observing in the writings of their reprovers, such virulence, party spirit, ignorance and inflation of mind, as but too clearly evince that they themselves have need to be instructed, not merely in human wisdom but Christian charity, Permit me now, sir, to conclude, with earnestly requesting you to let it be distinctly understood, that the Editor of the Christian Observer does not approve of having advertisements appear on its covers, penned like the one that I have presumed to call your attention to. Believe me, sir,

Your sincere well-wisher,

AMICUS.

To the Editor of the Christian Observer, THE investigations which have taken place on the subject of our criminal law during the last few years, have shewn in a striking point of view the impolicy, and I fear I must add the national guilt, of inflicting capital punishment for many of those crimes to which it is still attached by our otherwise excellent laws. This persuasion has conduced in no small degree to the impunity of offenders; for many persons experience an unconquerable scruple of conscience, to say nothing of their feelings, in prose cuting a criminal under the expectation of his incurring capital

punishment. The subject, look at it in what light we will, is deeply painful; yet I am inclined to apprehend, that, upon the whole, it is, generally speaking, the duty of a Christian, as a member of a civil community, to bring a criminal to justice; not of course from passion or revenge, but from a sense of public obligation. If the award of punishment be over-measured, the guilt is not his, but belongs to those who appoint it. While a law remains in force, a private member of the community does not appear to be warranted in setting up his personal opinion against the authority of "the powers that be," unless in the case of a plainly unchristian command.

The question is, however, of such importance, that if any correspondent who has had occasion to make it a subject of serious reflection and humble prayer for the Divine direction, would communicate his sentiments upon it, he would greatly oblige

DUBITANS.

To the Editor of the Christian Observer. THE Society of Friends in this kingdom are now become a large and respectable body; and experience daily shews, that they are not unwilling to do their part towards alleviating the distresses of the community. We daily witness and hear of their exertions iu various benevolent institutions; and I am not the only person who regrets that they are not made useful in the administration of the criminal laws, with the rest of their fellow-subjects. Perhaps there may be objections to their being eligible to every office which other Dissenters exercise; but I must confess, they do not present themselves to my view. Their scruples respecting oaths do not appear, under present circumstances, an insuperable obstacle. I solicit the attention of your readers and the public to the subject.

IMPARTIAL,

PARAPHRASE OF THE PRO.
PHECY OF NAHUM.

SHOUT, Judah, shout! Behold thy King!
Th' Almighty comes-an awful form:
His chariot is the whirlwind's wing;
His march is on the storm.
Before his burning breath is driv'n,
Like dust, the fleecy rack of heav'n;
The flow'rs that bloom on Carmel's head,
Wither beneath his glowing tread;
Scorch'd by the lightnings of his eye,
The rivers leave their channels dry;
And Lebanon in terror bows
The palmy honours of his brows:

Destruction tracks his way.-
He comes to conquer and to save,
To raise from earth the fainting slave:
He comes to guard and bless his own,
And pour around the tyrant's throne

A deluge of dismay.

Not wand'ring flames in fiercer tide Rage on the mountain's wooded breast, Devour the forest's leafy pride,

And scale the cedar's crest.

So where his with'ring vengeance glows
Its rage shall blast his mightiest foes;
And guilty empires form the pyre
That feeds his unextinguish'd ire.
Of idol gods the dæmon train
Forsakes each long polluted fane;
ForTime hath brought the destin'd hour,
And Mercy arms the hand of Pow'r.
Realm of the suff'ring seed, rejoice!
Jehovah's thunder-speaking voice
Is only heard to bless :
With plenty all thy vallies sing,
With joy thy mountain summits ring,
And thy glad echoes roll around
From hill to hill the ecstatic sound
Of peace and happiness.
Shake, tow'rs of Ninus.

O'er your

leaguer'd heads The fiery stream of wrathJehovah sheds. See where the chariots whirl their rapid flight,

Like meteors bounding on the clouds of night.

They come the fierce avengers. All around

Like leafless pines their woods of lances spread;

And groaning with their weight, the burden'd ground,

Beams with their flashing shields, and thunders to their tread.

Her bars roll back. Her moated turrets fall,

City of guilt, whose stately street
Is trod by Murder's gory feet,
Where Rapine grasps her blood-stain'd
spoils,

Where Treason spreads her secret toils
Insatiate to devour;

Bend, bend thy tow'r-crown'd head from high, For hovering round thy sunny sky

The clouds of terror low'r. Ride on the pinions of the storm, See Desolation's vengeful form While Havock pointing to the prey Marshals the stern avenger's way; And thy pale children mark in speechless fear

The thunder of his wheels, the lightning of his spear.

