Summer and Winter in the Pyrenees, by the Author of The Women of England,' and 'Family Secrets." In one volume, uniform in size, &c., with The Women of England.' Just Published. A History of British Starfishes and other Animals of the class Echinodermata. By Edward Forbes, M.W.S. Parts 4, 5, 6. The World in the Year 1840. Retrospect of the chief Events, Civil, Political, and Religious, of the past Year, in Chronological order. Some Inquiries into the Effects of Fermented Liquors. By a Water Drinker. The Chinese as they are; their Moral, Social, and Literary Character, &c. By G. Tradescant Lay. Memorials of South Africa. By Barnabas Shaw. The Countess D'Auvergne, or Sufferings of the Protestants in France in the Sixteenth Century. By Catharine Ponsonby. One Hundred Sonnets, Translated after the Italian of Petrarca, with the Original Text, Notes, and a Life of Petrarch. By Susan Wollaston. The North American Review. No. 110. The History of the Reformation on the Continent. By George Waddington, D.D., Dean of Durham. 3 vols. The Latter Days of the Jewish Church and Nation as revealed in the Apocalypse. By Dominic M'Causland. The Moral Government of God Elucidated and Enforced. By Thomas Kerns, M.D. The Antiquities of Egypt, with a Particular Notice of those which Illustrate the Sacred Scriptures. Retrospection, or the Light of Days gone by, and other Poems. By Rev. William Liddiard. The Courts of Europe at the close of the last Century. By Henry Swinburne, Esq. Edited by Charles White, Esq. 2 vols. A Dictionary of Science, Literature, and Art. Edited by W. T. Brande. Part 2. History of Providence as Manifested in Scripture. By Alex. Carson, A.M. Seven Sermons. By Robert Russell, Minister of Wadhurst. Memoir of John Huss. Ry Margaret Anne Wyatt. Family Worship, a Series of Prayers, with Doctrinal and Practical Remarks adapted to the Services of Domestic Worship. By 180 Clergymen of the Church of Scotland. Helen Fleetwood. By Charlotte Elizabeth. Pictorial History of Palestine. Part 18. Pictorial Edition of Shakspere. Winter's Tale. Part 30. Baptism not Purification, in Reply to President Beecher. By Alex. Carson, M.A. The Restoration of the Jews to their own Land, connected with their future Conversion and the final Blessedness of our Earth. By Rev. E. Bickersteth. Priscilla, the Helper; a Memoir of Mrs. Rowton, of Coventry. By John Gregg Hewlett. Works of De Foc. Part 17. Edited by W. Hazlitt. The Jubilee Memorial, commemorating the Rev. W. Jay's Fifty Years' Ministry at Argyle Chapel, Bath. My Life. By an Ex-Dissenter. On Heroes, Hero-worship, and the Heroic in History. Six Lectures. By Thomas Carlysle. A Treatise on the Dominion of Sin and Grace. By Dr. Owen. With Notes and an Appendix. By William Innes. THE ECLECTIC REVIEW, FOR MAY, 1841. Art. I. 1. Sermons or Homilies appointed to be read in Churches in the time of Queen Elizabeth of famous memory. A new edition. 1839. 2. Report of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge for 1840; to which is prefixed the Anniversary Sermon preached in the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, by the Lord Bishop of Oxford, on Thursday, June 4, 1840. 3. Publications of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1. Two Tracts on Regeneration and Conversion. By Dr. MANT. New edition. 1839. 2. The Baptismal Covenant; or an Introduction to the Church Catechism. By Rev. SAMUEL HOBSON, LL.B. 1840. 3. Registration and Baptism. A Handbill. 1840. 4. Tracts for the Times. No. 86. Rivington. 5. Plain Tracts for Critical Times on the important subjects of Baptism and Regeneration, with an especial reference to the Oxford Tracts. By a Union of Clergymen. Nos. 1 to 6. Smith, Elder, and Co. 6. A Sermon preached at Kettering, at the Primary Visitation of the Bishop of Peterborough. By Rev. Sir G. S. ROBINSON, Bart., and Published by request. Rivington. THE HE doctrines of the Church of England are contained in two volumes; the Book of Common Prayer, and the Book of Homilies. Of the latter it is proposed to give some account; connecting with it the other publications named above: all of which, as there will be occasion to explain, carry with them considerable authority; and lead a candid and intelligent reader, by somewhat varied routes, to the same conclusion. In the beginning of the reign of Edward the Sixth, few of the clergy being able to preach, a book of homilies or short sermons, on some of the leading truths of religion, was drawn up for their VOL. IX. 2 L use, under the direction of Archbishop Cranmer. In the year 1562, Elizabeth, ' tendering the soul's health of her loving sub'jects, and the quietness of their consciences,' re-enacted the use of the same. Two years afterwards a second and larger book of sermons was put forth, also by royal authority; and these two volumes, now united in one, form the work, the title of which is given at the head of this article. Some parts of this venerable, and on the whole, excellent production, are now, owing to the changes of society or of language, obsolete; some of its tenets, on subjects not theological, are erroneous and dangerous and as a body of divinity, it has its carious part. Pitiful, therefore, is the position of clergymen, who are bound to receive the whole of it as 'a true setting forth, and pure de'claration of God's word.' As a standard of belief, it merits reprobation; and is part and parcel of that corrupt and corrupting system by which the words of men have been raised into an importance due only to the truth of God. Considered in relation to the Church of England, the Book of Homilies is a badge of slavery; a violation of the command, ‘call no man 'master on earth. Considered inerely as a human production, it contains much sound evangelical and practical instruction; and not a few sentiments which an enlightened reader will reject. It is also marked by deficiencies which ought to have been supplied. Some of the disclosures made by these sermons of the sixteenth century, of the state of morals and manners, in what have been called the good old times of merry England, are curious enough; and dark as are the pictures drawn, they are not darker than might be expected, where corrupt human nature had been rather nourished than curbed, by what passed under the name of religion. Unto such decay, it was said, had true godliness and virtuous living come, that great swarms of vices worthy to be rebuked, existed; but, above all, the outrageous seas of adultery, whoredom, fornication, and uncleanness, had not only burst in, but also overflowed almost the whole world.