mercy, those members or ministers, who have temerariously handled the burning coal of Church and State.' Conference stands as much in need of conservative management as the Church of England itself; the Wesleyan rulers are wise in their generation, and thoroughly understand the act of avoiding what is dangerous, as well as adopting what is politic."-Letters, p. 115.

C. W.

ART. IV. TRACTS FOR THE PEOPLE, DESIGNED TO VINDICATE RELIGIOUS AND CHRISTIAN LIBERTY. Vol. I. London: Effingham Wilson; J. Green; &c.

(Second Notice.)

THE necessity for reverting to the great principles on which Protestantism in general rests, or, to speak more definitely, RELIGIOUS and CHRISTIAN LIBERTY, which, though the foundation of Protestantism, were never truly held by the soi-disant Protestant Established Churches, is becoming every day more and more apparent. The exertions which have been, and are, making by the members of those Churches to place them in their most offensive attitude, call for counter-efforts, and though dissenters are not backward in looking for their political rights, and urging their peculiar opinions, they seem almost to have lost sight of the grand foundation, that the subjects of Christ's kingdom are not, in matters relating to it, accountable to any other master. This is ably maintained in the first of the Tracts to be at present noticed (the 5th of the Series). It is a Sermon that was preached in March 1717, before the first of the Hanoverian dynasty, ancestor in the sixth ascending degree of our present beloved Queen, by Benjamin (Hoadly,) Lord Bishop of Bangor, a sermon which went through a very great number of editions, and gave rise to the Bangorian Controversy, in which almost every able writer of the day was engaged. It was printed by the King's command, as a mark of approbation, but drew on the Bishop the resentment of the Lower House of Convocation, who issued a denunciation "of its dangerous positions and doctrines," and would have proceeded further if they had not been completely stopped by a royal prorogation. The King did not indeed desert his principles, but with the concurrence of his Ministry promoted him in the Church, and he finally attained, in the succeeding reign, the see of Winchester. The object of this Sermon was to investigate "the nature of the Kingdom or Church of Christ," and the text chosen was John xviii. 36: "Jesus answered, my kingdom is not of this world.” Hence the writer, after some preliminary remarks on the changes in the meaning of words, lays down that Christ is sole head of his Church, "sole lawgiver to his subjects," "sole judge of their behaviour in the affairs of conscience and eternal salvation." "He has left behind him no visible human authority, no vicegerents, who can be said properly to supply his place; no interpreters upon whom his subjects are absolutely to depend, no judges over the consciences or religion of his people." After

enlarging on each of these divisions in a very convincing manner, he proceeds to show that the sanctions of Christ's laws have all of them a reference to a future world only. "They are declarations of those conditions to be performed in this world on our part, without which God will not make us happy in that to come. And they are almost all appeals to the will of that God; to his nature, known by the common reason of mankind; and to the imitation of that nature, which must be our perfection. The keeping his commandments, is declared the way to life; and the doing his will, the entrance into the kingdom of heaven. The being subjects to Christ is to this very end, that we may the better, and more effectually, perform the will of God."

"The sanctions of Christ's law are rewards and punishments. But of what sort? Not the rewards of this world; not the offices or glories of this state; not the pains of prisons, banishments, fines, or any lesser and more moderate penalties; nay, not the much lesser negative discouragements that belong to human society. He was far from thinking that these could be the instruments of such a persuasion as he thought acceptable to God."-p. 11.

The rest of the discourse follows up these remarks, from which we shall make another short quotation.

"The peace of Christ's Kingdom is a manly and reasonable peace built upon charity, and love and mutual forbearance, and receiving one another, as God receives us. As for any other peace, founded upon a submission of our honesty as well as our understanding, it is falsely so called. It is not the peace of the Kingdom of Christ, but the lethargy of it; and a sleep unto death, when his subjects shall throw off their relations to him, for their subjection to others, and even in cases where they have a right to see, and where they think they see, his will otherwise, shall shut their eyes and go blindfold at the command of others, because those others are not pleased with their enquiries into the will of their great Lord and Judge."-p. 16.

We cannot be surprised that such a Sermon, coming from a Bishop, and sanctioned by the King, should have excited the indignation and resentment of the high Church party, when after the lapse of more than a century, Bishops have been freely censured, and obliged to apologize to their own Clergy, for a mere act of courtesy to a dissenter! If Convocations could now sit like Scotch General Assemblies, how would the offender against authority be treated by the Thorpes and Wodehouses, the Molesworths and Sewells, of the present day? We may judge by the proceedings against the Author of " The Morning and Evening Sacrifice."

