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fecting services, its solemn and decent forms, were again by law established; and the national religion became, what it was before the rebellion, a reasonable, mild, and practical system of faith; a goodly, sober, and edifying form of worship. Men, illustrious from their station, but more so from their virtue and talents; prelates and dignitaries, philosophers and scholars, stepped forwards to clear away the rubbish which had been heaped upon the fair face of Christianity, during the triumph of darkness and delusion. They vindicated its reasonableness and simplicity; illus 'trated its moral tendency, as well as its spiritual nature; and shewed, moreover, clearly and fully, that the Established Church was founded upon this genuine and unadulterated religion, having ، Jesus Christ himself for its chief corner-stone;' and bearing upon its front this best credential of its apostolical origin and legitimate descent, an adaptation to spiritualize and improve those within its pale ; to render them holy and virtuons, benevolent and useful, in time, that they might be fitted for a glorious eternity." Warner, pp. 21, 22.

Now it appears to us that such unqualified panegyrics upon the days of Charles II., and the churchmen of that period, are both inaccurate in themselves and injurious in their tendency. They are inac. curate, inasmuch as the concurrent testimony of historians assures us that the clergy of that day partook, to a very culpable extent, of the corruptions of the court; and that little head was made by them against the irruptions of drunkenness and blasphemy in every quarter of the land. We believe, for instance, that the following statements, among others, of Bishop Burnet have never been disputed by can

did examiners.

"With the restoration of the king a spirit of extravagant joy spread over the nation, that brought on with it the throwing off the very professions of virtue and piety: all ended in entertainments and drunkenness, which overrun the three kingdoms to such a degree, that it very much corrupted all their morals. Under the colour of drinking the king's health, there were great disorders and much riot every where: and

the pretences of religion, both in those of the hypocritical sort, and of the more honest but no less pernicions enthusiasts, gave great advantages, as well as they furnished much matter, to the profane mockers of true piety. Those who had been concerned in the former transactions thought they could not redeem themselves from the censures and jealousies that those brought on them, by any method that was more sure and more easy, than by going into the stream, and laughing at all religion, telling or making stories to expose both themselves and their party as impious and ridiculous. The king seemed to have no sense of religion: both at prayers and sacrament he, as it were, took care to satisfy people, that he was in no sort concerned in that about which he was employed. So that he was very far from being an hypocrite, unless his assisting at those performances was a sort of hypocrisy, (as no doubt it was): but he was sure not to increase that by any the least appearance of religion. He said once to myself, he was no atheist, but he could not think God would make a man miserable only for taking a little pleasure out of the way." Burnet's Own Times, Vol. I. pp. 145, 146.

"For some time the king carried

things decently, and did not visit his mistress openly. But he grew weary of that restraint; and shook it off so entirely, that he had ever after that mistresses to the end of his life, to the great scandal of the world, and to the parti

cnlar reproach of all that served about him in the church. He usually came from his mistresses lodgings to church, even on sacrament days. He held as it were a court in them : and all his ministers made applications to them." Ibid. p. 285.

But Mr. Warner's statement is, moreover, in our judgment, injurious as well as incorrect, since it proceeds upon, and serves to esta blish, the error, that the duty of the clergy is discharged, when they give due attention to the outworks of religion, without endeavouring to promote the real conversion of sinners, and a devotion of the soul to God. It is perfectly true, that, even in the bad times of Charles II. there were not wanting among the clergy those who with ability and zeal defended the church against

the attacks of the Puritanical party; and it is moreover true, that a very small body of clergy devoted themselves to the still loftier object of maintaining the great truths of religion, and of bringing them home

to the hearts of men: but the fact is unquestionable, because standing upon the authority of the most distinguished writers of the day, that the bulk of the clergy had so conformed themselves to the popular tastes and manners, as to call forth the loudest reprehension of some of their brethren. And it is well known, that the party called the Latitudinarians, though themselves but cold divines, associated together, in order, among other objects, to repel the encroachments of a sort of merely heathen morality, which was gradually superseding, in the national pulpits, all the great principles of the Gospel.

