Angels, with all the solicitude of which their happy natures are capable,' may well he conceived to have intently watched the expression of that Eye which was turned towards so monstrous an offender. They might expect to see his anger rise, and the thunderbolts of his wrath descend and transfix the daring supplicant. But how high must their joy and praise have risen, whentheybeheld the smile of pity, and heard the purpose of mercy, and witnessed the descent of holy influence, to smite, and break, and renew the sinner's heart. And have we not here a resplendent instance of the freeness and sovereignty of that grace to which man is indebted for his conversion to God, and for every step in that process which gradually renders him meet for, and conducts him to, the kingdom of heaven? It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.' For what did this man will, but permission to sin with impunity? what course did he run, but that which, had he reached its goal, would have crowned him with infamy, and plunged him into the gulph of dark despair and endless misery? God shewed him gratuitous mercy, and by an act of grace plucked him as a brand from the burning, pardoned, sanctified, and saved him. Let none, however, presume on the Divine compassion, as though this were the common rule of God's righteous go vernment. Of the thousands who rush on wards towards that wide gate through which none ever return, few, very few, are made the objects of such an astonishing interference. Those exempted few, just snatched from impending ruin, both warn others, by the scantiness of their number, against presumption, and hold out an encouragement to the penitent that forbids despair.” pp. 141–144. This narrative, and some of the author's concluding reflections upon it, seem to require a few observations; though we have not space at present to dwell, at the length they deserve, upon the points which suggest themselves for consideration. The case of this man, supposing it to be correctly narrated by him to his minister (as from his repentance and subsequent exemplary life we must presume to have been the fact), was doubtless very remarkable; and we may justly add, with our author, that the result of it strongly testifies the power, goodCHRIST, OBSERV. No. 254. ness, and forbearance of God, and the sanctifying efficacy of Christian principle. But, at the same time, we are always somewhat fearful as to the general propriety of indiscriminately circulating such narratives. The grace and power of God for the salvation even of the worst of transgressors, on their return to him through a crucified Saviour, we learn through a far higher, an inspired, medium: we have the narratives of Manasseh, and the prodigal son, and the thief upon the cross, and the woman out of whom our Lord cast seven devils, and various other illustrations, accompanied by promises large and free as the mind of the all-perfect Donor. We are not disposed-very far from it-to detract from the strong ground of hope and consolation thus held out to all, whatever their past lives, who repair to the atonement of a Divine Saviour, led by the gracious influences of his Holy Spirit. But is it not liable to misconception to bring forward cases like that before us, not merely for the useful and legitimate purpose of shewing how great a change is needful in a sinner, and how great a change Christianity actually can effect, but as illustrative of the freeness and sovereignty of that grace to which man is indebted for his conversion to God, and for every step in that process which renders him meet for the kingdom of heaven ?" Is there not some danger that such representations, incautiously exhibited, may lead the sinner to a presumptuous confidence? Are they not also somewhat at variance with the spirit of that declaration of our Lord, that he who will do the will of God"-not he who is obstinately bent to resist it, or who goes to church to learn whether God will allow of murder-" shall know of the doctrine?" Instances may indeed occur, and this may be one, which form an exception to God's usual method of dealing with his creatures under the Gospel-dispensation; and we know upon Di Q vine authority, that "he to whom much is forgiven will love much;" so that no door is opened in such cases to licentiousness of conduct, but the contrary, so far as respects the individual himself. But the oftreproved transgressor, who wishes for an anodyne to his feelings of guilt and dismay, is too apt to lay hold of such narratives for the purpose of "hardening his neck," under the persuasion not, that de struction shall suddenly come upon him without a remedy but that without any wish or effort of his own, he shall at some future period be suddenly converted, and find peace with God. Our respectable author, indeed, strongly guards against this inference, and justly points out the appointed means of grace, as the medium of spiritual atility; but we fear that some readers might not sufficiently weigh the cautionary part of his remarks. To our minds, such a case as that of Lady M, who was earnestly seeking, however imperfectly, to know and practise the will of God, is infinitely more hopeful than that of many to whom some writers (we certainly do not include our present author) are too fond of applying, or rather misapplying, our Lord's remarks about publicans and pharisees, as if they meant that a wilfully and grossly vicious man is nearer the kingdom of heaven than a sincere though mistaken devotee. In the great majority of instances we fear that hardened offenders receive at the hands of the outraged elemency of God the indignation and punishment they merit. All indeed merit it; but there are cases, both among the flagitious and the moral, where he sees fit to stay his hand; and though justice would seem to bid him smite, his love