* The rudeness of behaviour engendered by the ignorance and dissoluteness of the times, could not be restrained even on consecrated ground: but the people, instead of a decent attendance on divine worship, would not cease from uncomely walking and jetting up and down and overthwart the church, and from speaking filthily, covetously, and ungodlily, in the house of the Lord, of matters scarce honest or fit for the alehouse or tavern.t Serving men would not study either to * Hom. on Uncleanness, p. 128, 12mo. edition. write fair, or to keep a book of account, or to study the tongues. Vagabonds and idle persons abounded:* and though the people were allowed by their gracious prince to have two meals a day (many of their forefathers having had but one spare meal, and that on fish only), they notwithstanding showed some reluctance to observe those political fasts which were appointed with the view of reducing the price of provisions.† Nor did the laws against sumptuousness of attire, passed by Elizabeth (herself no quakeress), render needless ecclesiastical expostulation against finery. 'Most commonly he that ruffleth in his sables, in his fine furred gown, corked slippers, trim buskins, and warm mittens, is more ready to chill for the cold than the poor laboring man, which can abide in the field all the day long, when the north wind blows, with a few beggarly clouts about him. We are loth to wear such as our fathers have left us. We must have one gown for the day, another for the night; one long, another short; one for winter, another for summer; one through furred, another but faced; one for the working-day, another for the holyday; one of this color, another of that color; one of cloth, another of silk or damask. We must have change of apparel, one afore dinner, and another after; one of the Spanish fashion, another Turkey and to be brief, never content with sufficient... ...... The proud and haughty stomachs of the daughters of England are so maintained with divers disguised sorts of costly apparel, that, as Tertullian, an ancient father, saith, there is left no difference in apparel, between an honest matron and a common strumpet.'-Homily against Excess of Apparel. : There is one homily, designed to be read to the people before they set out, in Rogation week, to mark by their perambulations the boundaries of the parish; in which it is flatly asserted that almighty God never suffereth the third heir to enjoy his 'father's wrong possessions.' But, whatever may be thought of this tenet of the Church of England, the homily contains much excellent advice. 'It is lamentable to see in some places how greedy men use to plough and grate upon their neighbor's land that lieth next them: how covetous men now-a-days plough up so nigh the common balks and walks, which good men beforetime made the greater and broader, partly for the commodious walk of his neighbor, partly for the better shack in harvest-time, to the more comfort of his poor neighbor's cattle. It is a shame to behold the insatiableness of some covetous persons in their doings that where their ancestors left of their land a broad and sufficient bier-balk, to carry the corpse to the Christian • On Idleness. ↑ On Fasting. sepulchre, how men pinch at such bier-balks, which by long use and custom ought to be inviolably kept for that purpose: and now they either quite ear them up, and turn the dead body to be borne farther about in the high streets; or else, if they leave any such meer, it is too strait for two to walk on. These strange encroachments, good neighbors, should be looked upon...... It is a good deed of mercy, to amend the dangerous and noisome ways, whereby thy poor neighbor, sitting on his silly weak beast, foundereth not in the deep thereof.'* * Very amusing, if the subject were not too serious, would be the homily on matrimony. We see how wonderful the devil 'deludeth and scorneth this state; how few matrimonies there 'be without chidings, brawlings, tauntings, repentings, bitter 'cursings, and fightings. * The common sort of men 'do judge that moderation is a token of womanish cowardness, ' and therefore they think that it is a man's part to fume in anger, 'to fight with fist and staff.' And though Elizabeth and her divines by no means approved of the beating of wives, yet they would have them very submissive under such discipline. For In these days of stone and iron roads, when those who would practise the science proper to gentle blood,'* and even those who travel on foot, are being gradually, but surely, excluded from the path-ways across the green fields, we wish most earnestly that clerical magistrates would study the homily for Rogation week; and learn thence, to respect the vested rights of the people. As the population of the country increases, the value of land rises; and each proprietor is naturally anxious to have his own inheritance as free from public intrusion as possible. But the general good ought not to be sacrificed to individual convenience. We would by no means undervalue the schooling given to the young in the present day; but may not an occasional stroll in the green lanes and bye-paths on a Saturday afternooon, be quite as important a part of their education as the spelling and catechism taught during the forenoon? Nor ought the advantage of a moral and mental kind to be deemed slight, which is secured to the adult members of the community by the right of pursuing the quiet foot-path which winds through rural scenery, and leads from town to town. The reason often suggested to magistrates for permitting the owners of fields to stop up the foot-ways or bridle-ways, viz,, that the distance by the carriage-road is not greater than by the less public road, has regard to one view of the question only, and that the most paltry. A country house, with its quiet neighborhood in which to roam, is the ambition of those who accumulate wealth. Very few can possess this luxury. The greater is the reason, therefore, why that right to share, in an humbler degree, in pleasures which all possess, whilst they are at liberty to walk the fields without being scowled upon, or fined as trespassers, should be jealously guarded. We should esteem ourselves happy if any should be induced by these hints rigidly to watch over that valuable right of the poor man and his children—their right to pass through the meadows, and corn fields, and woods-to stroll in the green pastures, and beside the still waters. But chiefly skill to ride seemes a science |