if we be bound to hold out our left cheek to strangers who will smite us on the right cheek, how much more ought we to suffer an extreme and unkind husband! But yet I mean not that a man should beat his wife; God forbid that; * * * but if thou chancest upon such a husband, take it not too heavily; 'but suppose thou that thereby is laid up no small reward here'after, and in this lifetime no small commendation to thee, if 'thou canst be quiet. * * * But thou [the husband] per'adventure will say, that she is a wrathful woman, a drunkard, ' and beastly, without wit and reason. For this cause bewail 'her the more.' And then, as usual, poor Socrates is dragged in, by way of confirmation, being the only bright example of the kind which all history supplies.

We pass on to points of greater importance: and will endeavor to give the reader some notion of the political principles of the Book of Homilies. It must be fully admitted, that in becoming politicians, the clergy are true to their calling: and not less so in entertaining and propagating the most flattering tenets in regard to royalty; and the most slavish ones in reference to the duty of the people. According to the creed of Churchmen, Henry the Eighth was a faithful and true minister of God, who gave him the knowledge of his word, and an earnest affection to seek his glory.* James was a high gift of God; and his council godly, wise, and honorable.+ According to the same creed, it is sinful in subjects, in any case, to resist and stand against the superior powers; and all murmuring, rebellion, and withstanding, on their part, is intolerable ignorance, madness, and wickedness.‡

'What shall subjects do then? Shall they obey valiant, stout, wise, and good princes; and contemn, disobey, and rebel against children being their governors, or against undiscreet, and evil governors? God forbid for first, what a perilous thing were it to commit unto the subjects the judgment which prince is wise and godly, and his government good, and which otherwise; as though the foot must judge of the head: an enterprise very heinous, and which must needs breed rebellion...... A rebel is worse than the worst prince; and rebellion worse than the worst government of the worst prince that hitherto hath been.'-Homily on Rebellion, part 1.

Though not only great multitudes of the rude and rascal commons, but sometime also men of great wit, nobility, and authority, have moved rebellions...... yet, were the multitude of the rebels never so huge and great, the captains never so noble, politic, and witty, the pretences feigned to be never so good and holy, the speedy overthrow

* On Good Works, part 3, p. 63. + On Obedience, part 1, p. 115 ↑ Ib., part 2.

of all rebels, of what number, state, or condition soever they were, or what color or cause soever they pretended, is and ever hath been such, that God doth thereby show that he alloweth neither the dignity of any person, nor the multitude of any people, NOR THE WEIGHT OF ANY CAUSE, as sufficient for the which the subjects may move rebellion against their princes.'-Ib. part 4.

By the same authority we are assured that they who die in foreign wars, fighting for their prince and their country, die in a good conscience, and be children of eternal salvation; but that all rebels justly do fall headlong into hell.* Such are the absurd, unconstitutional, and unscriptural opinions, which the clergy are bound to adopt and teach: and when the writers of the Oxford Tracts call the revolution of 1688, the rebellion of 1688, they speak as they ought to speak. All consistent Churchmen must abhor the British constitution; believe that the third William, and they who fought and died for him, were the very figures of fiends and devils; that Hampden, and Pym, and all who made common cause with them, were engaged in an enterprise villanous and frantic; and regard the nobles (with the Archbishop of Canterbury at their head) who extorted from John the charter of our freedom, as rebels, accursed on earth and for ever damned in hell.§

The Church of England is not more hostile to civil than to religious freedom. She teaches that images ought not to be suffered in churches or temples;|| and enjoins upon monarchs the duty of driving away all spiritual harlots, especially out of suspected places.|| Her 'godly and wholesome doctrine' would be reduced to practice if the queen were on Sunday next to send her officers to the Catholic Chapel in Finsbury, and to all similar places, with orders to put an end to the 'spiritual fornication' there committed. Nor are Protestant Dissenters beyond the limits of her despotic statutes; for the thirty-seventh article affirms that monarchs should rule all states and degrees committed to 'their charge by God, whether they be ecclesiastical or tempo'ral; and restrain with the civil sword the stubborn and evil 'doers.' True it is, that, owing to recent legislative measures, and to the power and direction of public opinion, we are no longer entirely at the mercy of haughty prelates; but to every one loving the liberties of his country, it must surely be matter for serious regret and apprehension that there should be fifteen thousand men who, by the donations of the state, have been raised, some to great wealth, and all to great influence, and who are pledged

* On Wilful Rebellion, part 3, p. 634. § Ib., part 3, p. 627.

+ Ib.

Ib., part 4, p. || Against Idolatry, pp. 259, 270.

