may have the charge and government over you, following with a glad mind and will their godly admonitions?"

On this point, there should be observed a proper medium between the relinquishment of a right given, not on any personal account, but for the maintaining of the good order of the Church, and the setting up of claims, which may give scope to private prejudice and passion.

When the question speaks of other ministers, it cannot be considered as applying strictly to any other dioceses, than those which have been subdivided, with presiding clergymen appointed over the several districts. Nevertheless, it would be unseemly in any clergyman, especially a deacon, to be indifferent to the advice, or indignant under the admonition of his seniors, who may be supposed, from religious motives, to feel an interest in the prosperity of the communion, and who have a right to take all reasonable measures to secure its reputation, even on account of a connexion of it with their own.

When the passage speaks of godly admonitions, it must have respect to some standard, by which they should be directed. This standard must be the various established institutions of the Church; and not the private opinion of the bishop. It is well known, that the Church from which this is descended, like the state to which it is allied, is under a government of law and not of will: and we cannot suppose that ours, professing to follow it in the leading features of its system, should have designed to reject this, so congenial to the still more moderate degree of authority, which it will be possible in present circumstances to exert. If it should be asked, Who shall be the arbiter, on any question which may be raised, as to the fitness of the interposition of the bishop? The answer is, the question being understood of admonition, out of the line of strict ecclesiastical proceeding, which ought of course to be governed by a determinate standard, that each party must judge for himself, as he shall answer for this and for every other part of his conduct, to Almighty God; that injudicious or even impertinent interference is possible, ought not to be denied, and cannot be justified. But there are two descriptions of cases, to which no such censure is applicable: one is, when an offence against morals, the other, when an offence against order is the subject. In either of these cases, indeed, the admonition of the bishop would be unseasonable, unless the offence were notorious and admitted; because he would otherwise be in danger of making himself an accuser, where he is appointed to be a judge. But if either of the species of offence be acknowledged by the offending party, and especially if it be justified and persevered in, there is here claimed to the bishop the right in question, not only on the ground of ecclesiastical law, but on that of the consent of the party, in the answer to the question last read: which may be considered as a personal contract, binding him to submission under reproof for past faults; and to amendment, under exhortation relative to the time to come.

THE series of sentiment arising out of the questions being gone through, there ought not to be withheld a remark, which has often occurred in the contemplating of them. It relates to the opinion entertained by some, that in the business of ordination, there ought to be a scrutiny into what are called the experiences of the candidates. If this opinion be correct, there ought indeed to be acknowledged the deficiency, and even the unfaithfulness of this Church, and of the Church from which she comes. Accordingly it may be considered as falling in with the subject, to defend them in this particular. Let there not be misunderstood, the objecting to the thing alluded to, as if it were thought that exteriour conduct is the only field in which religious principle is to act; or that there can be an inward influence of it, without the consciousness of the party. If there be felt by any, as one of the Church articles expresses it, "a working of the Spirit of Christ, mortifying the works of the flesh, and drawing up the mind to high and heavenly things;" this, with whatever is the result of it, in devout affections, and in any thing else worthy of the source of Supreme Good, must be a matter of sensibility, before it can manifest itself in act. Even on this part of the subject, however, we are entitled to believe from what we may read and from what we hear, concerning those who affect the pretended improvement, that they mean something superadded to the experience which has been described, and of a very different complexion. But even on the supposition, that they would exact nothing visionary or erroneous, the requisition would be censurable on these two grounds; that it is unauthorised, or rather impliedly discountenanced by scripture; and that the possible use of it is far more than counterbalanced, by the probable or rather certain abuse.

It is here said to be unauthorised by scripture, under a conviction that the challenge may be safely made to the producing of any passage in which it is found. And it is said to be impliedly discountenanced, because there are two passages, one in the third chapter of the epistle of St. Paul to Timothy, and the other in the first chapter of the epistle to Titus; in which the apostle professedly, and as a directory to persons to whom the business of ordination had been committed, lays down qualifications of the ministerial character; but without a word which can be perverted to the requiring of this, supposed by its advocates, the most material of all. And when there is spoken of the probable or rather certain abuse, the meaning is to tyranny and to hypocrisy; and this, not by such incidental consequence as may be entailed on any expedient generally good; but by means of a natural relation between the measure and the mischief to which it leads. The experiment was once made, not in the Church of England, but in that country, during a temporary downfall of its Church; and the consequent evils were so many, and are so well attested, as to be a security against the return of the errour, while she shall retain any thing of herself, besides her name; and also against the inroad of the same errour on the order of this Church, so long as there shall

remain any trace of communion with the Church of England, besides the bare fact of our having derived from her its descent.

If what has been now said should be conceived of by any candidate as countenancing the idea, that his life being unstained by immorality, he is qualified for the ministry without piety, without the subduing of natural corrupt affection, and without a concern for the extending of the spiritual kingdom of the Redeemer; it is declared to him, that if, under such a mistake, he have advanced thus far in the pursuit of the ministerial commission, the advice to him is, to stop at the threshold, and not profane the sanctuary by entering it in a state of mind, in which the responsibility to be assumed by him will not be sustained, either with satisfaction to himself, or with usefulness to the Church of God. On the contrary, he will be heaping on his head a heavy load of guilt. But while so much depends on his consciousness of the movements of his mind, the Church does wisely, in resting her satisfaction on the promises which he is to make, in the solemn transaction that lies before him. An explanation of them has been now attempted; although misunderstood, if it should seem to rest a fitness for the ministry on any ground that dispenses with the power of religion over the heart.