Remember Thebes, the queen whose sway

Controul'd the children of the day,
The sons of Mizraim's sultry sky,
The flow'r of Nubia's chivalry.—
Nile centinell'd her battled gate,

And nations mann'd her wall;
Defying Heav'n, disdaining Fate,
Like thee she sate in regal state,

And thou like her shalt fall. Vain was the warrior's plumed pride, And vain the river's guardian tide, The myriads vain, whose busy feet Incessant trod her crowded street; Her mangled infants felt the ruthless sword,

And her proud nobles crouched beneath a foreign lord.

They come,-thy countless foes appear. Blow the shrill clarion! Shake the beaming spear!

Unfurl thy banner! Bare thy blade! And call thy children to thine aid, Numerous as locusts when their squa drons ride

In clouds, upon the whirlwind's scorching breath,

And hang the pall of want and death

So.shall thy warriors, so thy sages fall; The touch of cold Oblivion, tyrant lord, Shall rust thy sceptre and thy sword; And night and silence brood above thy wall.

Thy flocks are scatter'd o'er the mountain's steep,

Thy shepherds rest in dreamless, mornless sleep;

Earth shouts in joy; th' exulting slave Bounds o'er the fall'n oppressor's grave; Fair Freedom smiles; and Fame, with

wings unfurl'd,

Proclaims deliv'rance to the prostrate world.

ADOLESCENS..

TODD on the Declarations of our Reformers respecting Original Sin, Free-will, Grace, &c. LAURENCE'S Authentic Documents respecting the Predestinarian Controversy, &c.

p. 48.)

(Continued from the No. for Jan. OUR former article upon these publications was occupied principally in tracing what may be called the historical argument respecting them. It will have appeared from thence, that we had to do with three distinct periods of history; first, the period of imperfect Reformation dur. ing King Henry VIII.; secondly, the period of more complete Reformation during the short reign of King Edward VI.; thirdly, the period of Protestant Controversy during the reign of popish Mary. The last period, embracing the Predestinarian Controversy, is that contained in the Authentic Documents by Dr. Laurence, and must still be deferred, unwilling as we are to protract this discussion, to a future Number. Consequently we shall also defer to the same Number every thing in the two former periods which has reference to the Predestinarian question. Our pre

sent article will briefly recapitulate the historical statements made in the former part of our Review, and then proceed to render as full attention as possible to Mr. Todd's remaining extracts.

These extracts embrace two of the three periods above-mentioned; namely, that during the reign of King Henry VIII, and that during the reign of King Edward VI. We have already considered the former of these periods, with the productions which then appeared, and which were in succession as follow. The "ten Articles" in 1536: The "Godly and Pious Institution of a Christian Man" in 1537: The "Doctrinæ Christianæ Articuli" in 1540: The "Necessary Erudition of a Christian Man" in 1543; with its translation, the "Pia et Catholica Christiani Hominis Institutio" in 1544. From each of these several productions, particularly the "Institution" and "Necessary Erudition," we gave quotations; and then endeavoured to shew, and we think

* Apparently the most orthodox production of the reign, but never authorized; remarked as having ' some notes of the king in the margin." Q. What

were those notes?

to demonstration, that these were not the statements of doctrines which would afford a genuine elucidation of the opinions of our Eng. lish Reformers; and particularly not of Cranmer, whose composition it has been affirmed they were. Indeed, so far from it, we contended that the quotations which we gave, more particularly those at length from the "Necessary Erudition," contained much obscurity and popish doctrine; and that these several productions were composed, if by Cranmer in part, yet still under unfavourable and popish influence.

That these productions discover, indeed, either "the hand or the heart of Cranmer," we are the more inclined to doubt, notwithstanding the suppositions of Mr. Todd, the more we consider the subject. We have already alluded to that great reformer's private sentiments at the time, as given in our own early pages. We might have extracted much from certain annotations made by Cranmer, and still extant", upon the "King's Book," as the "Necessary Erudition" was called through the flattering contrivance of Gardner. These annotations prove most clearly the dissatisfaction of Cranmer with many of its expressions, and uniformly speak of it as a book in which he had little hand, except unavailingly to criticise its contents. It does not in

See them quoted in Strype, and, for the first time printed in full, in "The Fathers of the English Church," vol. iii. The editor of that valuable work could not have performed a more important service, than the publication of these very annotations, as "found in a MS. in the Archbishop's own handwriting, preserved in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge." We shall have occasion to refer to these annotations, as well as to the work itself above-nam

ed, more than once in the future course

of this Review. We only now observe,

that these annotations will be found, in

general, to hold a language very dif

ferent from that, either of the author or the approver of the "King's Book."