No error can, indeed, be more pernicious, than that of taking for granted that the clergy are discharging all the duties of their sacred function when they are merely repelling assaults upon the circumvallations of Christianity, or of any particular church. It is possible, nay easy, to defend the walls, and neglect the altar, or even to defend the altar, and forget the flame that should burn upon it. It is easy to say much for Christianity, and little which is calculated to make men Christians; and such, we grieve to say, was the crime of the clergy of the Church of England in those days. Nor did it cease with them; for through the whole period which preceded the middle of the last century, the ministers of the Establishment were, as a body, very negligent in discharging its duties; and if the church is now returning to the path of duty; if she is walking more worthy of her high vocation; if she is proclaiming half-suppressed doctrines, and pushing them onwards to their legitimate results in the life and temper of her professors, we believe that the improvement is owing chiefly, under God, to the

Evangelical clergy. But on this point Mr. Warner widely differs from us, and we think it right to let him speak for himself.

age, however, may be numbered as one, "Among the wonders of the present

not the least remarkable in its nature, nor least portentous in its probable consequences, a considerable change in the private opinions, and public spiritual instruction, of many ministers of the Established Church. Within our own

Zion, and from among our own brethren, arisen, designated by a name, (whether a numerous and increasing party has assumed or imposed, I know not,) but which will readily suggest itself to your minds, whose views of the Gospel scheme, the doctrines of Christianity, and the way of salvation, are entirely in opposition to the mild, and reasonable, and practical tenets of the church whereof they are ministers, to the libe

ral principles on which it is founded, and the moral and improving effects which those principles are calculated to produce.

"Remarkable, neither for stature of intellect; nor for depth of learning; nor for range of research; nor for ardour of inquiry; nor for knowledge of human nature; nor for experience of hesitate not to declare, that they have mankind; the clergy to whom I allude discovered a new light, another Star in

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the east,' which has not hitherto shone

upon our Establishment; necessarily implying, that the reformers of our faith, the compilers of our liturgy, the chief ornaments of our church, the larger proportion of our great, and good, and wise divines, have, for ages back, been 'groping in darkness, and ceived; till they arose true prophets wandering in error,' deceiving and dein Israel,' and, by the exclusive gift of

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eyes well purged with euphrasy,' detected the delusions under which their forefathers had laboured, and the mortal mistakes in which their contemporaries are involved.

"It is pain and grief,' my reverend hearers, to the spirit of Christian charity, even to glance at the aberrations of men, many of whom, we are sure,

and all of whom, we cordially believe,

and still more distressing is it to point are pions, couscientious, and sincere: out what we conceive to be the faults of our own brethren, with whom we would gladly take sweet counsel,' and 'walk

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in the house of God, as friends.' But self-defence will occasionally impose upon us the adoption of harsher measures than candour would otherwise have recourse to; and, when the people are taught, by the divines in question, either from the pulpit or the press, either by open avowal or indirect insinuation, that they do not hear the Gospel from the great majority of the Established clergy; that they are defrauded of the 'bread of life,' and 'the waters of salvation,' by most of their legally-appointed teachers, you will, I am sure, agree with me, that it is not only a justifiable measure, but also an imperative duty, to endeavour to vindicate ourselves from so discreditable an accusation; and to shew to those whom we are authorised to instruct, and to the world at large, that the charge of erroneous teaching applies with stricter propriety to those who have 'hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water,' than to them who have not forsaken the fountain of living waters,' but continue in the old paths where is the good way, and still walk therein." Warner, pp. 24-26.

cold recommendatlon, is, that its only valne in the sight of God arises, not from its being a proof of religious obedience, but merely from its being an evidence of faith. Fearful that man should build any claim of merit upon any thing he can do himself, and plead his personal righteousness as an object of God's acceptance, (an assumption which we hold in equal abhorrence with themselves), they have flown, in the oscillation of human imbecility, to the contrary extreme; and, either positively or negatively, by actual disparagement of ' good works,' or contemptuous silence respecting them, they rob religious and moral obedience of its legitimate honours; of that value in the sight of God, and of that praise from Him, which he in his mercy is pleased, for the sake of Jesus Christ, to attach to every humble and sincere endeavour to 'do' his will;' and to which he put his own seal, when, in the case of Cornelius, his angel said, Thy prayers and thine alms come up for a memorial before God." Warner, pp. 27, 28.

are

The accusation here set forth is

The author then proceeds to plainly this-that the Evangelical establish the positions:

1. That the religious views of this body of clergy are not, in the words of the text, "good;" and, 2. That they are not "profitable

unto men."

