ching if found to exist, must be abandoned all at once, with self-abasement, humiliation, and sorrow of heart, as we would avoid eternal ruin." "But other sins there are, and not merely infirmities and unavoidable weaknesses, but of a more grievous character, of which it would still be very harsh and untrue to say that they are in themselves destructive of grace. ..With regard to such sins as these, of which the awakened conscience will more and more perceive both the frightful accumulation and the intrinsic hatefulness in God's sight, it seems of great importance to bear in mind, that we shall succeed far better, by God's grace, in our noble aim of gradually vanquishing them, if we confine our special watchfulness to some two or three at a time.” VIEW OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS. THE business of the House of Commons We deeply regret the difficulties Christian teacher both of adults and children; and the arguments which have been urged to prevent its asserting its claims and discharging its duties as a religious guardian of "the lambs of the flock," would apply equally to its office as a dispenser of "the word and sacraments ;" and hence arose the extensive opposition which was stirred up against the Education clauses of the Factory Bill; a large proportion of the objectors being persons hostile to all National Church Establishments; and who wished to weaken the influence of the clergy in the training of children, with a view ultimately to eject them from their mission to adults. Not that the proposed bill was a Church measure; on the contrary, it involved large concessions upon the part of the Church in order to secure the discharge of a great public duty. Sir James Graham justly stated this; adding his regrets that these concessions were not met in a corresponding spirit by the Dissenters. The principles upon which the opposition to the Education clauses of the Factory Bill was grounded, would lead, either to Mr. Hume's project of endowing every sect from the national purse for the training of youth; or to the abandonment of all legislative recognition of religion whatever, whether in church or school; thus reducing us to the nationally atheistical principle of pure voluntaryism. It is not the loss of this particular measure that we so much mourn over, as that unhappy state of misguided popular opinion which opposes itself to the carrying out those just and scriptural views for promoting the glory of God and the best welfare of mankind, which are the basis of our National Church Establishment. But there is no utility in desponding lamentations. We must be up and doing, making the most of such resources as we have, and hoping that in proportion as they are well improved, God will bless our labours. If local Church effort were more extensively called into action, it would be entitled to an increased share of the Parliamentary grants; and those grants will be considerably extended; for the late discussions have led to a very general acknowledgment of the necessity and the duty of promoting popular education; and all parties allow that the abandonment of the late measure calls for increased aid to education through the channels heretofore made use of. The Church, if the grants continue to be dispensed as before, and no unfair preferences are set up to thwart her efforts, may still, upon the principles of voluntaryism, promote religious education to an extent far beyond all classes of Dissenters combined; and as this is her duty, so also it is a legitimate and powerful mode of extending her just influence. In proportion as she makes herself spiritually useful, she will be felt to be valuable by all whose approbation is connected with truly religious feelings; and if in the same proportion she is disliked by others, she needs not dread their reproach or opposition; for she may say, "My judgment is with the Lord, and my work with my God." Upon the same principle much benefit may be made to flow from Sir Robert Peel's Church-Loan Bill. Her Majesty's Government was afraid to ask for a legislative grant for Church Extension; but the Church is to be allowed to borrow from itself, for the purpose of rendering its funds more available and efficient. Let its friends -not merely the rich, but the great bulk of its members-meet the proposed grants largely in advance, as from their numbers and ability they may easily do; and then not only will much direct good be effected, but a foundation will be laid for larger benefits; and perhaps with such public acceptance as hereafter to open the way for Parliamentary aid. The Scottish Church-Bill, which Sir R. Peel hopes to carry through, is a measure that ought to satisfy the friends of that Church, and we trust will; though, after what has passed, it will not, we fear, bring back many seceders. It allows the parishioners to urge objections against a presentee, and the Presbytery to decide upon their validity; which rights, we believe, the Scottish Church has always possessed; and we cannot see what more is necessary to its spiritual freedom or practical efficiency. Sir R. Peel further hopes that he shall be able to carry through Parlia ment the Irish Arms Bill. That Bill, regarded in itself, is of smaller moment than some account it; for though it is important if possible to prevent persons from possessing fire-arms who are likely to turn them to mischievous purposes, yet if conspirators are determined to risk consequences, it will not be easy to prevent their clandestinely obtaining them; and with Mr. O'Connell's multitudes, pikes may be as effective as fire-locks. The great question is, what is the just course of policy to pursue towards Ireland. Assuredly if there are any real grievances they should be redressed; and some there are,-such as absenteeism, and the system upon which landed property is too often administered; and the harsh removal of tenants, to which Sir R. Peel has alluded ;--but there is nothing in these causes of complaint to warrant a disruption of the national ties; and sure we are that the great majority of the people of Ireland would not gain, but lose, in almost every way, as the annals of their own parlia ment prove, by the Repeal of the