and tenderness prevail, through the atonement and propitiation of an all-gracious Saviour. Such cases occur often enough indeed to tell the trembling and the contrite that there" is forgiveness with Him," who nevertheless "is to be feared;" but still so seldom as to shew, that although God's ways are not our ways, or always fathomable by our reason, he yet guides and governs the moral as well as the physical subjects of his dominion in a way of perfect order. Consequences are made to follow causes with a regularity from which even the seeming deviations are so infrequent, that they never can become matters of calculation. The conclusion rather is on the other side. Like the few solitary evergreens of a forest in winter, they shew there is power so to construct his creatures, as to save some alive in the midst of deadly agencies; but the countless numbers of the withered and the fallen, the dead and the dying remnants of the deciduous plantation, sufficiently evince that the rule is to deliver them up to the assignable tendency of their exposure. There are several passages of considerable interest in the remaining memoirs, which we cannot more particularly notice. We have given, however, a fair specimen of the work, and cannot doubt but that, under the Divine blessing of Him to whom it is committed, it will fulfil the author's pious wishes, and prove useful and acceptable to the publie. 2. A Charge delivered to the Clergy of the Diocese of Raphoe, Oct. 17, 1821, at the Primary Visitation of William Magee, D. D., F. R. S., &c., Bishop of Raphoe. London: Cadell. Second Edition 1823. A Charge delivered at his Primary Visitation in St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, Oct. 24, 1822, by William Magee, &c. &c., Archbishop of Dublin. London: Cadell. Second Edition. 1822. THE former of these Charges escaped our attention till some time after the latter had been published but it contains so many valuable passages, that we seize the earliest opportunity of introducing it to our "Baptism, it has become too much the "Again, as Confirmation is prescribed by the Church as the legitimate introduction of the young Christian to the holy communion, it presents itself as an intelligible and connecting medium between our two great sacraments. It renews and confirms the covenant entered into by the one; and it makes the due preparation to seal and sanctify that covenant by the other. So that, in truth, the practice of this rite may be made the occasion of spreading through your entire parishes, in a way the best calculated to excite interest and attention, the whole scheme of a Christian's belief and duty. you "You have witnessed for yourselves, my Reverend Brethren, the great eagerness which was manifested for the instructions given, and the tracts circulated, previous to the late Confirmations; and you can say, whether that occasion did not furnish with opportunities of more extensive and edifying teaching to your flock than you have usually enjoyed; and whether it did not afford to them incentives, and inspire them with a zeal, to learn and profit from your teaching, which have not been manifested at other times. In truth, nothing could tend more to stir up a spirit of religious improvement amongst the people, nothing could bring the clergy to more profitable contact with their parishioners, nothing could present them more in the light of true pastors looking to the welfare of their flocks, than a system which exhibited the whole clergy of the diocese, in all its ranks, from the highest to the lowest, in active exertion, young and seeking every where after the uninstructed, visiting every cottage, soliciting every parent, encouraging and instructing every child, to draw them to the knowledge and the practice of religion, and to guide their feet into that path which, if through the Divine grace they continue in it, will lead them to everlasting happiness." pp. 9—11 In a subsequent part of his Charge, the Bishop strongly points out the evil of worldly conformity. It strikes us, in reading the passage, that there is not sufficient stress laid upon what we may denominate a spiritual abstinence from worldly habits, as distinguished from a merely profes sional abstinence; or, in other words, that the point is insisted upon more as a cold question of duty than connected with those devout feelings, those aspirations after heavenly objects, those sentiments of love to God, of gratitude to the Saviour, and of holy enjoyment in the ways of religion, which render it not merely the obligation, but the privilege and the delight of the Chris tian, lay as well as clerical, "to come out, and to be separate" from a world that lieth in wickedness and the wicked one; world that is at war with his renovated nature; a world that is not his home, and whose language and principles are diametrically opposed to those of that "heavenly city" to which he is hastening, and where he expects "to be for ever with the Lord." We do not mean to intimate that his lordship did not intend these or similar ideas to lie as the substratum of his arguments; but in detaching the following useful and interesting passages, we thought it well to bring these ideas more prominently forward,lest any reader should unjustly confine his lordship's remarks to a merely formal propriety of manners, and an exemplary discharge of pro fessional duty, which may be found where the heart is dead to all really spiritual feeling in religion; where there exists nothing akin to what the Psalmist meant, when he said, "Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison of Thee!" or an Apostle, when he exclaimed, "Whom having not seen we love; in whom, though now we see him not, yet believing, we rejoice with joy unspeakable, and full of glory." We can give only a part of his lordship's valuable admonition. Would that it were deeply engraven on the minds of all our clergy on both sides of St. George's channel! 