CIRCUMSTANCES Over which we had no control, but in which, were we to enter into a minute detail of them, the public could take no manner of interest, have alone prevented us from returning, as we had designed to return, in our last Number, to a consideration of the present state and probable future prospects of the Church of England. We commence our present paper with this declaration, because we are not anxious to conceal that a small part only of the task which we have assigned to ourselves has as yet been accomplished. No doubt the subjects already touched upon are of very vital importance; they are, moreover, in every one's mouth; and therefore we treated of them first. But there are other matters behind, of no less serious moment, which, though they may not perhaps be spoken of quite so frequently, are neither left unnoticed, nor suffered to pass without censure. To these, in the proper order, we mean to draw the attention of our readers; and as we are happy to find that the tone in which our former discussions were delivered has not been looked upon, as we were half afraid it might be looked upon, as impertinent, we can give no better pledge for our future moderation, than by assuring them, that they will not find that tone altered to the last.

Before entering upon what may be regarded as a new topic, it may appear but just and reasonable to notice such omissions in our review of the Book of Common Prayer, as have either occurred to ourselves since that review went forth, or have been pointed out to us by others. These, though not numerous, chance to be of considerable consequence. An anonymous correspondent has, for example, suggested that in case of a revision of the liturgy, it might be proper to increase the number of sentences prefixed to the exhortation, by certain texts, such as Gen. xxviii. 17, or Habak. ii. 20, inculcative of reverence for the place of assembly. The same writer recommends a removal of the word Trinity from the Litany, which, continues he, "though a firm believer in the doctrine, I cannot but think an unscriptural mode of address to the Deitythe invariable designation of the King by the simple title of our sovereign

lord'-the insertion before the general thanksgiving of those words in the communion service, Let us give thanks unto our Lord God,' 'It is meet and right to do so,'-and a different mode (the present, where there are many communicants, being rather tedious than edifying) of administering the elements of the Lord's Supper. These suggestions," he adds, "may be deemed of secondary importance. Some of them, no doubt, may be thus thought of; but we are far from considering them all as equally unimportant. Let us see.

With respect to the texts of scripture referred to, unquestionably there could be no impropriety, if there were little positive benefit, in placing them where our unknown fiiend desires to see them placed. A great deal is gained towards securing the attention of a congregation to the solemn duty in which they are about to be employed, if you succeed in impressing them with feelings of awe and reverence towards the place of assembly; and were we sure that the repetition of any sentences from the Bible would produce this effect, we should strongly urge the measure. But we question whether anything which is done often and regularly, comes not, in the end, to be regarded with indifference, and hence we are apt to consider this suggestion as one of secondary importance only. So is it also in the case of the sentences advised to be taken for the communion service. These, inserted as our correspondent points out could do no harm; we scarcely think they would do much good. But of his remaining suggestions we shall take more notice, because we consider them more deserving of it.

We know not what to say as to the wisdom of omitting the word Trinity from the daily service of the Church. It is true that the term occurs not in scripture; that it never came into use till long after the canon of scripture was completed; and that, like all human language, when applied to the Divine Being, it necessarily fails of creating any just or intelligible idea in the mind of him who uses it. The very same thing may be said of the clause which follows it :-" Three persons and one God," the word person signifying something individual,

tangible, and confineable; and it be ing utterly impossible for the human mind to divest itself of that idea, as often as the word "person" happens to be uttered. But if we be induced, for these and similar reasons, to strike out particular expressions here and there, from our liturgy, it is absolutely impossible to determine where it behoves us to stop. The fact is, that no language can possibly express a distinct notion of the Supreme Being, because no distinct notion of that Being can be formed by man; nor, we are disposed to imagine, by any other creature. Even of his attributesthough we speak of them continually -we know nothing; for what are eternity and omnipresence to us, except sounds, without any definite sense? Though, therefore, it be true, that the term Trinity is an unfortunate one, and though it certainly occurs not throughout the pages of scripture, we should be sorry to see it expunged from the Litany of the English Church, because the measure could hardly fail to produce far greater evils than those which it might be intended to remedy. If the doctrine be taught in scripture, as we conscientiously believe it is, the English Church must and ought to have some term or another by which to express its belief in that doctrine; and the doctrine and the term are, from long usage, so completely associated together, that where the one is dropped, the other is understood to be rejected. Now, though we have already said, and again say, that the Church would act wisely in blotting out the Athanasian creed from her formularies, we would never advise any measure, calculated to excite the most remote suspicion, that the English Church had erred from the true faith, and become tinctured with Socinianism. Besides all which, you could not omit the phrase under consideration from one part of the Prayer Book, without omitting it from all. Your festival of Trinity Sunday must accordingly be set aside; and we confess that we look up to that festival with too partial an eye, to give our consent, at least, to its overthrow. It has always struck us, as a proof of the great wisdom of the compilers of the liturgy, that they have there taught the important doctrine of a Trinity in unity in a way so quiet, if we may be allowed the expression and so inoffensive. In