deed appear, as we have already stated, that Cranmer's annotations were ever attended to or adopted. Both the Institution and Necessary Erudition were moreover (as we proved from history) set forth at a time when "all the books of the Old and New Testament, of Tindal's Protestant translation, were forbidden to be kept or used in the king's dominions." They contained avowed popish doctrines; for instance, those of transubstantiation, the mass, auricular confession, and all the seven sacraments. Cranmer afterwards declared that the king was seduced into the adoption of them. Upon the death of that king (Henry VIII.) Cranmer did not lose a single year in setting forth a new Book of Homilies, the very same which forms our present First Book of Homilies, and which will be found to contradict the former "Erudition" in every "necessary" point. On this new book the sagacious but obdurate Gardner instantly placed his ban as directly impugning the former; and did not cease represent it as mischievous in the extreme, urging against it all the common place objections usually applied to the genuine doctrine of justification by faith. Upon the accession of popish Mary, and the professed return of the church to the doctrine and ritual of her father Henry VIII., this new Book of Homilies was, as a matter of course, laid aside with the "Schismatical Ordinal" of Edward VI.; and a new "Profitable and Necessary Doctrine" was substituted for it, by Bishop Bonner and others, after the heads of "the Institution and "It differNecessary Erudition." ed, however," says Collier, "in manner," as might be expected, being more particular, and more polemical." In fine, the contrariety upon actual collation between the old" Institution" or "" Necessary Erudition," and the present First Book of Homilies, as quoted by Mr. Todd himself, we asserted to be so apparent, so circumstantial,

to

so fundamental, and so irreconcileable, that he needed no further il lustration from history to confirm the point. Nor can we avoid repeating our surprize, that with both documents fairly before our extractor, he should not himself have been aware what a hopeless task of reconciliation he was undertaking. We are not inclined to consider the attempt to explain the Protestant Homilies of Cranmer by the former Declarations of King Henry VIII. even in so favourable a light as the attempt would be to illustrate the operations and conceptions of correct vision by the first beamings of the pure etherial stream upon a man newly restored to sight. We are inclined to compare it rather to the wretched expedient (we do not mean to say that this was intentional on the part of Mr. Todd) of making every thing of one colour, by throwing a veil of darkness over all; or, to speak plainly, of making two documents hold the same language by endeavouring to convince us that neither holds any plain or intelligible language whatever.

Thus far, then, we have spoken relative to the history of the first period; that is, during the reign of King Henry VIII.; and we are so far advanced into the second period also, as to have embraced the publication of the First Book of Homilies, by Cranmer himself, as we now have them. This publication followed immediately on the death of that monarch. From this time, and through the period of the reign of King Edward VI., we shall not pursue the documents quoted by Mr. Todd in chronological order; but shall consider them all as containing nearly the same excellent Protestant doctrines; and having given a list of them as they occur in the pages of Mr. Todd, we shall select from each of them at our con. venience, classing our selections for the convenience of our readers, in correspondence with the selections we formerly gave at length from the "Necessary Erudition." Thus, by

comparing the several doctrines of the two periods under their proper heads, there will be found no difficulty in ascertaining the exact difference between the two schemes of faith and practice. In this comparison we shall, except on extraordinary occasions, omit the corresponding or rather contrasting passages in our own authorized Homilies, though they occupy a very large space in Mr. Todd's work; because, as we have hinted before, our readers have, or ought to have, the means of making the comparison for themselves. We shall only make this general observation in the commencement, upon any resemblance between the expressions of our own Homilies and those of the "Institution" and "Necessary Erudition," that it must of course be expected, in passing from one class of doctrines to another, that the point of transition will exhibit affinities in the mode of expressing varying doctrines; and this, more particularly, where the same hand was at one time conscientiously interfering to draw things as near as possible to a correct statement of doctrine; and, at another, prudentially abstaining from introducing any novelties not absolutely necessary for the reformation and instruction oftheChurch-the same wisdom which our reformers also displayed in the formation of our Liturgy. Under these circumstances, it is perhaps more remarkable that so much, rather than that so little, variation should be found in the several documents before and after the death of King Henry VIII.; for there is not in then a single sentence verbally the same. Approving, as we do, of Mr. Todd's object in his present work-which, he tells us, is to stem the Antinomiau beresies of the day-we, nevertheless, must dis. approve of the expedient he employs for accomplishing his purpose, and which, in point of fact, is neither more nor less than attempting to introduce semi-popish doctrines into the church, on the