and Heretics-that she must betray the Scriptures of truth on which her teaching is founded-must be guilty of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost by a denial of the justness of the declaration which was issued through his guidance, that we must acknowledge but the one Lord, the one faith, and the one baptism.' Christ and his Gospel are superseded, and the spirit of the Age is substituted in the place of infallibility and inspiration.

How, under such awful conduct, can we expect peace or prosperity, or the hand of our GOD to rest upon our nation? It is not enough, when troubles arise, to offer an occasional supplication-to implore the aid of Heaven by fits and starts. The most abandoned will, in extremity, acknowledge the power of a GOD above, and will for a time humble themselves before his footstool. But no sooner is the chastening rod removed, than the unseen power, whose assistance was supplicated, is forgotten. If the rulers of the nation wish their work and themselves to prosper, the life of the Christian must be, as the Church requires, a perpetual supplication, a daily prayer and a weekly communion. And until such godliness is manifested by those in high places, until the Church's holy doctrines are duly regarded, and her round of fasts and festivals, prayers and sacraments, is observed as a service of perfect freedom,'-let not our rulers fancy that the masses of the land can be otherwise than unholy and unruly, let them not wonder that political systems, which are totally subversive of the spirit of the Bible,' are rife and rampant. Righteousness exalteth a nation.' Our Lord's life was a DAILY attendance on the Jewish services. His apostles followed this bright standard. They 'continued DAILY in the breaking of THE bread and in THE prayers.' And our Lord's declaration is recorded for our instruction in righteousness He that is not with me is against me.' Had the Son of GOD 'not spoken,' the opinions and principles of the age might have been simply harmless, or negative in their operation. But now, whatsoever is included virtually in the religion of Christ, ought to be influentially present in all our thoughts, words, and actions. It is not sufficient to justify us before Heaven, that we have not circulated any denials of the faith; nor endeavoured to weaken the bulwarks of our national Christianity. Neutrality is itself an infidelity; and to attempt, in the slightest way, the instruction or amelioration of mankind, or even to awaken the sentiments of the community by poetry or romance, without fully recognising and setting forward the Saviour's standard as recorded in the gospel of truth,-this, we fearlessly proclaim, is a

daring insult to the Majesty of the Most High! It is indeed, not simply to substitute the human for the divine, and an earthly guess for the heavenly announcement; it is far more than this, it is tantamount to asserting that the Bible is a superfluity which our intellect did not require; and the manifestation of GOD in Christ, and the spotless righteousness which the Saviour fulfilled as an example to after ages, a miracle for which there was no positive need!

The only way, then, for the State to act so as to secure the divine blessing and the ultimate salvation of our perilled country, is-the connecting her powers, principles, and supports, with the national Church more closely, vitally, and consistently than has been done since the period of the Reformation. The action of a Catholic Church must be brought to bear on the moral root of the nation—the action of that Holy Church which apostles founded, which their ministerial successors have transmitted, and which is at this moment, amid all the chaos of dissenterism and convulsion of sects raging around her and at her— the only CORPORATION which a raised apostle could own to be divinely instituted in the land. If the State really wishes to rescue this country from social convulsion, and moral decay, from ultimate revolution, heathenism, and despair-if she really wishes to do her duty towards GOD and Christ, towards the nation, nay towards the dissenters themselves—she must no longer assume a wavering position, halt, hesitate, tamper with conscience, trifle with principle, and crawl for ever in the venality and vileness of a pitiful expediency,-but at once stand forth in the high majesty and holy rectitude of a CHRISTIAN CONSTITUTION, and say to sectarianism,- We tolerate your existence as a necessary evil and social nuisance not to be avoided; but an external, positive, and divine organization, like the national Church in this country,-is that Religious Communion which Reason, Revelation, and Conscience, and common honesty demand we should sustain and encourage.' Nor let it be forgotten, that inasmuch as no civil authority can ultimately be secure that is not based on the Divine sanctions of revealed truth; and, since revealed truth requires to be embodied in palpable forms and attested by outward monuments and positive laws, in order to be rescued from the desolating havoc of private opinion and individual prejudice, so will the State herself only be saved from a dissenting process of political dissolution, by attaching herself unto the consolidating powers of a visible and apostolic Church. The more we reflect on the lawless democracy of modern creeds, the more certain it becomes that magistracy, public education, missionary enterprise, the supremacy

of law, colonization, commercial honour and public virtue,—can only be preserved by the centralizing action and conservative efficacy of the English Church. If duly protected, strengthened, and aided under Christ, she may yet prove the 'Salt' which shall keep from social putrefaction, and the Light' which may save from spiritual darkness this great but sinful country.