Union. We do not regard the Poor Law in Ireland as a national grievance; though we expressed our fears when it was enacted that it would lead to many inconveniences. It is now, however, affirmed and not only at Repeal meetings, but in the imperial House of Commons-that "the monster grievance" is the Protestant Church; and Great Britain is asked to consign her sister island to the unmitigated thraldom of Popery. We firmly believe that it is the manifest blessing from on high which has of late years rested upon the Protestant Episcopal Church in Ireland that has specially evoked the displeasure of the great enemy of souls; and that the more good it does-or rather that God is pleased to do through its agency-the more it is, and will be, persecuted. But is this a reason for abandoning it? If numerical majorities are regarded by statesmen as an argument in such questions, the great majority of the people of the United Kingdom are Protestant; and if rank, station, and landed property, then is Ireland potentially Protestant, though numerically Romanist. But it has come to be widely assumed as a wise and righteous doctrine, that legislators are to take no account of religious questions; and that it is persecution not to act as if all theological opinions were equally true or equally false, equally useful or equally mischievous. Such was not the principle which swayed British statesmen at the illustrious era of the Protestant Reformation. It was then nationally determined that Popery is sinful and dangerous, and ought not to be legislatively encouraged. And this momentous truth, though too much lost sight of, is truth still. We are thankful for the Bishop of Cashel's (Dr. Daly) protest against the desecration of the Lord's Day, at Mr. O'Connell's "monster meetings" and public dinners. The Bishop appears to us to have acted honestly and Christianly in issuing that zealous and well-timed monition; and we discern neither weakness nor prejudice in an avowal that this gross Sabbath profanation, which is identified with the political proceedings of Popery, and is countenanced by the Irish Romanist priesthood and prelacy, is an additional reason for not consigning Ireland to the baneful influence of the Church of Rome; either by abolishing the Protestant Church, or by the ungodly and suicidal scheme of paying the Romanist priesthood from the national purse or the proceeds of Protestant confiscation. Whether her Majesty's ministers have acted wisely in biding their time, expecting either that agitation will "blow over," or that a crisis will occur in which they may act to greater advantage, must be decided by forthcoming events. We cannot, however, think that they would have been premature in long ago proposing an enactment making it sedition or treason to conspire for the dismemberment of the empire. It may be too late to legislate when Mr. O'Connell's well-drilled "forces amount to several millions, and rebellion has assumed the portentous aspect which it presented five-and-forty years ago, but with far more dangerous and powerful weapons. ور The disturbances in Wales increase, notwithstanding the vigilance of her Majesty's Government in endeavouring to suppress them. The Turn-pike Toll grievance was the pretext for the Rebecca conspiracy; but it is addressing itself to ulterior objects;-the abolition of tithe and rent-charge, the extinction of church-rates, a new system of poor-laws, the adjustment of rents; and, as in Ireland, the exclusion of "Saxons" from posts of influence or authority. It is clear that these illegal and dangerous combinations ought to be promptly quelled, whatever may be the consequences; for self-preservation is the first instinct of States as well as of individuals; and if such proceedings either in Wales or Ireland are not vigorously opposed, we may soon have again a heptarchy, or an armed and jarring confederacy of a hundred independent States, instead of a "United Kingdom." But this effected, a paternal government and legislature ought as much as possible to remove causes of discontent; though how this is to be accomplished is not an easy question for solution. The extension of manufactures and foreign trade, if a legislature could enlarge them by Act of Parliament, might only lead to future difficulties on a larger scale. The quantity of iron, for example, now manufactured and sold, is double what it was not many years since, and yet the workmen and their families are in the most pitiable condition; the population having overgrown the enlarged demand; and the same remark applies to most other branches of industry. Dr. Pusey's sermon has been published; but published unfairly; not as preached, but with interpolations, which were marked with brackets in the copy given to the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, but are incorporated with the text in print; so that passages may be softened down or shaded off by intervening words; which as preached, or read with the brackets, might appear much stronger. The published discourse fully warrants the academical proceeding respecting it. It unequivocally maintains the presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper, according to the notion of consubstantiation-which in absurdity differs little from transubstantiation. The bread and wine are affirmed to be actually 66 consecrated into the body and blood of Christ ;" we "touch with our lips that cleansing blood;" Christ is said to give his life for the world in that sacrament even more expressly than on the cross, seeing that there not a bone was broken, whereas we quote the words with pain and abhorrence" in the oblation he [not the bread, but Christ] submits to be broken ;" and "elements of this world" are declared to be "the flesh and blood of the Incarnate Word;" "the very flesh and blood which were given and shed for the life of the world." But it is not the doctrine of the real presence of Christ in the consecrated elements "as a mystery," which Dr. Pusey "adores without asking "the mode," that is most deleterious in this discourse. The fearful evil is that the Lord's Supper is made to be essentially a propitiation for sin. Our readers may remember our arguing in our earliest