adopted, because that intuitive knowledge cannot be generally possessed. But does that prove that Christians should rather hear falsehood from one minister of their own church, than truth from another? And that, too, when the whole violation of discipline amounts to this, that a patron who cares little for the souls of a parish, having appointed an incumbent who cares less, the abused and injured people, not willing to perish in ignorance, seek knowledge in a neighbouring church? This Mr. Bickersteth himself allows them to do, for how could he do' otherwise? But where then is the force of his argument? True, indeed, the grace of God, and the profit of the hearer, are not dependant on the goodness of the minister; but can that consideration satisfy any considerate Christian in affording to a minister, who is notoriously ignorant and careless, and unfit for his sacred office, the support and confidence arising from a constant attendance on his public services? Can this be the duty of a private Christian, whose knowledge and character would give weight to his example? Can an apostolic church require such inconsistencies for its support? Are the general benefits of a system of scriptural truth and order to be secured only by individual acts so questionable, and even, if at all, defensible, so injurious, so afflictive, as the constant hearing, it may be, of Socinian, worldly preachers, who not only fail to promote, but actually deride serious godliness? Again we acknowledge Mr. Bickersteth does not maintain this, but we repeat the question, why argue on principles that involve it; on principles which, if they have any meaning or application to the case in hand, place the forms of the church above the character of its ministers, and imply that if its members scrupulously adhere to the former, they may leave with others all care and responsibility as to the latter? It is greatly to be lamented that it should not occur to Mr. Bickersteth, how fatally such sentiments must operate to lower the tone of ministerial character, in whatever Christian community they prevail. Ministers will generally be what the people expect them to be; that measure of labour and character which will satisfy their people, will commonly satisfy themselves. Bright exceptions from this rule, not a few, there always have been, there always will be, men who, in this great office have a higher rule of excellence and responsibility than human estimation. Yet to the majority general opinion will be the rule, even where it is not the principle, of official character; a rule, indeed, not expressly recognized and appealed to, yet operating silently and effectually to determine the general course of conduct. He then, we are persuaded, will be found the true friend of the Anglican church who shall most solemnly impress the minds of her people with a sacred sense of duty to expect great things of her ministers; to be dissatisfied with worldly, hireling priests, and to make that dissatisfaction known and felt. We have read the history of the church, and studied the character of man with most mistaken mind, if the conclusion to which we have deliberately arrived, be erroneous; that the people, if not officially, are as really the guardians of the purity of their ministers, as the ministers of their flocks. But there are in this discussion other sentiments advanced by Mr. Bickersteth of a redeeming character; how far his statements har monize with each other, it is not for us to say, but we should not do either himself or his work justice, did we not adduce such passages as the following: "The author feels the delicacy and difficulty of the subject. The scriptures very much insist on the duty of guarding against false teachers: we need only refer to the following passages: Deut. xiii. 1, 3; Prov. xix. 27; Isa. ix. 15, 16; Jer. xiv. 14, 16; Ezek. iii. 16, 22; Micah iii. 5, 7; Matt. vii. 15, 24; xxiii. 4, 5; xxiv. 24; 2 Peter, ii. 1,3; 1 John, iv. 1, to prove this. With so many cautions and directions on this point, and with the affecting warning, that if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the pit: and with the important fact that we owe the reformation to an appeal to the word of God, from false teachers, who had been regularly appointed, and who held official situations, we dare not but insist on and press the duty of every Christian trying the doctrine which he hears, by the written word, and being anxious to hear pure and scriptural doctrine. We by no means plead for an external and human system of order to the neglect of hearing the truth. Christians have certainly a right of private judgment, and are charged to take heed what they hear.”—p. 139. "Nor is it a matter of indifference what we hear. Truth is the proper nourishment of the soul. If it be mere moral precepts on the one hand. or the retical notions on the other, it is not Christianity. The native appetite of the new-born soul is for Christian truth; pure scriptural truth in all its parts, both doctrine and precept, and this it must have. As David, when hungry, ate the shew-bread, so the hungry soul must have truth. Preaching the word is God's ordinance; but if it be not his word, but human notions and inventions that are preached, it ceases to be an ordinance of God. If there be a well of brackish and bad water in my own yard, and a good well in a neighbour's, I am glad to get water at his well."