6 "We can never, surely, forget the solemn vows of our Ordination Service, that we would apply all our diligence to frame and fashion our own lives, and the lives of our families, according to the doctrine of Christ, and to make both ourselves and them, as much as in us lieth, wholesome examples of the flock of Christ.' This, it is clear, marks us out, as bound by the most sacred engagements to a course of life different from that which is unhappily too prevalent in the world at large: it marks us out, not as persons who may freely conform to all the fashions which surround us, but as persons who are to place before the eyes of society' wholesome examples.' "Are the clergy, then, to be afraid of the charge of singularity, if they do not break through their solemn vows, and mix themselves in the secular pursuits, and the relaxed manners and habits, of those who have not incurred the like obligations? Are they, who are set up, as lights upon a hill; who are appointed to be the models and exemplars of the many; are they to descend from that high and truly dignified station, and to be the followers of that multitude, whom it is their business to direct; nay more, of whom great numbers at all times look to them for direction? They may depend upon it, if they act so, that they are not only acting in violation of their vows, and in defeasance of their usefulness, but that they are flinging from them that very respect and estimation, which they are making these sacrifices to obtain. "It is manifest, I do not here speak of à conformity in what is decidedly profligate, or immoral: that belongs to a higher order of criminality, about which no one can be mistaken, and which is sure to be visited with universal condemnation. But I speak of that conformity which (unfortunately) too many of our order deem not inconsistent with their profession; a conformity in amusements, in manners, in occupations; a conformity, in short, which tends to blend and confound the clerical order with the other classes of racter of a minister of the Gospel is made society, so that every distinguishing chato vanish from the view, the parish priest becomes lost in the country gentleman, and the spiritual guide superseded by the sociable companion. No: as in every profession there is a certain demeanour which befits it; so is there eminently in ours. And that departure from such demeanour, which in other professions would be unseemly, in ours becomes not less than criminal. It belongs to all, to abstain from evil; but it is bound upon us to abstain from all appearance of evil. Levity suits not the calling of a Christian minister. Secular occupations are not its true employment. His office is à grave one. And his manners and habits should not disgrace it." pp. 20–22. "It is not through pleasurable pursuits only, but through those of business also, that the clergy maybe drawn away from their proper dnties, and lose their distinctive character. Those exertions of industry, which, in other situations of life would be highly praiseworthy, may be, in that of a minister of the Gospel, deserving of condemnation. We have already touched upon some of the chief occupations of a parish Minister; and, not to insist here on the loss of sta 1823.] Review of Archbishop The only remaining extract from Such sentiments, if general, would go infinitely further towards allaying the wounds of the church, and producing a real and desirable uniformity, than if all the 113 Magee's two Charges. other. "The Christian world is, unhappily, much divided on some points: and, even within the pale of our own church, differences have arisen, which interfere lamentably with that unity and harmony which are so desirable in a Christian community. It might be expected, that the standard of doctrines, contained in the Articles of our church, would have prevented this diversity, at least amongst all those who have embraced that admirable summary, as the rule of their Christian But here, unfortunately, the difbelief. ficulty recurs; and such is the imperfection of human things, that that which was designed to compose all differences of opinion, is itself converted into a cause of difference, and made a ground of acrimonious controversy. "The wisdom of the fathers of our church-a wisdom which seems little less than the result of inspiration—a wisdom certainly which marks its origin to have this great scheme of Christian doctrine in a deep knowledge of the nature of man, as well as of the things of God. Those excellent persons were well aware, that the minds of men are not all cast in the same mould; that, on the contrary, the varieties of the human understanding are not less been from above-laid the foundation of diversified than those of the human countenance; and that, as in the case of the latter, even where the closest resemblance exists, there are still found some features of characteristic difference; so in the former, even where the same general truths are embraced, some varying traits of thinking, and some distinguishing modes and qualifications of the primary principle will present themselves in different minds. The framers of our Articles, therefore, did not determine to proceed as in a mathematical right line; but advanced in a path of reasonable and Scriptural latitude; which, whilst it comprized within it all that was essential in doctrine, excluded all that was erroneous; and which, consequently, enabled those who agreed in the great fundamental truths of the Gospel, to walk together in Christian harmony, as became those who were brethren in Christ Jesus. Now, in the same spirit in which the Articles of our Church were at first propounded, they should continue to be reAnd no individual ceived and taught. |