An Appeal on behalf of Church Government. By a Member of the Church. London: Houlston and Stoneman. 8vo., pp. 147. 1840. THIS pamphlet is an appeal to the bishops and clergy in behalf of Church Government, or rather, for a revival of the Convocation, which, with the experience of the Scottish General Assembly before our eyes, might not be altogether desirable at present. The church in Scotland and in America, have their Convocations and Synods, when it suits the convenience of their respective bishops, and the interests of religion, to call them together; because, in both these countries the church is under no ministerial or other lay influence, and the bishops can summon convocations when they see good reason for so doing. But in England the case is altogether different, The church is ground down by the secular power, which uses it in many respects like a political engine, rather than as a free church, which she is declared to be in the first clause of Magna Charta, and which she was in British and Saxon times, before the Norman Conquest rivetted the yoke of Popery upon her. At the Reformation she only exchanged masters, and the Convocation could not now be legally summoned but under the queen's writ to the primate; and that writ would at present be issued by men who are notoriously enemies and persecutors of the church, and who, besides, act under the influence of the Popish hierarchy. Therefore, although the bishop of London admitted that "it is extremely desirable that there should be some deliberative, if not legislative, assembly in the church;" yet with so many bishops who are under ministerial influence, and so many of the inferior clergy who are candidates for ministerial favour, a Convocation at present might be extremely dangerous to the peace and prosperity of the church. A Convocation, where the bishop of Norwich's sentiments might be echoed, that the Church of England is "founded on liberty of conscience, and right of private judgment," might produce evils similar to those which the jesuitical plea of tender consciences created in a former period, and which are felt to this day. We agree with the author of the pamphlet before us, that the bishop of Norwich's words will admit of a charitable construction; but are we sure that the ignorant though sincere churchman, and above all, that the enemies without and within the church, will not adopt his sentiments as the fundamental charter of the church, the rock on which it is founded?

The following clause in the bishop of London's speech was in reply to the words just cited:·

"I should not have entered into the discussion had it not been for some observa · tions which must have escaped from the right reverend prelate (Norwich) in the heat of debate; and because doubtless he is unaccustomed to address your lordships -which are little less than a libel on the Church. I will begin by noticing a most remarkable sentiment, as falling from a Christian clergyman. I thought I heard the right reverend prelate say, that the Church was founded upon liberty of conscience. It is practically the fact that the Protestant Church admits as great a degree of liberty of conscience as is consistent with the interests of religion; but I have always understood that all the Catholic Church is founded on truth; that the Church is the authorized interpreter of the truth; and that she would desert her duty if she did not lay down, for the good of the people, the great truths which are extracted from the Bible."

The old Popish objection of subscription to the articles, is one of the objects of the Irish petitioners, and which might be another element of

discord in a Convocation. Some of these petitioners were laymen, who could bring no relevant objection to subscription. The Thirty-nine Articles are not a confession of faith; but a vinculum pacis. The reviewer was never required, nor ever will be required to subscribe the articles; but, if required, he would do so cheerfully, and without "either a sigh or a tear," in an anti-calvinistic sense, and which he is convinced is the true sense of them. We again quote the words of the zealous bishop of London:

"It is not required from all members of the Church, but only from the ministers of the Church, as a security against a greater evil — the constant change and fluctuation of doctrines, by men not tied down by any precise articles. This is the use of articles, and I hope they will never be lost, for it is only by continually keeping truth in view that the Church of England has been enabled to stand amidst the changes and the downfall of different churches; to keep true to the one point of the theological compass; and to go straight forward, guided only by the polar star of truth, as expounded in her Articles and Liturgy. I am convinced that there exists amongst the great mass of the clergy a strong indisposition to meddle with the formularies of the Church. Looking, too, to the unsettled state of men's minds upon several topics, in some degree connected with the Church, I think it would be peculiarly unadvisable at the present moment to moot the question of a change of the Articles, or of an alteration of the subscription. If an alteration were to be made for one tender conscience, an alteration ought to made for every other tender conscience. When then is this system of perpetual change to be stayed? If your lordships were to set out upon the principle of satisfying all, we should soon have no peculiarity of doctrine, no Articles, no Liturgy: but you would reduce the Church to a mere naked caput mortuum, neither satisfying the consciences of men here, nor offering a sound foundation on which to base their hopes of hereafter."