--p. 142. So, too, in case of an unfaithful, immoral minister, he says "If immoral, have you warned him? have you reported him to the ordinary? have you taken any steps towards the removal of such a man? have you ever prayed perseveringly for any length of time for him? Supposing that you have done your part to rectify so serious an evil, I dare not say that you should attend such an appointed teacher: I dare not N. S. No. 67. forbid your attendance on a neighbour. ing pious clergyman."--p. 143 And he further introduces a quotation from good Bishop Jewell, which closes thus: "God grant such idle and slothful ministers grace to know their office, and do it; if not, God give the people grace to know them, and to shun them, and to fly from them."-p 144. These are sentiments that do Mr. Bickersteth honour. His mind is shackled by attachment to a system which links the church to the world, mingles her with it, subjects her to it; yet the natural voice of reason, truth, and conscience, cannot but speak in a mind like his. But by this time, no doubt, our readers are anxious to know what are Mr. Bickersteth's views of the duty of a pious churchman, who, unable to hear in his own parish church that precious gospel truth for which his soul thirsts, and cannot find, within reach of his residence, a clergyman who proclaims it, while not far from his door stands a dissenting meeting, where it is faithfully dispensed. This is, indeed, a trying point with our evangelical brethren in the church. There is, on the one hand, their honest love of the truth as it is in Jesus; on the other hand, there is not only their strong attachment to their church, but also the importance of maintaining with their antievangelical brethren the characte of sound and consistent churchmen. But there ought to be no indecision on such a point. To a feeble mind there may be a difficulty in following the path of duty where it leads into scenes of remust be, indeed, à confused underproach and suspicion; but that standing that experiences a diffi culty in deciding whether forms or substance, God's truth or man's institutions should be preferred. Often have the minds of Dissenters been equally surprised and 31 grieved to see pious members of the church establishment constantly attending upon, and therefore sanctioning, a ministry in which the grand truths of the gospel were not only not preached, but avowedly opposed and their surprise and regret have not been diminished on hearing the report, at least we may hope it has been the report only, that this course has been recommended by some neighbouring clergyman of evangelical sentiments, whose advice has been sought on the subject. The fathers of modern evangelical piety in the church were of another mind. They, if we are rightly informed, advised their friends to follow the gospel wherever it could be found. But "the word of the Lord was precious in those days: there was little open vision," it was, therefore, loved and prized the more, and its friends possessed a firmer tone of mind; the trials of the times had braced them with resolution, while in our days the smiles of the world have enervated, and made supple and compliant the professed advocates of the truth, who are afraid to offend, unwilling to seem harsh and singular. We preach no doctrine we would not practise. Suppose the glory departed from a dissenting meeting no impossibility, we sorrowfully acknowledge-and suppose the reviving truth and power of the gospel entered into the neighbouring church. Would we, for the sake of dissent, and dissenting forms, recommend a pious Dissenter, when no other alternative presented itself, to prolong his attendance on forms which, however we may approve or value them, have, in the case supposed, lost the inspiring power for the preservation of which they were alone designed, rather than follow that power and truth where other forms, however we may disapprove them, are happily enriched by it? God Arian or forbid! We value the worship and order of our churches, chiefly because we think the wisdom of Christ appointed them for the express purpose of preserving the purity of his truth, the spirituality of his people: but if in any instance the perverseness of men has counteracted the beneficent design, we have not so learned Christ as to prefer the means before the end, especially when, by the exercise of his sovereign grace, in enriching those portions of his church with heavenly influence, which are less scriptural in their forms, he is admonishing us, that he is not unalterably bound to particular communities in the bestowment of his blessing, so neither need we, in our attendance on his ordinances. The case is not suppositious merely, it is in actual existence. Socinian opinions have gained possession of dissenting pulpits, but Dissenters of evangelical sentiments and feelings are never found worshipping in such places for the mere purpose of supporting the interest or forms of dissent, least of all would they ever think of preferring the heartless ministrations of a dissenting Socinian before the faithful labours of a devoted evangelical clergyman. Orthodox Dissenters can and do co-operate with Socinian Dissenters, in their common character of Dissenters, merely for the preservation or enlargement of that religious liberty, which is every man's inalienable