for neither England, Scotland, nor a large part of the people of Ireland, would submit to such a measure ;—it is entirely out of the question; and the Romanist bishops and priests, with Mr. O'Connell and his colleagues, profess to deprecate it. It is said they think it would weaken the power of the priests; but we do not believe that they so think. If all were salaried by the State, no individual would feel his own stipend endangered by reason of his political opinions; and there would be the same field as before for the elements of strife, civil and religious. The real reason is that they aim at higher quarry; they demand the abolition of the Protestant Church; they have already given intimations that houses of residence would suit them; and if they could get the parsonages and glebe, they would not scorn the tithes. Their receiving a stipend from Government would not prevent their trying to compass their end, rolling back three centuries; but it would set aside all decent pretext for doing so We fear that before long some political party will bid for power by offering the boon of establishing Popery, either in part or wholly, as the religion of Ireland: indeed the Melbourne "appropriation clause a giant step in that direction. If events

was

principles. Is Popery unscriptural? come to this, we must fall back upon Was the Protestant Reformation right or wrong?

There is not much pressing public intelligence to notice; but one thing we viewing the passing events of the daymay always profitably recal to mind in namely, our national sins and mercies Well may we use the striking words of Ezra : After all that is come upon us for our evil deeds, and for our great trespass, seeing that thou our God hast punished us less than our iniquities deserve, and hast given us such deliverance as this; should we again break thy commandments, and join in affinity with the people of these abominations? thou hadst consumed us, so that there Wouldst thou not be angry with us till should be no remnant nor escaping?" Truly England, like Israel of old, has been often punished; her punishment also has been on account of her iniquities, as indeed all punishments are; yet they have been less than our trespasses deserved; and God has often given us great deliverance. Shall we then again break his commandments; and if after so much love, warning, and fatherly chastisement, we do so, may He not be angry with us, so that there shall be no remnant nor escaping?

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

C. M. R.; C. C.; J. W.; A Constant Reader for many Years; Words on Duelling; A Clerical Teetotaller; T. W.; II. S.; An Aged Clergyman; A Lincolnshire Presbyter; A Supporter of the "Christian Observer;" and A Constant Reader; are under consideration.

A SINCERE WELL-WISHER, alluding to the Recollections of Mr. Southey in our Number for July, says that the widow of Mr. Southey was the daughter, not of Canon Bowles, but of a gentleman of that name in London.

Knowing how abstinently our modern Sacheverellites receive facts which they find it inconvenient to credit; and how some of them, either ignorantly or captiously, have put us upon the proof of well-known occurrences, which we supposed no man doubted;-such, for instance, as Archbishop Laud's pompous doings at St. Catherine Cree church, and his cruelty to Alexander Leighton;refusing to credit such stories upon the faith of popular historians, and requiring of us original proofs, (which, it so happens, we have in every such case been able to furnish,) we have forestalled the sceptical interrogations which we may receive next month relative to the sacriligious altar-piece mentioned p. 708 of our December Number, and have found credible informants who remember having seen a drawing or engraving of it, which used formerly to decorate the old rectory of that parish.

To numerous authors who request to know whether we have read, and intend to review, their Tracts, Sermons, Pamphlets, or Treatises, upon Baptism, the Baptismal service, the controversies respecting the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and various Tractarian matters; we are constrained to reply, that though we are constantly overdoing our readers with these topics, we cannot pretend to keep up with the issue of publications upon them, which, we may safely say, amount to some hundreds. In reply especially to several writers upon regeneration in baptism and our Church Baptismal service (each of whom has an hypothesis or explanation of his own,) we can only say that we have seen at least forty recent publications on this subject; and what can we say on it, that we have not often

said before, or that our readers will be at the pains to peruse? If however any ten, or six, authors will tell us that they concur in the same solution, we will gladly review their cluster of publications. We never write on it, or insert the papers of our correspondents upon it, without provoking shoals of controversial replies, which we are obliged to refrain inflicting upon our readers. This is a mournful state of things; but we see no immediate remedy.

A RUSTIC RECTOR will find such reply to his inquiry as we are able to give, anticipated in our remarks upon the State Prayers in our December Number. The question whether a clergyman is legally bound to use those offices, has never been judicially decided; but we think, for the reasons we have there stated, that he is so. The question was once nearly ripe for judicial decision, but it stopped short by the submission of the accused party. And who was this party? It was the celebrated John Johnson, the Non-juror, Rector of Cranbrook, Kent, author of "The Propitiatory Oblation in the Eucharist," "The Unbloody Sacrifice, and Altar Unveiled," and other publications, which have rivetted him as one of the strongest links in the Oxford-Tract catena ; but, what is more to our present purpose, he was author of "The Clergyman's Vade Mecum;" "The Ancient and Present State of the Church of England;" and "A Collection of all the Laws, Canons, Answers, or Rescripts of the Government and Worship of the Church of England." When George the First came to the Crown, he refused to read the service for his Majesty's Accession, in consequence of which he was cited before the Archbishop of Canterbury, He defended himself zealously, which his line of reading enabled him to do with great ability; and he was also supported by his friend Dr. Hickes and the strength of the Non-juring and anti-Hanoverian parties; skill, money, zeal, and the best legal advice were not wanting; but before judgment was pronounced, he found it prudent to submit, though most reluctantly; which it is impossible to believe he would have done if he had not felt convinced that the decision would have been against him.