It is a sure sign that the plea of tender consciences is a device of the devil, alias the Jesuits, that they totally overlook and despise the consciences of other men. Our consciences are as tender on this point as theirs, only they are on the other side, and we adhere as conscientiously and as tenderly to the Liturgy and Articles, as they unreasonably object to them; why, then, should our tender consciences be compelled to yield to the intrigues of Jesuits, and other Romish agents ? Millions on millions, have found refreshment and ease in the Liturgy in this transitory life, and who now rest from their labours in joy and felicity in Abraham's bosom, between whom, and the restless disturbers of the church's peace of former days, with pretended tender consciences, a great gulf may perhaps be fixed.

There are many just remarks, and some good suggestions in this pamphlet; but which, although they be lawful, might not be altogether expedient. The writer of the pamphlet is most likely one of the petitioners, and may mean more than he permits his readers to see, in wishing to establish a deliberative and legislative assembly in the church. We cannot go along with the author when he recommends the example of the government of the American Episcopalian church; because it is disfigured by the leprosy of lay-delegates in its convention, of which, perhaps, he is ignorant, and the consequence has been the removal from their liturgy of one of the symbols of the faith. We, however, cordially agree with him in his complaint that "Every other communion, episcopal or non-episcopal, is left at liberty, by the state, to plant itself freely in any quarter to which it can make access; but it would seem that the Church of England must ask as a boon that which all other communions may practise as a right. They may extend their respective institutions

wherever they can find way, but the Church of England must not introduce its episcopacy, unless the civil authority feel this to be politically expedient.'

Time and space prevent our farther notice of this pamphlet; but we may return to it at a future time.

THE CLEANSING OF THE SANCTUARY.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE EPISCOPAL MAGAZINE.

SIR, I do not pretend to be a prophet; neither do I think that it ever was intended that men in this age should be prophets or dreamers of dreams; nevertheless we may be allowed with reverential humility to form some opinion of those " things which must shortly come to pass."

P. A. says "that the date, A. D. 606, is exceedingly unsatisfactory for the commencement of a prophecy; but I must be allowed to differ from him. He has laboured hard, but, in my opinion, unsatisfactorily, to find a commencement for Daniel's longer period; but he has not attempted to fix the beginning of the shorter, or 1260 years. But both these periods must terminate together at the same point of time; and therefore it is reasonable to suppose that their commencements must be sought for severally in some special events, which will bear some analogy to those at their joint termination. I cannot imagine two more appropriate eras for the commencement and termination of the longer period of 2,400 years, than the restoration of the Jews from their Babylonian captivity, and their restoration from their long dispersion to the land of their fathers and the privileges of the long rejected Gospel. Hales, in his Chronology, says, on the authority of Ezra, that Zerubbabel laid the foundation of the second temple, in the second month of the second year after their return from Babylon, which was B.C., 536, and two years more makes 534. Add 1866 years to this date, and you have 2,400 years, when the final restoration of the Jews will commence. Artaxerxes Longimanus put a temporary stop to the re-building of Jerusalem in the year, B.C., 463; but the temple was begun to be re-built in 534, B.C., in the reign of Cyrus, and is therefore, I think, a preferable date. Whereas, if 1847 years, which P. A. says is the true time, be added to the year 457, which he also says is the true date, and when Ezra was sent to Judea, you have 2,304 years, which does not correspond with the prophet's roll. If P. A. is not " sufficiently learned to prove that the number 2,400 is wrong," how much less able am I to prove that it is right. I do not, however, depend on my own judgment. Faber, who is decidedly the first writer on prophecy of the present day, says, "I much incline to think, that the memorable event of the laying the foundation of the second temple, at the close of the first, or at the beginning of the second year of Cyrus, affords us the

Mr.

true date of the vision, and consequently that the number 2,400 is the genuine reading."1

