We may have mistaken the drift of Mr. Preston's sermon, and shall be glad to find we have done so; but, as it appears to us, its tendency is to encourage that very spirit which every true friend of the Church wishes to see for ever discarded as incompatible with civil liberty, with the usages of modern life, with Protestantism, and with genuine Christianity. If a layman had been speaking to laymen, it would have been welltimed to tell them of the just reverence which they owe to the "priesthood," or rather, using a better phrase, to the faithful ministers of Christ. But for a priest to rise among priests, to tell them of the high respect which others owe them, was not perhaps so necessary as to shew, as Mr. Cecil does, how they might ensure that respect by their own conduct. The topic of Mr. Preston's discourse is the priest's "authority," and the people's duty; that of Mr. Cecil's is the priest's duty, which, as he was chiefly addressing his brethren, was the more important for it is seldom necessary to remind men of their rights; but it is very necessary to remind them of their obligations; to tell husbands of their duties to their wives, and wives their duties to their husbands and the same of parents and children, masters and servants, magistrates and subjects, ministers and people. We are all ready to exact what is due to ourselves; but few of us sufficiently remember what we owe to each other. Mr. Preston tells his brethren that they are to assert and maintain their own dignity, "claiming submission;" not indeed, he admits, "for ourselves," but he adds" to ourselves," and this : : though there should be no claim to respect in the ministers' conduct, nay even in despite of every thing that is calculated to excite the most contrary feelings. Is not this one of the very features of Popery? How can Mr. Preston expect that the people will sincerely respect a man whose conduct is disreputable, and whose sacred office only renders his delinquencies the more abhorrent? But let our author speak fairly for himself :— "This feeling (of want of submission to ecclesiastical authority), carried to the point of rejection, is that of our open adversaries: but it is a question of serious import how far the same disinclination to submit to the actual authority of their fellowmen may be secretly working in the minds of many members of the Estaband at present kept in check by old habit lished Church, unknown to themselves, and association. "It may not, therefore, be out of place on this occasion, to state the grounds upon which the ministers of the Church still claim that authority." pp. 5, 6. "We contend that this forms in fact a part of that great system of subjection, which not only keeps society together, but has its higher and ultimate object in the training of our spirits, as capable of virtue and happiness for ever." Take away authority-let a man, at any period of his course, have nothing to stand in awe of, and there is no degree of wretchedness, as he must not be betrayed." p. 6. there is no limit to the errors, into which "The sense of our obligation to obey God as our paramount Lord, would be shadowy and evanescent, and fade away, if there were no provision made to represent it continually to the eyes of men. In the provision actually made, not for the undue elevation of a single class, but for the general good, our Maker has fol lowed His usual rule of action. There is no gift, however precious, not even that highest of all, the knowledge and love of Himself, which is not conveyed to us, in part, through our fellow-men. We are ordained to be instruments of good to each other, because we are all members of one body. And it is but a branch of the system that a part of society should be invested with the office of representing God's authority over the whole as rightful Lord and King: that they should thus give shape and reality to the speculative conception, and lead men to the actual contemplation of Him, sitting upon the throne, to execute judgment upon all the dwellers upon the earth. "Whoever then confesses God as his Lord, and also desires to retain his obedi ence to Him, will never hesitate to admit the authority and the rule of God's ministers: for by this rule he understands merely the witnessing on his own behalf that God is Lord; and a demand upon his compliance only with the written and recorded authority of His word. And he will rejoice in this salutary provision for the wants and weaknesses of his spiritual nature, so prone of itself to forget the Majesty of Heaven. "It would have sufficed for my argument thus to shew that without the priesthood, as visibly ruling in God's name, there would be great danger of the Divine Authority being disregarded entirelythat men would shake off their allegiance. But besides its use, as a witness of the Supreme Ruler, there is this invaluable benefit arising out of the relative position occupied by the ministers of God-that it not only sets before us the idea of God as our Sovereign, but serves directly to train our wills and affections in the obedience due to Him as such. "For this habitual submission of the people to their minister, paid indeed to his person, but not to him as a man, brings the heart into that very frame and posture which is essential to the true worshipping of our Creator, and leads men not merely to know God, but also to know Him as their God. Besides, and above the instruction of the ignorant, there is this advantage incidental to the character of those who serve in holy things. They who honour God's minis ters aright learn in the act to honour God. The deference due from all to the dignity of the message we bear, checks the emotions of pride and selfsufficiency. To measure the utility of such an office by the quantity of positive instruction, (though this is unquestionably a main and leading object,) by the number of truths conveyed from the pulpit to the people, is to form a very imperfect estimate of the influence exercised by the priesthood. Rather it is beyond calculation, because it works unseen, how much of religious feeling is derived from the outward form and expression of it. How much the heart owes to the accustomed spectacle of the worship of God in His solemn assemblies, where one is invested with authority in his name, and set over the congregation. Not that to