Let, then, our patriotic senators look this fact steadily in the face. They profess to legislate for the good of the people; and we tell them that less than an infinite good is not enough; for man, though in himself finite, was created by GOD, to find his true centre in the uncreated, the eternal, and immutable good. Now, this 'good' cannot be separated from the doctrines, and principles, and means of grace. But the Church is the very Organ, moulded and ordained by the Divine Spirit, for the express purpose of teaching these Doctrines, unfolding these principles, and applying these means. Let, then, our Church, and her authorized ministers, apply the Gospel POLITICALLY to the masses; and endeavour to connect our venerable Constitution with claims, which demand a higher origin than human approval, or social advantages suggest. The State will thus, in its absolute and ultimate principle, repose on DIVINE WILL; and as it precedes those who obey it, and must prolong itself after they are no more, it may help to exemplify the text,- Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.' Hence, when the Divine Spirit introduces the regenerated into the kingdom of Christ, He virtually equips them for discharging their duties and obligations to the kingdom of man also. The political is now protected by the spiritual; and the patriotic admirer of civil rights and privileges is, at the same time, giving unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's,-because, in so doing, he 'gives' obedience unto Him unto whom both Cæsar and things of Cæsar equally belong.. Above all, when the moral emancipation of these deluded men have been achieved by the Church's application of our Lord's words to Nicodemus,—we think the loftiness of the Saviour's CHARACTER ought to be practically exhibited for their special imitation. For instance, how admirable is the combination of supremacy and submissiveness in Christ, calculated to arrest the pursuer of a freedom and equality! CHRIST WAS BOTH SUBJECT AND KING: and it was (considering Him in His official aspect) because of His absolute submission unto GOD as the one, that He now reigns on His mediatorial throne as the other. Now here, as in every imitable feature, He is the pattern after which man is to be moulded; and,

therefore, obedience to a law external unto Himself, must be explained to the poor as a real enfranchisement of their hearts, and the noblest happiness of their nature. My meat and drink,' saith Christ, 'is to DO THE WILL of Him that sent Me.' 6 I came not to do Mr oWN

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WILL, but the will of Him that sent Me.'

But is not this Lord, who

thus surrendered the acting of the finite will within Him, to the decrees of an Infinite Will without,' the very same Being who saith, If the SoN shall make you free, then shall ye be FREE INDEED?' And how? If any man will follow me, let him DENY HIMSELF.

Here we cannot refuse ourselves the pleasure of laying before our readers the striking and concurring remarks of the Lord Bishop of London. It behoves us well to consider,' writes his Lordship, 'whether, as a people who have been specially called to a knowledge of the truth; who have now, for more than three centuries, listened to the teaching of our Lord and his apostles in its original and unalloyed purity and integrity; who have had continually set before us, in the confession and services of our Church, the whole counsel of GOD: whether, I say, we exemplify, as a nation, the peculiarity of our religious privileges; whether we deserve, with reference to national character, the appellation of a truly Christian people. Is a regard for the honour of GOD and for a promotion of the Gospel, a desire to obey and to enforce his laws, a pervading principle of our public acts and proceedings? Every person who desires the prosperity of his country, and its advancement in honour and security, will join with me in earnest prayer, that it may exhibit more decided marks of its having chosen the Lord for its GOD; in return for having been chosen by Him, to partake in so many spiritual privileges. . . . . . Of how few, amongst the millions now pursuing the business of life in this country, who have the Gospel preached to them, and are in that respect the chosen people of GOD, can it be said, in any reasonable sense, that they are giving all diligence to make their calling and election sure.' Diligence enough there is; but it is, for the most part, a vicious, an impertinent, and a profitless diligence,‚—a diligence which hatches cockatrice eggs, and weaves the spider's web,' which sows the wind, and shall reap the whirlwind;' an excessive industry in the pursuit of pleasure, of reputation, of worldly gain; but in the study of God's word, in the use of his ordinances, in prayer, in charity, none at all. It is the peculiar duty of those who are set for watchmen on the towers of Zion, to exhort men not to rest in the generalities of religion; nor to suppose that,

because they live in the profession of it, and possess its privileges, and use its outward forms, they have, therefore, anything of its lifegiving, soul-preserving power abiding in them: but to search diligently for the methods and appliances of personal religion; to close with the gracious offers of Christ; to place between themselves and the world, out of which they have been chosen, a broad and decided line of distinction; and to give undeniable evidence of their election, by a steady and consistent walking according to the Gospel rule. May that powerful Spirit, who has been promised, and is engaged to uphold the kingdom of Christ, bless our endeavours to dispel the delusions which prevail on this momentous subject, and to break down that mere conventional standard of decency, and moderation, and honour, or whatever it may be called, which may, perhaps, serve for the purposes of our daily intercourse with the world, as long as no trying emergency occurs, but which is not the standard of Gospel holiness, by which we are to walk here, and by which we are to be judged hereafter !'*

Yet these are days,' remarks another dignitary of the Church of England, very adverse to the subjugation of the individual will. . . . We are not enough at large and alone with God. And hence it strangely comes to pass, that we deem visible things to be real, and invisible things to be imaginary; we look upon the kingdoms of the earth, and worldly powers, and the acts of law and legislation, and the business of traders and merchants, as realities; but the Church and the priesthood, and offices of worship, and daily homage, and chants, and the offering of Eucharists, and a life of contemplation, as economies and shadows. But these alone are the shrine of an abiding life. This pompous, wise, stately world must have its day, and then be dissolved, as a dream when one awaketh.'..... Oh, that we did but know the freedom and the happiness of a life above the world! They, whose names are splendid with the most hallowed light, have, in their day, moved along all paths of life. Among the saints of Christendom are men of toil and trade, the craftsman, and the merchant, the pleader, the man of letters, orators, lawgivers, warriors, and leaders of mighty hosts, princes, and queens, and emperors. In all ranks, and all orbits of the civil state, men mortified in soul, as the holy Paul, have lived unto Christ their Lord.'+ Would, then, that our rulers would recognize the various require

VOL. I.

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* Original Family Sermons, Vol. I. Ser. 1.

† Manning's Sermons.

2 D