We shall extract a part of the argument intended in proof of the first proposition.

"It is a fact too notorious to require formal proof for its establishment, and one, perhaps, which the clergy refer red to will not be disposed to contradict, that the usual, and, I may add, the exclusive theme of praise and recommendation, in their sermons and writings, is FAITH; which, like the brazen serpent in the wilderness, is lifted up, a conspicuous, and solitary object, for 'men to look thereon and live:' that it is presented to their hearers and readers, as the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end,' of religion; on which the attention is to be exclusively fixed, and to which the heart is to be entirely devoted. The very phrase good works,' as a condition of salvation, is unknown in their theological vocabulary; and the utmost they will allow to moral virtue, when it is reluctantly admitted as a topic of casual notice, or

clergy preach faith, to the exclusion of good works. It is not simply meant that they proclaim faith alone to be the instrument of our justification before God; for, to that charge, in common with Apostles and Prophets, and with the fathers of the Church of England, and with every devout Christian in every age and country, they freely plead guilty. But they are here, and elsewhere, charged with proclaiming good works to be altogether unnecessary to salvationwith preaching a dead and inoperative faith-a faith which is, indeed, opposed to all good works, Now to say nothing of other divines of this class, let Mr. Dealtry's sermon be taken as a specimen of the let us see whether it does not refute usual manner of these writers, and so hazardous and unfounded an imputation.

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"The Apostle concludes his exhortation by stating the excellency of the things which are here recommended. They are good and profitable unto men.'

"It is not perfectly obvions, whe.

ther this commendation is meant to apply generally both to the doctrines and the effects of them, or whether it relates simply to the immediate antecedent, good works. The latter appears to be the most natural construction; and, since on either supposition good works are included, we shall incur no risk of material error in affirming of these works, that they are good and profitable unto men.

"They are good in themselves.

"It is true, that they cannot atone for transgression; they cannot reconcile us to God; but they spring from a good source, and for that reason he be holds them with pleasure. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit: the quality of the act is determined by the motive and principle of action. This is precisely the view of the subject taken in the Twelfth Article of our Church: 'Albeit that good works, which are the fruits of faith, and follow after justification, cannot put away our sins and endure the severity of God's judgments; yet are they pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ."" Dealtry, pp. 25, 26.

And again

"Nothing can be more unscriptural than to describe holiness and obedience, as something incidental-as a mere appendage to the Christian characteras a graceful embellishment, or even as a valuable addition. No: these things

occupy a far higher place in that scheme

of salvation, the very sum and substance of which is the sanctification of our cor

rupt nature. In what did the ruin of man, which followed Adam's transgression, consist? Not in the natural evils

and miseries which that fatal event in

troduced; not in the disorder and confusion, which it spread over the face of the world; not in lightning, and tem

pest, and earthquake; not in plague, pestilence, and famine; not even in death itself, with all its bitterness. These, alas! were but the symptoms or the effects of the disease. The real sting of that calamity consisted in the moral depravation which it introduced, in the pollution of the soul, in the loss of the Divine similitude. This it was that constituted the essence of the evil; and this it was which Christ came down to destroy. The Fall of man was a fall from holiness to sin: the Restoration of man is a restoration from sin to holiness; a restoration which begins on earth, and is. completed in heaven. The work of

Redemption is not merely the deliverance from punishment it is the reestablishment of God's laws, against which sin had rebelled; the re-edifi cation of his workmanship which sin had overthrown; the restitution of his image, which sin had defaced." Dealtry, pp. 31, 32.