With respect to the second date, P. A. says, "if one says that the fourth beast rose when Phocas recognised the supremacy of Boniface, why may not another say with as much plausibility that it rose when Theodosius the Great decreed that all nations who were subject to his authority should receive the faith which had been delivered by St. Peter to the Romans, or when Valentinian III. forbade the bishops of the empire to depart from established customs, without the sanction of "the venerable man, the pope of the holy city." P. A. is not the only one who has objected to the year 606, for the commencement of the shorter period of the 1260 days, nevertheless he has not pointed out a better. Bishop Newton, unable to fix a date, has doubtfully stated the possibility, that the year 727, when the pope and the Romans finally broke their connection with the eastern emperor; the year. 755, when the pope obtained the exarchate of Ravenna; the year 774, when Charlemagne conferred on the Pope, great part of the kingdom of Lombardy; and the year 787 when the worship of images was fully established, and the pope's supremacy acknowledged by the second council of Nice; may each be the most satisfactory commencement of the prophecy. Others have asserted that the A.D. 533, is the most satisfactory date, when the emperor Justinian declared the pope to be the head of all the churches of the west, but which merely gave him the precedence of all his episcopal brethren; at the same time he declared the patriarch of Constantinople to be head of all other churches, which made him at least the pope's equal. I have however assumed that the A.D. 606 is the proper date of the shorter period; because in that year the pope really received that power which has since made him the head and persecutor of the western church, the Mohammed an apostacy commenced, and the beast, or idolatrous Roman empire revived. If the shorter period of 1260 years be added to this date, we then find that it will terminate in the same year as the longer period, namely, in A.D. 1866, which I still think is the most probable time for the cleansing of the sanctuary. At which time we shall have again a triple coincidence in the exhaustion of the Mohammedan power, which has already begun, the extinction of the papal usurpation and idolatry, and the restoration of the Jews. In short, says Mr. Faber, "in the self-same year that the saints were first delivered into the hands of the little horn, the mystic holy city began to be trodden underfoot by a new race of idolaters, the mystic witnesses began to prophecy in sackcloth, the mystic woman fled into the wilderness, and the ancient pagan Roman beast revived. So, again, in the self-same year, at the termination of the 1260 days, that series of events will commence, by which, the kingdom shall be given unto the saints, the power of the little horn shall be destroyed, the sanctuary shall be cleansed, and the beast shall be slain."

What I have said may not perhaps be much to the purpose; but I

1 Dissertation on the Prophecies, i. 294.

hope it will induce P. A. "to continue our amicable war of words," and to enter more fully into the subject.

But this interesting subject has called up another combatant, who accuses me and your venerable correspondent, Mr. Faber, of having called the pope antichrist. I shall not attempt to answer for Mr. Faber, who is so much better able to speak for himself; but, for my own part, I deny that I ever said that the pope is antichrist. There have been many individual popes who have acted in an antichristian manner, and there are many antichristian things in their system; but I deny that the pope, or the papal system is the antichrist who is yet to arise. I do not think that the Oxford divines have produced sufficient evidence to prove that the antichrist is to be an individual, and to exist only for the space of three literal years and a half. It appears to me, that the antichrist is to be a national embodiment of infidelity, an incarnation of wickedness and antichristian apostacy, with a leader or king, and government of the same diabolical material; and, on what portion of the globe can the eye rest with such apparent certainty of its fulfilment, as on the people and government of France, where infidelity reigns triumphant.

Mr. Pinkard asks triumphantly, whether the pope exalts himself above all that is called God, or is worshipped, &c. He might as well ask, can that man be a hypocrite who joins in prayer, yet leads a bad life? Whatever the good providence of God has preserved right and praiseworthy in the Roman church, does not prevent the pope from exalting himself above every prince and potentate of the earth, who are called gods in Scripture, or from styling himself the Lord God the Pope, King of Kings, and Lord of Lords. Sure enough he comes after the working of Satan, when he mixes up the grossest idolatry with the worship of the true God who is jealous of such monstrous wickedness, and by a whole system of pious frauds, of lies and impostures, of which Satan is the father, whereby he deceives his followers and causes them to sin, and which St. Paul calls a doctrine of devils. Farther, it is a maxim at Rome, that the pope can make that to be virtue which God has declared to be sin; and that to be sin which he is graciously pleased to accept and account righteousness; if this is not blasphemy it looks remarkably like it.

Mr. P. again asks, " Can a church which holds the three creeds.. be accused of blasphemy against God, his name and tabernacle ?" I have no doubt but that such a church may be, and that the church of Rome is, guilty of blasphemy, when she has made a new faith by adding twelve new articles to one of these creeds; and she is guilty of sacrilege, if not of blasphemy, for which, by the way, we have the high authority of Pope Gelasius, when she has taken away the cup in the Lord's supper, notwithstanding Christ's express command, drink ye all of it. I know not whether "doctrines of devils" may be called blasphemy, but if they may, then the church of Rome is decidedly guilty, for she forbids marriage, and commands men to abstain from meats which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of those which believe and know the truth. The church of Rome is guilty of the highest blasphemy in having appointed many and various means of grace, which none but God can do: e. g., she consecrates as means