them, who listen, is thus denied the right of judging for themselves, (it is their positive duty to do it,) but that the disposition to cavil and dispute, and the ever-recurring sense of self-sufficiency, is thus kept in check, and the main stumbling-block in a Christian's course removed. Under an autho rity admitted by all as the delegate of the Supreme, the heart of the worshipper becomes by prepossession and by habit more teachable as it is more humble; that very state which is the condition of all God's gifts and graces to man-and wanting which, unless we become as little children, we cannot enter into the kingdom of God. Yet it is not too much to affirm, that without the sense of some superior ever present, this childlike and teachable disposition never can exist, nor be maintained in us." pp. 10-13. It is with pain we perceive a clergyman inculcating among his assembled brethren a spirit like this, because nothing more has tended to injure the Church of England than those relics of it which have survived Popery. Ask the tradesmen around a college or cathedral, or the merchants in our towns, or the farmers in many a rustic parish, or the gentry at many a country-seat, what they think of the neighbouring clergy, and will not the answer often be, They are much too lordly and authoritative; they seem to form a caste of themselves, and to look down upon us laymen as far below them; it is a pity they do not throw off the high priest, and mix with us with less of mortifying condescension." We do not say that the charge is true; the clergy of a close are perhaps quite as humble as the mayor and corporation; but that it is urged as sufficient to shew that there is no great necessity for the particular line of remark which Mr. Preston has selected. It is true that he adds to his statements, that 66 the sense of the dignity of their commission should humble, as well as elevate their spirits;" and that " though set above our fellow-men," we differ from those who obey our rule in nothing but a more fearful responsibility; but even these admissions are lordly, and are not more than are professed by the pope himself, that servant of the servants of God." How much more really dignified is Mr. Cecil's "delineation of Christian and ministerial greatness." It is not indeed incompatible with what St. Paul calls magnifying his office;" but it is utterly hostile to that Laudand-Sancroft system, which is too apt to obtrude upon the ministers of Christ, especially in a rich and powerful hierarchy, alienating the affections of the people, and leading them to expect a degree of public deference and 64 obedience and "submission," with which, however much entitled to it, they are not now-a-days greatly overburdened. We are quite sure that if our clergy are to recover the popular veneration which Mr. Preston admits they have well-nigh lost, it will not be either by mere dean-and-chapter dignity, or by demanding obedience and submission," as persons set above their fellow-men,' and expecting as dispensers of the Sacraments what Popery gave to the sacrificers of the Mass; but by that meek humility, that self-denying zeal, that faithfulness in the dispensation of Divine truth, that anxiety for the glory of God, and the eternal welfare of the souls of men, which shall prove them to be indeed true ministers of Christ, and faithful stewards of the mysteries of God. It is true that the fault of the priest invalidates not the efficacy of a sacrament, because that is connected with the faith of the receiver; but for a wicked man to talk of "authority," and to demand obedience," because in the routine of an endowed church he happens to have had interest to procure holy orders, is to pervert the true notion of a Christian minister into that of a Popish priest. In illustration of these remarks, let our readers contrast the spirit of the foregoing passages with the following, from Mr. Cecil. "The blessings which Christ bestows upon every true disciple, and the honourable relation in which every believer stands to his Lord and Master, will make even the least among us truly great. The nearer we stand to God, the more honourable is our office; and the more like we are to our Saviour, the greater is our privilege and happiness. No persons upon earth ever stood nearer to God than those blessed Apostles who conversed with, and ministered unto the incarnate Son of God, in the days of his sojourning upon earth. The least amongst them all was greatly honoured and distinguished. And not they alone, but all who are called and sent forth, in the name of Christ to preach the everlasting Gospel, are great in the sight of the Lord, if they truly fulfil the ministry committed unto them. Yet, even these apostles and ministers of Christ have a tion to Christ their Head, which swallows greatness, arising from their spiritual relaup all the honour by which they are visibly distinguished from each other. It honoured instrument in the church, Notmay be said to the most powerful and withstanding, in this rejoice not, because the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven.' The blessings and privileges which you enjoy, in common with the least disciple, are greater than those which separate you from them: For he that is least among you all, the same shall be great.' Several times in the Gospe. does this subject recur; and on each occasion our Saviour turned the weakness of his disciples into an important instruction." pp. 3-5. blessed Virgin, and like Hannah, to trace "It is delightful to be able, like the all our greatness and exaltation to the free love, and compassionate tenderness, and everlasting choice of our Almighty Father. This privilege belongs to every The least true disciple hath been raised from the dust of disciple of Jesus. death, and from the pit of corruption, to sit with princes, and to inherit the throne of glory. The weakest child in Christ Jesus hath received unspeakable mercies from the free love of God; and must for ever cry out, with the whole church, Not unto us, not unto us, but unto thy name be the praise, for thy loving mercy, and for thy truth's sake.' And the poorest minister, who is duly called to preach the everlasting Gospel, bears upon him the name and the message of the most high God he is a priest anointed with the gifts and graces of God's Holy Spirit; a