In this manner Mr. Dealtry proceeds, page after page: and can any passages be more decisive on this subject? Has Mr. Warner himself written with half the force. upon this point? Would a person desirous of assailing a dead faith resort for the instruments of his warfare to the armoury of Mr. Warner, or to Mr. Dealtry, judging of each from the specimen of their respective weapons here presented to us? We venture also to declare that the language of Mr. Dealtry is not peculiar to himself; that it is common to writers of this class; that extracts equally decisive might be made, ad libitum, from the works, for example, of the two individuals specifically marked out and censured in Mr. Warner's sermonnamely, Mr. Scott and Mr. Simeon. What, then, is to be said of charges such as these? And how is it that

they so often find their way into the pages of men of professed candour and honesty? We declare ourselves to be wholly unable to give any satisfactory reply to these questions, but one; namely, that men of professed candour and honesty do not, after all, study and examine for themselves. They take up some virulent review, or they listen to some visitation-scandal; or they dip into the caldron of some hot controversialist; and whatever their flesh hook takes up of the unwholesome mass contained in it, they produce to the public as the result of their own diligent reBut is this either candid or honest? searches and candid investigation. We would be far from vindicating all that may have been said or done by persons on whom the title of Evangelical has been bestowed. Indeed, that name has been some

times made to take too wide a like their blessed Master, they are sweep, and to comprehend things" set for the fall or rising of many of too discordant and doubtful a in Israel;" that a bad priesthood character. But of that class of is, perhaps, the worst scourge clergy who gain the name of Evan- which God inflicts upon a guilty gelical by pressing the doctrines of people; and that a good one is a original sin, of justification by faith blessing inferior to none which, in alone, of conversion of the heart by the course of his providence, he is the Holy Spirit; who love truth accustomed to bestow. Let us not better than party, and moderation be thought to have any desire to rather than extremes; who inflexi- depreciate the clergy: on the conbly adhere to the great principles trary, the wish of our heart is of the Gospel; who preach as dy- to exalt them, wherever they are ing men to dying men, and whose humbly and faithfully performing lives, and tempers, and zeal, and their high duties. But when the benevolence illustrate and adorn main object of any individuals their principles;-of such men we among them appears to be to opsay, with confidence, that we be- pose themselves to what is right; lieve them to be the moral riches to spy out remote and contingeut of the country, the pillars of the evils in benevolent and religious inEstablishment, and the best advo- stitutions; to stint the exertions of cates of the Gospel, against the at- Christian zeal; to check the march tacks of secularity and indifference. of improvement; to poison the weaHad we a thousand voices, we pons of controversy; to seal the should think them well employed eyes of the people in the slumbers in endeavouring to rouse our fel of popish ignorance or priestly inlow-countrymen, and especially our fallibility; to substitute ceremonies men of power and influence, to give for duties; to sleep themselves, themselves to the serious considera- and to breathe out drowsy exetion of this controversy. The point crations against their more vigilant to be determined is, what body of brethren; we cannot but expostuclergy best fulfil the pledges of late with them, we cannot but wish their ordination, and the will of them more deeply sensible of their that Great High Priest by whom awful responsibility,-and if, after the true minister is anointed to his every effort, they remain irreclaimoffice. Let the public narrowly able, we cannot but desire some watch the conduct of the discord- new Act of Uniformity, by which ant parties, in order to ascertain such men might be sent back into which of them is best entitled to the common ranks of society, inthe praise of diligence, zeal, and stead of continuing to impede the holiness. Let them pass from progress of genuine religion, and to the conduct to the doctrines of disturb the peace of the church. the two parties, and determine which bear the stamp of the Bible; which fit the moulds that our ancestors have transmitted to us, and laid up in our national ark as the model for future generations. Let them not be frightened or deluded by hard names. Let them, moreover, remember the mighty influence which the priesthood exert upon the morals and the destiny of a people; that their example forcibly affects every rank, and age, and condition of the people; that,

We have no intention of point. ing these remarks at Mr. Warner. They may serve, however, to remind him of the extreme points of a character which we believe he would be most anxious to avoid, but to which the approaches, we regret to say, are not very difficult.

Mr. Warner has, in this sermon, in a measure, done justice to the personal conduct of the men whom he opposes: we hope, therefore, he will, in the next which he may publish, do justice to their principles.

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