the festivals of Christmas, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday, the divinity of the Son had been plainly stated, the divinity and personality of the Holy Ghost had been declared with equal distinctness in that of Whitsunday, whilst to the worship of the Father, every day of the year is supposed to be dedicated. Not to have devoted one day to the worship of the Trinity, would have been to have the people in doubt whether there were not three separate Gods deserving of their worship. Our correspondent will now, we trust, perceive why we cannot agree in the propriety of his sugges tion. We love not the term more than he does; but it is, and has been, so intimately connected with the most important doctrine of Christianity, and is so thoroughly interwoven into all the services of the English Church, that you could not drop it without endangering the one, and absolutely unhinging the other.

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Of his remaining observations, relative to the titles bestowed upon the king, and the admiration of the elements in the Lord's Supper, we think very differently. Not only do we disapprove of the application of such language as is applied in the English Liturgy to the reigning monarch, but we conceive that the whole thing would be rendered far more solemn, and far more touching, were the name of the prince entirely struck out. To speak, in an address to the Diety, of our most religious and gracious King," whether that king chance to be a really religious person, or the reverse, is to be guilty of something which we do not choose to designate; whilst the introduction of a modern Christian name, such as George or Frederick, into the middle of a pathetic prayer, has always appeared to us to savour prodigiously of the bathos. We know very well, that the phrase above alluded to, has, like other objectionable phrases, received its peculiar explanation. "The king of England," say that class of writers who imagine that they are serving the interests of the Church, by representing her as absolutely incapable of improvement-" the King of England is declared in our liturgy to be most religious, not in his individual capacity, but because he is the head of the Church."

We are not pleased with this explanation, not only because it bears a

strong resemblance to jesuitical sophistry, but because we can discover no solid authority upon which it is grounded. But were it ever so correct, why employ language in any department of public worship, such as shall stand in need of interpretation? We have already recorded it as our opinion, that the State-prayers recur with too much frequency, and with too much formality; we have now only to add, that were the royal family to receive the benefit of the Church's prayers once on every occasion of meeting, it would be sufficient. Greater effect, also, would be given, were the name omitted, for the introduction of which there is no necessity. There are no rival princes now-a-days-one in St James's, the other over the water and hence no man will pray, who prays at all, except for the monarch actually in possession of the throne.

Again, it is impossible not to concur in the sentiment, that if, under any circumstances, the present mode of administering the elements in the Lord's Supper be tedious and unedifying, the sooner that mode is changed the better. In our former paper on this subject, we said, that the Communion service had our unqualified approbation. We commended it then, because it is striking without mummery, affecting without being superstitious; and so far as these facts are concerned, we again repeat our commendation. But it is nevertheless quite true, that where the bread and wine come to be administered by a single priest to an hundred and fifty or two hundred communicants, the continual repetition of the same phrases to each individual of the number, causes, and can hardly fail to cause, at least extreme languor and listlessness both in the clergyman and in his congregation. To remain so long, too, as the process requires, in a cold church, especially in the season of Winter, may prove, and frequently does prove, injurious to the health of old and delicate persons. We see not why the Clergy should not be permitted to administer the elements to three or four communicants at once. In bestowing confirmation, we observe that the Bishops never scruple to set the canon aside after this fashion; the same liberty might, we think, be taken by the priests at the altar. Still we

should wish to see this change effected only in cases of absolute necessity; for it cannot be denied, that much of the solemnity of the ceremony is destroyed when even two persons partake of the elements, and are addressed by the priest at the same time.