The next Tract in succession was published shortly before the Sermon last mentioned. We fix this time because it

was after the publication of Clarke's Scripture Doctrine in 1714, and before the suppression of the Convocation, for Whiston mentions that that body was offended at its humour. The Tract is reprinted from the collected works of the Author in 1746. This Author was Dr. Francis Hare, who in the early part of his life was a vindicator of Queen Anne's Whig Administration; after his promotion to a deanery, joined with Dr. Sherlock and others in the Bangorian Controversy against Bp. Hoadly. He was afterwards made a Bishop. The object of the Tract is to advise a young Clergyman not to devote himself to the studies of the Scriptures on account of the danger with which it would be attended. On this topic he enlarges fully, and instances the cases of Mr. Whiston and Dr. Clarke, (without naming them) who, by devoting themselves to such study, had incurred the charge of heresy, and were debarred from all preferment. "Whatever you do," says the writer to his friend, "be orthodox: orthodoxy will cover a multitude of sins, but a cloud of virtues cannot cover the want of the minutest particle of orthodoxy." He advises, therefore, any study but that of the Scriptures-classics, mathematics, and other sciences, from devotion to which there could be no danger, and the Bishop seems to have been so far serious, as to have acted on his own recommendation. Indeed, if it were not for a kind of postscript, we might think it well-fitted to accompany the Oxford Tracts. But in this conclusion, he avows that he thinks Clergymen should not lay aside the study of Scripture, but that all discouragements to the free study of them ought to be removed. The Tract has therefore been considered as "one of the best pieces of irony in the English language." It was reprinted in this series because, "the Bible, the Bible only," "is the publicly declared motto of an immense body of Christians, and is inscribed in flaming colours upon all exclusive Protestant banners;" and yet if any one by the study of it, "exercising the Protestant right and duty of private judgment, arrive at conclusions not palatable to the multitude, or not agreeable" to the standard adopted by any Church, such student is treated as if guilty of some shocking crime. We freely avow that this Tract is not a favourite with us, but we admit that it fully and strikingly exposes the absurdity of requiring men to take the Bible only as their standard; and yet only allowing them to read it in conformity with a prescribed creed. Far better with the Romanists and Oxonians to deny that it is the standard, and to refer at once to the dogmas of the Church.

Dr. Edward Gibson, who was promoted to the see of London, and who was a contemporary of the authors of the two preceding

Tracts, was a man of very extensive learning, and universally esteemed for his virtue and amiable qualities. But though originally promoted by Lord Chancellor Somers and Archbishop Tennison, he was not friendly to dissenters from the establishment. In 1713 he published a celebrated work entitled "Codex Juris Ecclesiastici Anglicani, or the statutes, constitution, canons, rubricks, and Articles of the Church of England, methodically digested under their proper heads, &c." "The scheme of Church power vindicated in this volume," says one of his biographers, "was excepted against, not only by dissenters, but by the soundest and most constitutional lawyers within the pale of the Church; who maintained that the principles and claims advanced in it would be sufficient, if acted upon in their utmost extent, to establish a sacerdotal empire, which must draw all power to itself, and render the civil magistrate its minister and dependent."

As Bishop Gibson acted on the principles of his book, and was zealous in his opposition to the dissenters and their claims, he became no favourite with the ministry of that day, and at the instigation, it is said, of the Lord Chief Justice Hardwicke, Mr. Foster (afterwards Sir Michael Foster, and one of the Judges of the Court of King's Bench,) wrote an answer to it, published first in 1735. The editor of the Tracts conceives that the assertions frequently thrown out by the High Church party, required the republication of this answer to the Codex by a lawyer of such authority as Sir Michael Foster. "In it, it is proved that the CHURCH is the CREATURE of the state-to be ruled, changed and REFORMED, as the Crown, by the advice of Parliament, shall determine." The party in Scotland now seeking to establish a power over the legislature and courts of law, under the pretext of popular election, would do well to study "this Examination of the scheme of Church power." We are not hostile to the free election of Ministers by their hearers, but as their ancestors chose to give up this privilege for the advantages and emoluments of an Established Church, and the appointment by Patrons is the law of the land, we cannot see why they should enjoy both the privilege and the equivalent for it, and receive pay from dissenters as well as others, when the latter become such, almost entirely in consequence of their attachment to the free election, agreeing with the establishment in their adherence to the Westminster confession. The clergy of both establishments would gladly have all appointments from the Archbishop to the Curate rest with themselves, and would then soon make the state as subordinate to the Church as it was in the worst days of Popery. But let us hope that such is not to