We have confined ourselves to our correspondent's inquiry, without now going into collateral questions as to the expediency or otherwise of these offices, or of some things in them, upon which matters we have touched in our paper above referred to. The chief difficulty, to our minds, is that which arises from the subscription required in the thirty-sixth Canon of 1603, by which every clergyman pledges himself to use the form in the said book (the Book of Common-Prayer,) prescribed in public prayer, and administration of the Sacraments, and none other." We have always great reluctance in entering upon questions of casuistry; but in the complicated intercourse of human life occasions arise in which it is necessary to reconcile apparent difficulties, so as to adhere to truth and keep a good conscience. The present is no new question. From the time of the passing of the above Canon, our bishops, clergy, and civil rulers, have practically declared their opinion that the - subscription required by it does not apply to the particular case in question. Alterations were made in the Prayer-book in the time of James I., of Charles I., and of Charles II. The subscription required by the Canon of 1603 of course does not bind us to the Prayer-book as it then was; it binds us to the book as we now have it; and we have no greater difficulty than our forefathers had even in the days of James the First; for the clergy were then astricted to use the "said book so authorized by Parliament in the fifth and sixth year of King Edward VI. ;" and none other, or otherwise;" so that when changes were made at the Hampton Court Conference, "This was the occasion" (to use the words of Dr. Nicholls,)" of different speculations in those times. The Puritans, for whose sake those alterations were made, did not think them founded upon sufficient authority; and Bishop Cosins, who was no friend to the Puritans, but had a great zeal for Parliamentary right, was of the same opinion." But in those very days the Gunpowder-Plot service was introduced and universally used; and there have been hundreds of occasional forms of Prayer and Thanksgiving before and since that time, on occasion of births, marriages, harvests, wars, defeats, victories, death, and pestilence; and these were regarded by the whole stream of bishops, clergymen, civilians, senators, and rulers, as not contravening the subscription under the thirty-sixth Canon. It would be a horrible conclusion, that all our clergy, for nearly three hundred years, have foresworn themselves. The Act of Uniformity of Elizabeth, as well as that of Charles the II., enacted that no other forms than those in the Prayer-book should be used; yet such occasional forms as those above noticed were not objected to as thereby prohibited. There is verbal discrepancy; but there seems from the first to have been a common

understanding of what was intended. The Non-jurors and those modern Trac[APP. tarians who refuse to read the November 5. service. are zealous for that of January 30, which, if Canon 36 apply at all, is as much excluded as the other, or as any form issued on occasion of a royal birth or marriage. All or none, is the only just alternative; for a clergyman is not to pick and cull what he pleases; or to say that one form or passage passed Convocation, another did not; that a Bishop or Archbishop enjoins, or does not enjoin, this or that;-the words of the Canon and of the Acts of Uniformity are not thus conveniently elastic.

Our Right Reverend Fathers might, either collectively or individually, bring this question to a judicial issue; and that they have not done so long ago, may be variously accounted for. In the first place, their attention may not have been urgently directed to the subject, and they have enough to do, with their arduous labours, without becoming volunteer busy-bodies. Again, there might be much expence, personal vexation, delay, invidious controversy, and uncertainty of issue, in bringing the matter to an ultimate decision; though the episcopal bench, or some individual prelate, might be disposed to encounter these difficulties, if the proceeding were considered desirable. Further, there has always been a dif ference of opinion among our prelates themselves, as well as among the subordinate clergy, upon the de jure, whatever may be the de facto, law of the Church and the State, touching questions of rival or concurrent jurisdiction. But lastly, our prelates, whether inclining to Erastian or to Altitudinarian views, probably consider that much inconvenience might arise from judicially mooting this many-sided question. If the decision were that the subscription required by the thirtysixth Canon and the Acts of Uniformity, (from that of 2, 3, Edward VI., to that of Charles the Second, by which we are now bound) in forbidding all forms of prayer and thanksgiving, except those in the Book of Common Prayer, include within the range of prohibition the four State-offices, and by consequence all services ordered by the sovereign in council, upon occasion of births, deaths, or marriages, war or peace, dearth or plenty, fire or pestilence, humiliation or thanksgiving; then all our bishops and clergy, (we believe without exception), from the days of the Reformation to the present moment, have violated the law and their own subscription; all our sovereigns and privy councils have acted illegally; both our Houses of Parliament have shared in the offence; and the great body of the people during nearly three ceuturies have been implicated. The circumstance that this or that form was enjoined on a clergyman by his Ordinary, or had passed Convocation, does not alter the case; for the Acts of Uniformity, and the subsbription required under the thirty-sixth Canon, make no exception for Ordinaries or Convocation, any more than for Sovereigns in Council.

But if, on the other hand, it was judicially decided that the Sovereign in Council has a legal right, either by statute or prescription, to order such occasional offices, a door would be opened which could not be shut, but which might let in far more than was desirable. We should be henceforth called not an Act-of-Parliament Church, but an Order-in-Council Church; the Church's prerogative of selfgovernment would be infringed upon; the compact which the State made with her upon the covenant of the Book of Common Prayer would be violated; and what remedy, it might be asked, would there be if a prime-minister were to procure an Order in Council to enjoin forms the most unscriptural and anti-Anglican? This being ruled as the law by which Church and State are bound together, many, upon the judicial assertion of that law, would feel constrained (we fear we might be among the number) in conscience to quit the Establishment.

ment.

This alternative our Prelates have never been anxious to provoke. They have seemed to think it best to leave the matter where usage, prescription, and utility have left it; giving up nothing upon principle, but yielding something to mutual understanding; and thinking it time enough to litigate abstract questions, when there arises some great practical inconvenience from their conventional adjustBut not so some zealous spirits among us, who appear determined to pursue the very course which Dr. Candleish and others have pursued in Scotland. They covet the dominancy which the Church of Rome asserts; they are bent upon breaking up our present National Ecclesiastical Establishment, upon the ground, as they say, that Cranmer "Erastianized" it (it must have been by anticipation of that worthy's birth); and they appear vexed that Bishops will not accept their overtures to become martyrs.