Our correspondent has farther thrown out a hint or two on the subject of baptism, under the idea that the matters to which he refers may not have occurred to ourselves. He objects, for instance, to the service, because God is first of all entreated to grant to the child remission of his sins, and yet the child is immediately after represented as innocent. Doubtless there is an apparent contradiction here; but we have always considered it as so trifling, and so easily seen through, that it never once struck us as deserving of notice. The truth appears to be this, the forgiveness of sins here prayed for has no reference, and can have none, in the case of a mere infant, to sins past, farther than as the infant, in common with the whole human race, is affected by the transgression of its first parents. In the guilt of that transgression the infant cannot, indeed, partake, for guilt is an act of an individual mind, and acts of the mind are not hereditary. Still the child is liable to the penalty incurred by the fall; and hence, when the priest prays that God will grant to it forgiveness of its sins, he only employs a peculiar language to express a scriptural idiom, an idiom by which the terms sin and guilt are often used where the consequences arising from sin are alone intended to be expressed. Or it may be, that the forgiveness of sins spoken of in the baptismal service, has reference to such sins as the child shall in after life commit-it certainly can have no reference whatever to sins past, which the child has not committed. Such is the light in which we have hitherto regarded the question, and by thus regarding it we have escaped its difficulties; but it is manifest that others have been less fortunate; for if one so well versed in these matters as our present correspondent have experienced a shock, how must the thing strike the multitude and hence we have, therefore, no hesitation to say, that the ceremony so far stands in need of revision.

Besides these, there are other cir

cumstances pointed out in our friend's letter, which, as they had previously occurred to ourselves, we shall treat as our own. We beg of him, however, to accept our best thanks for his communication; and to rest satisfied, that no exertion shall be wanting on our parts to fulfil his expectations. We beg also to acknowledge the receipt of a tract by Dr Millar of Armagh, to which we shall give our most attentive consideration.

Having thus disposed of the remarks of others, we proceed to offer a few of

our own.

In our paper upon the Book of Common Prayer, the only notice which we took of the sacraments, as administered in the Church of England, had reference to the mode of administration enjoined in the Rubrick. Speaking of baptism, in particular, we objected strongly to the rule in force respecting sponsors, by which parents are positively excluded from answering for their own children. Our reasons for objecting to this arrangement were these, that in consequence of it, the offices of god-father and god-mother have ceased to be other than nominal; that persons daily pledge themselves to a duty which they have no means of fulfilling ; and that great inconvenience frequently arises from the unwillingness of a man's neighbours to connect themselves so intimately with him and his family. These are very weighty objections; but they are not, perhaps, the most weighty that may be offered; they certainly tend not, in the same degree with those which we are now about to enumerate, to hold up our venerable establishment to the scorn of mankind as a mass of contradictions and absurdities. The following is the canon in force relative to the matter now before us.

"No parent shall be urged to be present, nor be admitted to answer as god-father for his own child; nor any god-father or god-mother shall be suffered to make any other answer or speech, than by the Book of Common Prayer is prescribed in that behalf; neither shall any person be admitted god-father or god-mother to any child at christening or confirmation, before the said person so undertaking hath received the holy communion." Of the first clauses in this canon we have already said enough to show the impropriety,

and we wish, at present, to offer a few remarks upon the last.

The

That there is anything essentially wrong in hindering persons from answering for a child at the font till after they have themselves received the sacrament, we are very far from desiring to assent; the only question is, how has the injunction been attended to, or rather, how can it be attended to in the existing state of society? It is a well-known fact, that if out of a parish containing fifteen hundred or two thousand inhabitants, two hundred persons are to be found, who regularly or even occasionally receive the sacrament, the number of communicants is in that parish very great; in the generality of parishes we believe the number to be much less. average number of christenings, however, in parishes of this population, may be taken at one hundred, or one hundred and fifty per annum. Now, as each child requires three sponsors at the least, two god-fathers and one god-mother if a boy, two god-mothers and one god-father if a girl, it is clear, that were none but communicants admitted to discharge the office, each would find himself called upon to undertake the most serious charge which a christian man is ever called upon to undertake, twice, if not three times every year. Were that man desirous of fulfilling his duty, and did the law of the land permit him to redeem a pledge so solemnly given, it is self-evident that the most common attention to his own affairs must hinder him from obeying his inclinations; whereas, in the present posture of affairs, each communicant, were the canon rigidly enforced, would be required to perjure himself—that is all-ever and anon, in order to secure for the children of the parish the benefits of Christian baptism. Communicants, however, are, generally speaking, the most serious and rightminded members of the Church. They consequently hesitate to undertake a charge, which they are quite aware it will not be in their power to fulfil; and hence the form, for it has become nothing better than a form, of standing for infants, as it is called, is almost universally left to men and women, the great majority of whom neither know nor care anything about the matter. We have ourselves seen an infant presented to the priest, and all the custo