worker together with God; an angel of the churches, and the glory of Christ. "And should we, who are called with so high and holy a calling, spend our time swallowed up in the greatness of our and thoughts upon differences, which are common inheritance? Should we dispute and contend about those distinctions, which are nothing, compared with the riches of the least true disciple and minister of Jesus Christ? What do men strive and contend about in the church? Is it forms, privileges, power, honours, gifts, stations? These are all swallowed up, and lost in the true riches of the least real disciple; or the lowest faithful minister." pp. 11-13. "And now do you desire to drink of Christ's cup, and to be baptized with his baptism? Would you be great, as he is great? then hear his words: (Matt. xx. 26-28) Whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant; even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. And fear not that you should suffer loss in following an example of so great humility. Such a spirit and temper as this will make us great in the kingdom of heaven, though we be despised and rejected of men. And the least among us all, who is a true believer in Christ, shall never feel the want of any other great ness. For he that is least among you all, the same shall be great.' The blessed Apostle, St. Paul, in imitation of his Divine Master, and in the exact spirit of the text, takes his own place, and writes his own title, as one who was less than the least of all saints; while, in labour, sufferings, and usefulness, he was not a whit behind the very chiefest Apostles." pp. 15, 16. "Let each of us with fear and trem bling apply to ourselves those words of our Saviour: Who then is that faithful and wise servant, whom his Lord hath made ruler over his household to give them their portion of meat in due season? Blessed is that servant whom his Lord, when he cometh, shall find so doing.' Here is the trial of true greatness in the church of Christ: and where men stop short of these measures, they will be found wanting in the balance of the sanctuary, how much soever they may be admired and esteemed among men. "But all this regards only our calling and qualification. Let us consider, further, how we are to discharge the office. 'I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling,' saith the great Apostle of the Gentiles. As a little child entrusted with a weighty errand, I sought not my own glory; but with all simplicity, meekness, and affection, I laid open to sinners the grace, promises, and invitations, of their adorable Redeemer." pp. 21, 22. In all this we do not say that there is any thing but what the writer of one of the sermons before us would be willing to acknowledge as well as the other; and we are far from meaning to impute to Mr. Preston more than his own words, with their reservations and cautions, necessarily imply; but still it strikes us that the spirit of the two discourses is visibly different, and, we may add, instructively so, as exhibiting two representations of clerical dignity, both true in their degree; but one, to say the least, far more apposite in a visitation sermon than the other. An Apostle says to the flock, and we fear not to echo his words in their fullest extent: "Obey Lest having preached to others, I myself should be a cast-away.” 1831.] in avowing themselves Musselmans, and hypocritically practising the rites and ceremonies of that Anti-Christian superstition, cannot be too seriously denounced and deprecated. In a recent law-suit at Wexford, a clergyman having declined answering a question which related to matters disclosed to him in confidence by a person on his death-bed, the court determined that he was under no obligation to secrecy. He still however declined replying, and stated that he acted with the sancWe tion of his diocesan; and no measures were taken to oblige him to answer, and the cause was in consequence lost. Without arguing the general question, it is at least not too much to maintain that, if our courts allow confessions made to Catholic priests to be considered sacred, they ought not to refuse the same secrecy to disclosures made to Protestant Clergy GREAT BRITAIN. CAPTAIN Head, in his memoir of Bruce the traveller, lately published in Murray's Library, sneers at the scruples of those travellers in Africa who refuse to exhibit themselves as Mohammedans, and ridicules the labours of missionaries, and the absurd philanthropy of England in making the abolition of the slave trade one of her articles of negociation with the native chiefs. Poor Lander comes in for a large share of contempt; and much the captain smiles at the idea of sending out a menial to discover the source of the Niger. might feel inclined to argue the matter with the writer in reference to his several points of Christians professing to be Mohammedans, the labours of missionaries, and the enlightened and disinterested benevolence, which finds so little favour in his eyes, but which to a rightly constituted mind would assume an aspect of high dignity and moral elevation; but we think the task superfluous, as the gallant captain must by this time be heartily ashamed of his own book, in consequence of the return of poor vitupeperated Lander, another Bruce, triumphant from the scene in which he was This to make so contemptible a figure. We despised man has succeeded where scores men. We rejoice to hear of the successful exertions of the Glasgow Temperance Society. Among the publications issued by the Society is a monthly periodical work, entitled "The Temperance-Society Record," which contains many important facts and arguments on the use of ardent spirits in all their forms. We hope to find space for some occasional notices on the subject, which deeply involves the health, the morals, the religion, and the general prosperity of the community. In all these respects there is but one safe We strongly course, entire abstinence. urge the formation of similar institutions throughout the kingdom. That a man, by merely measuring the moon's apparent distance from a star with a little portable instrument held in his hand, and applied to his eye, with so unstable a footing as the deck of a ship, shall say positively, within five miles, where he is, on a boundless ocean, cannot but appear to persons ignorant of astro |