Far from this; that the power may be felt by all those, who shall be ordained to any grade of the ministerial calling, and that the discourse now read may have some tendency to so happy an effect, is the sincere desire, and will be a subject of the prayers, of him by whom it has been prepared.

(To be continued.)

BIBLICAL CRITICISM.

FOR THE THEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE.

On the text-This is my Body.

IF, at that period of the Church when the doctrine of erensub.

stantiation began to be received and sanctioned throughout Chris. tendom, the Hebrew and Syro-Chaldaick languages had been as critically understood as they were at the era of the reformation, or are at this day, it is probable that dogma had never been established: for it is well known, that in the language which our blessed Lord spake at the last supper, there is no word that can express signifies; instead of which, therefore, he used the word 28. The Hebrews and Syrians always join the names of the signs with the things signified. In the Old Testament it is usual to understand is, when the meaning is for the present, and not to express it; Gen. xli. 26, &c. but to do so when it signifies the future; thus, "The seven fat cows, seven years; the seven withered ears shall be seven years of famine." Exod. xii. 11. Again, the Greek interpreters of the Bible supply the word is in the present tense, which is omitted in the Hebrew, as in the places above quoted; for, although their language can very well express signifies, yet they follow the Hebrew idiom. Lastly, in the New Testament the same manner of speaking is retained, and to signify is constantly made use of instead of to be. Thus, "The seed is the word of God; the field is the world; the reapers are the angels; the harvest is the end of the world; the rock is Christ; I am the door; I am the vine; my Father is the husbandman; Sarah and Agar are the two testaments; the stars are the angels of the Churches; the candlesticks are the Churches," &c. &c. So this is my body; this bread signifies my body; and more especially must this be the meaning, since this sacrament in its very nature and institution is representative, significative, and commemorative; and St. Augustin tells us, that "Nemo recordatur nisi quod in præsentiâ non est positum"-" No one can commemorate any thing, but that which is not present."

X.

Remarks on Acte xii. 48.: Matt. xxviii. 17.: Acts ix. 35., and ii. 47.

SCALIGER observes, that "dissentions in religion flow from nothing else, than ignorance of grammar." This paradox may, perhaps, be illustrated by the following example. It is well known

to all, what differences in religion those few words have caused in the Acts, chap. xiii. ver. 48. na swσav cool nodν Terayμevod ess conv alevior, which the ancient interpreter renders thus: et crediderunt quotquot erant præordinati, (Beza, ordinati,) ad vitam æternam. Our version is; and as many as were ordained to eternal life, believed. Every man knows, how much the words in this sense have administered to the fury of sects and parties; and yet there are who imagine that this interpretation may principally arise from an ignorance of grammar, so far as grammar is concerned in the different senses of words. For lww signifies not only to believe, but also to profess our faith; so Simon Magus, Acts viii. 13.

, i. e. said πιςεύω, said that he believed, (for he did not really believe, v. 21.) is cμonognos he professeth his faith; for a proof of which signification of professing, Rom. xiii. 11. may be produced; νιν γαρ εγγύτερον ημων η σωτερία, η οτε επιςτωσαμεν, for now the salvation, (nong which is mentioned xi. 11.) nearer us than it was when we first made profession of our faith; i. e. when we were first made Christians: in our version, these last words are hard to be understood, for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed; so in this place, (not to produce more examples, which in the New Testament are many; more perhaps, than is commonly thought,) επιλευσαν τα Έθνη ως ζωήν αιώνιον. The Gentiles professed their faith in eternal life; i. e. they declared, tristevoμer as (wav aluviov we believe in eternal life; a profession of which is, and always was, a necessary article of the Christian faith; and so it now stands in the apostles creed.

But that eternal life in which the Gentiles professed their faith, v. 48. is the same life eternal which the Jews had rejected, v. 46. with which this 48th verse ought to be connected: ağıs κρίνετε εαυτός της αιωνίου ζωής, ιδιοτρεφομεθα εις τα ήθηακόοντα δε τα έθνη έχαιρον και The εδόξαζον τον λόγον το Κυριο και επιςτευσαν όσω ήσαν τεταγμένοι, εις ζωήν αιώνιον. whole difficulty of this place seems to arise from the stops being omitted, and from the words way, and nov Terayμevol, being ill understood. Errours, which the authority of the ancient version hath strengthened, "et crediderunt, quotquot erant præordinati ad vitam aternam." But Two in this place may signify, they professed their faith; and nav TsTayμEvo, they had appointed: as in Acts xx. 13. Ta Jap my Sixteтalμevos; which Beza himself renders, sic enim constituerat. Vet. inter. Disposuerat—ours, for so he had appointed. But there is no difference between w realuevos and Jarrafuos, except that this last may signify, he had appointed, firmly, or certainly, from the force of the adjunct preposition But the participle of the preterit passive, or the preterit itself, very frequently, hath an active signification: as nav Tomμeμol az ave they had contended. Demost. de Coron. p. m. 112. Oxon. w Balvos, he had deliberated. Dio Chrysostom Troic, p. m. 156. &c. &c. You will find examples in almost any attick writers, whom Luke is fond of imitating, as when he says are for scara, Acts ix. 37. for it was the business of the women, not of the men, to wash dead women.

And Luke vii. 4. nagu for man, as the