contest with Mr. Newman and Dr. Pusey, that the terrific doctrine of the non-application of the blood of Christ shed upon the cross for the remission of sins after baptism, must either lead the penitent to blank despair, or be followed up-as we believed mentally it was even then followed up by those two writers, though they did not venture to "speak out "by the Popish remedies of the sacrament of penance, and a propitiatory sacrifice in the Lord's Supper. It appears that we were right, for sacramental penance is now avowed; and Dr. Pusey himself speaks as follows of the Lord's Supper in the preface to this discourse. I had commenced a course of sermons on the comforts provided by the Gospel for the penitent amid the consciousness of sin, with a view to meet the charge of sternness involved by the exhibition of one side of Catholic truth [relative to sin after baptism]; in this course, the sacred subject of the holy eucharist, of necessity, came in its order; and it was my wish to point out its comforting character to the penitent in two ways:-1st, indirectly, because it is the body and blood of his Lord, and is the channel of his blessed presence to the soul: 2ndly, because in holy Scripture the mention of remission of sins is connected with it." This is one of the master-errors of Popery and Tractarianism, and it effectually sets aside the doctrine of justification by faith, and we might quote whole pages of the sermon in proof of this; but one specimen may suffice. "And this may be another truth which our Lord intended to convey to us when he pronounced the words as the form which consecrates the sacramental elements into His Body and Blood, that that Precious Blood is still, in continuance and application of His One Oblation once made upon the Cross, poured out for us now, conveying to our souls, as being His blood, with the other benefits of His Passion, the remission of our sins also.....Touching with our very lips that cleansing Blood, how may we not, with the Ancient Church, confess, Lo, this hath touched my lips, and shall take away mine iniquities and cleanse my sins ?'" This it is that makes Tractarianism and Popery so awfully dangerous. The doctrine of justification by works,"good moral deeds"--as they are called, is far less insidiously delusive than that of justiffcation by the opus operatum of sacraments. But both are unscriptural, and fatal to the souls of men. "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God." "What then? shall we sin that grace may abound? God forbid." "Faith without works is dead." " We are glad that litigants on all sides begin at length to see that this is the vital question between Anglicans and Tractarians; as it has always been between Protestants and Papists. The "British Critic justly remarks, that little is said in the Ninety Tracts about rubrics, and so forth; which some persons seem to consider the essence of the matters at issue. The reviewer knows well, and admits, nay contends, that the doctrine respecting man's justification is the cardinal point of the controversy. "Evangelicals cleave,” he says, " to the soul-destroying heresy of Luther on the subject of justification;" which, he adds, in his remarks upon the Bishop of Chester's Preface to the Romans," is always in tendency, and generally in effect, presumptuous, ostentatious, and lax." For the tendency of the doctrine, we confidently refer to St. Paul; for facts, to the whole page of ecclesiastical history; and for an excellent and incontrovertible argument upon the question, to the Bishop of Chester's Preface, which we are glad to see reprinted as a tract, as we suggested in our review of it last May. The murder of Colonel Fawcett by Lieut. Munro and their seconds (we use the language of the jury on the inquest) has recalled public attention to the sin and folly of duelling; and we begin to hope that some plan will at length be devised to abolish so wicked and barbarous a practice. A highly-respectable and influential Society was lately formed for that purpose, whose zealous and discreet efforts, we trust, will not be in vain. ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. J. V.; R. F.; T. B.; E.; A. B. D.; E. B.; Bombayensis; J. B. S.; J. H.; and A very Old Reader; are under consideration. We meant Southey's Wat Tyler, not Joan of Arc, at p. 395 of our last Number. DEATH-BED SCENES. To the Editor of the Christian Observer. I SEND you a letter written several years since, as you will discern from the allusions in it, but the reflections in which are applicable to all times and in all places; and may, by God's blessing, prove a word in season to some of your readers. J. M. H. YOUR present letter, though it tells of an afflictive dispensation, yet shews that in judgment God has remembered mercy; and, as I believe is ever His manner towards His people, the arrow which struck you, no doubt for good, has been dipped, not in poison, but in healing balm. To those who mourn the bereavement of a worldly friend or relative,—— who grieve for one who "dies, and gives no sign," I confess I know not what consolation to minister; except indeed it be to bid them look away from that friend, loved, but for ever lost, to Jesus,—and this, to them, and at such a season, were cruel as it were vain. But I feel that I have a strong consolation to offer to those who mourn after friends that sleep in Jesus. I have but to address them in words dictated by the Spirit of Him who is touched with a feeling of our infirmities, and who was "not ashamed to call us brethren." To such I need but say, "I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For, if we believe that Jesus died, and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, That we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words." (1 Thess. iv. 13-18.) Some truly pious souls are very jealous, for the Lord's sake, of such a ground of consolation. They are sincere, and would honestly rend every fibre of the heart that drew them from Christ. But does the love of Christian friends produce this effect, at least necessarily, in time? Why then should it in reference to eternity? But I doubt that such CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 69 3 U |