mary declarations made, by a man whose contempt for religion was well known, but whom the parent selected because he was rich, and because he hoped that the rich infidel's godson might be remembered in his will. There are very mischievous consequences arising out of a regulation, certainly not enjoined in scripture either by precept or example.

Nor does the evil rest here. The clergy, to a man, feel the impracticability of acting up to the canon; they consequently seldom scruple about neglecting it. Some do so openly. They receive parents and strangers indiscriminately, and perhaps they do right; but there are others of more tender conscience, over whom the reflection has considerable weight, that previous to this ordination they solemnly swore to obey the canons, and cannot therefore violate them with impunity. How do they proceed? Why, thus: Knowing perfectly well that it is the father of the child who presents him, and that he presents him in his own proper person, they yet affect not to know this. They presume that he stands as proxy for some absent friend. How much is it to be regretted, that Christian ministers should be driven to such alternatives, and Christianity itself exposed to ridicule, by the pertinacious retention of a law, erroneous in its principle from the first, and now generally acknowledged to be such.

Again, it is distinctly asserted in the Church Catechism, that "Christ hath ordained two sacraments as generally necessary to salvation, that is to say, Baptism and the Supper of the Lord." In the baptismal service likewise, certain expressions are used, which convey the idea, that by a due reception of that rite, and by alms, persons "born in sin, and the children of wrath, are made the children of grace." What the Church of England means by this phrase we take it not upon us to determine; but we presume it has some meaning, and the obvious meaning undoubtedly is, that there is no assurance of salvation to any person who has not partaken of that initiatory sacrament. We believe likewise, that such of the clergy of the English Church as know why they are members of that Church rather than of the Churches of Scot

we

land or Geneva, regard baptism as valid, only when it has been conferred by a Priest or Deacon Canonically, that is Episcopally ordained. Though, therefore, these gentlemen may, and, we presume, do, universally encourage the hope, that the circumstance of having been baptised by a Presbyterian Minister will not stand in the way of a man's acceptance hereafter, who has laboured "to work out his own salvation with fear and trembling," presume at the same time, that they would not willingly admit to the Lord's table any individual thus baptised. This may be called bigotry; but this is the doctrine of the Church; unless, indeed, which we by no means conceive to be the case, the Church acknowledges the validity of lay-baptism. How then must the clergyman act when the individual dies, whom in his life-time he never regarded as a member of the Church, nor consequently as his brother? Why, he dare not refuse to read over his corpse the very same form of words which he reads over the corpses of the most pious and most popular of his own flock; and the body of a man, which, when animated by the spirit, never entered the Church at all, must now be carried within its walls, and from thence to the grave, with all the pomp and solemnity which usually attends the English burial-service. We look upon this as an extreme hardship imposed upon the English clergy; but it is not the greatest hardship to which they are subjected.

It is well known to all our readers that the Quakers never baptize at all; and that Baptists defer their ceremony till after the catechumen shall have arrived at years of discretion. The dipping of a Baptist must, however, in the eyes of an English clergyman, have exactly the same value with the baptism conferred by a Presbyterian divine. Those, therefore, whose ignorance of the constitution of the Church, or indifference to it, leads them to consider the person baptised by a minister of the Kirk, as canonically admitted into Christ's Church, cannot possibly deny the same privilege to the person dipped by the Baptists; hence he who experiences no reluctance to read the burial-service over the body of the first, will experience none in reading it over the