birthright; but this implies no sympathy, creates no sympathy, on the more vital questions of truth and grace. Thus the case stands in the view of the whole world, as between evangelical and Socinian Dissenters. We ask no more of evangelical Churchmen. Let them co-operate with Churchmen to promote the interests of their church in any way that does not compromise their attachment to evangelical truth and genuine piety. But while they manifest in this way their union with clergymenof anti-evangelical character on the subject of forms, let them manifest in an equally decisive manner that there are other points on which they have with a pious Dissenter a nearer agreement, a more heartfelt sympathy, than with them. This is a course of upright courageous wisdom, which will neither weaken their church, nor lessen the dignity or estimation of their own characters. But we are forgetting Mr. Bickersteth, What are his sentiments and advice on the subject? The following quotation from Mr. Hey, of Leeds, is all he advances upon it: Again, there may be no neighbouring church where you may have the advantage of hearing the truth: now with regard to attending worship among other bodies of Christians, the late Mr. Hey justly remarked, the hearing of a good minister is not the whole of religious duty. To hear regularly, I must become a member of some particular community that may require of me things with which I cannot conscientiously comply; or I may have a large family to educate in some religious persuasion, which may have great weight in the choice of my communion. Let these things at least have their full weight on your mind; consider them in prayer before God; consult experienced Christian friends; and then decide as conscience shall direct." p. 146. It is indeed remarkable that Mr. Hey and Mr. Bickersteth should both be so uninformed on the practices of the various communities of Dissenters from the Anglican church, that the former should give so erroneous a statement of a plain matter of fact, as to represent it impossible for a person to be a regular hearer in their places of worship, without being in full communion as a church member, and that the latter should quote the representation without intimating its inaccuracy. It was, no doubt, in both instances, occasioned by iguo rance of the real state of the fact, and not designed to make hearing among Dissenters appear to conscientious Churchmen more difficult than it really is. Yet, surely, it is not too much to expect from distinguished authors, among our evangelical brethren in the church, some correct knowledge on subjects upon which if they are not informed, they ought not to write. But, waiving this, we could not indeed expect Mr. Bickersteth should openly recommend pious Churchmen to hear truth among Dissenters, rather than error from the pulpits of the establishment. We say we could hardly expect this, though, if it be more than we could hope, it is not more than we might wish. Why should not the excellent men,whose faithful labours now bless the Anglican church, plainly say, we love our church, but truth more? We have more horror of seeing souls deluded and perishing, than of seeing those of our churches, where the truth is not preached, forsaken. We Will our brethren, the evangelical clergymen, should these pages ever meet their eye, accept a frank declaration of our sentiments respecting the course they pursue? think then, that in their anxiety not to lose caste among their clerical brethren of other sentiments than their own, on the great vital points of Christianity, they have become ultra Churchmen, have become morbid and excessive in their alarm and antipathy against dissent. This state of feeling has detached them from their real friends, that is, from all of dissenting denominations who are united to them in the bonds of gospel truth and Christian sympathy, while their solicitude to stand well with their high church brethren has been repaid with dislike not unmingled with contempt; for the love of persons of such opposite character they cannot secure; their respect, by a more decided and sus manly course, they might. All selves, and unacquainted with the real Like We thought ourselves perfect in the "nil admirandum,” when reading what clergymen choose to say of Dissenters; but, indeed, we own ourselves at fault on this occasion. What meaneth this? The italics are our own-we wished to attract notice to this extraordinary passage. A metaphor is designed by exhibiting some striking resemblance, to give a more correct and lively view of the thought the writer wishes to communicate. Here, then, we have a most lively picture of a famished soul, eager to satiate its raging hunger and thirst. what are we to say to the other branch of the figure? What is represented by the "homely, disgusting, unwholesome, food," and the "dirty ditch?" Are they the But Dissenters, Methodists, and unauthorized teachers of every sect and name," whose ministrations are thus honoured? Impossible! Neither Mr. Richardson, nor Mr. Bickersteth could ever surely mean this. But if It is only an unfortunate metaphor, inconsiderately writteninconsiderately quoted. retaliation were proper, it would be easy indeed. Granted that the ministration of our "unauthorized teachers, of every sect and name" are fitly described by a metaphorical allusion to "homely, disgusting, |