640.

to entertain, and bound in duty to inculcate, the slavish and persecuting principles of the homilies and the prayer-book.*

In proceeding to the inquiry how far the homilies exhibit the peculiar doctrines of Christianity, it gives us unfeigned pleasure to bear a willing and fervent testimony to the excellence of many of these ancient sermons. The fallen, depraved, and guilty condition of man is therein affirmed with great plainness. Of ourselves, we be crab-trees, that can bring forth no apples; 'we be of such earth as can but bring forth weeds, nettles, bram'bles, briers, cockle, and darnel.' Of ourselves, and by ourselves, we have no goodness, help, or salvation; but contrari'wise sin, damnation, and death eternal!' With equal explicitness is the doctrine of justification by faith alone declared. 'Man cannot make himself righteous by his own works, neither ' in part, nor in the whole; but justification is a thing which we 'take of God by his free mercy, and by the only merits of his 'most dearly beloved Son, our only Redeemer, Saviour, and 'Justifier, Jesus Christ.' Pages might be quoted to the same effect, showing that the homilies propound those views of human nature, and of the way of man's acceptance with God, which are exhibited (or were exhibited) by that small minority of the ministers of the Church of England-the evangelical clergy and reminding us that the overwhelming majority of the clergy have abandoned the doctrines which the formularies of their Church represent as of fundamental importance. In a former article such doctrinal corruption was proved to exist in the Prayer-book as should induce all pious members of the Establishment to abandon that book without delay. It has now been shown that on some essential points, the authorized documents of the national Church unequivocally assert the truth. Now, it is pretended that an established church is indispensable for the conservation of sound doctrine; the various bodies of Nonconformists being (it is said) ever liable to drift away into error. And yet the English Establishment (the very model, we are told, of all such institutions), having, in her authentic docu

In the service for 5th November, God is thanked for sending William for the deliverance of our Church and nation from popish tyranny and arbitrary power; a sentiment so utterly at variance with the homilies, that we know of but one explanation of the inconsistency, and that is, the supposition that the ecclesiastics who drew up and sanctioned the service in question (for we take it for certain that some ecclesiastics were consulted) were ignorant of the contents of the homilies. The form of prayer for November 5, derives its authority from that most religious king, George the Fourth; and Churchmen have to choose between the dogmas of Carlton House and their more venerable documents. Both cannot be true. The Oxford Tractists adhere to the latter. On Salvation, part 2.

On the Misery of Man, part 2.

ments, both poisonous errors and saving truth, has given all prominence and effect to the former, and well nigh consigned the latter to oblivion. The vital doctrines of the new covenant, so far as they find a place in the articles and homilies, have been there (speaking generally) as a dead letter; and the few clergy who have dared to preach these saving truths plainly and boldly, have been loaded with every form of obloquy but the lying flatteries of the Prayer-book, by which men are assured that they were made Christians by baptism, and afterwards confirmed in their religion by the bishop, and at length shall be buried in sure hope of its immortal blessings, have been uttered by the Church continually, with no faltering accent, with no doubtful effect.

Let it not be said, that this is a description of times past, and, though applicable just after the labors of Wesley and Whitfield had brought to light the deplorable state of the Church, is no longer applicable. That such a plea is of no validity, appears from the following facts. About twenty-five years ago Dr. Mant (afterwards made Bishop of Down and Connor) published his views of regeneration and conversion. They derived importance, not only from their being written by a dignitary of the Church, but further, from their having been delivered at the Bampton Lecture, recommended to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge by the Salop District Committee of that Society, adopted, and published in a tract for general circulation. Notwithstanding the controversy this tract excited, it has remained amongst the standard publications of the Society to the present day; and the edition now lying before us was printed so late as the year 1839. Of the society which circulates this tract, the queen, the head of the Church, is the patron; the Archbishop of Canterbury is the president; and the other archbishops, and all the bishops, are members of the committee. Five bishops, appointed by the president, decide what publications shall be adopted for circulation; and no one, the members of the royal family and the bishops excepted, can gain admission into the society unless recommended by a member; who is to affirm in writing that he 'verily believes the applicant to be a well affected member of the united Church ' of England and Ireland, as by law established.' We are fully warranted, therefore, in regarding the publications of this society as explanatory of the doctrines of the Church of England; for if the archbishops and bishops do not understand her doctrines, who does? What then is the purport of the tract in question? It is designed to prove two things: first, that the Church of England certainly, and most plainly, teaches that regeneration is by baptism; and, secondly, that conversion, as taught by Whitfield and Wesley, is hurtful fanaticism. It is with the

former position that we are just now concerned; and here are the opinions of the bishop, and of the society which has for twenty-five years been disseminating them widely amongst the people.

'I make no scruple of considering the words of our Saviour in this text (John iii. 5) as indicating the sacrament of baptism, because I believe it to be the doctrine of the Bible, and I am sure it is the doctrine of the Church of England; agreeably to which, I conceive it to be the opinion of the generality of the national clergy, that by that sacrament we are made Christians; and are born anew, of water and of the Holy Spirit...... I shall venture to show, by the adduction of several passages in her liturgy, that the doctrine of regeneration by baptism is most clearly asserted by her; or, in other words, that she supposes, in strict conformity with the Scriptures, not merely that all real Christians are regenerated by God's Holy Spirit, by which I understand all those who live a Christian life; but that those also are so regenerated who receive baptism rightly, or, what in the case of infants, at least in a Christian country, amounts to the same thing, to whom baptism is rightly administered, notwithstanding by their future conduct they may forfeit the privileges of their new birth.'

The author proceeds to quote from the several offices for baptism, from the catechism, the confirmation service, the liturgy, and the articles; and gives the conclusion in these words:

I have thus stated the several passages in the liturgy and the articles, wherein our Church notices regeneration, or the being born again. I have not knowingly omitted one. And I will now venture to express my opinion, that a doubt can hardly exist upon the mind of any reasonable inquirer with respect to the opinion entertained by our Church on the question of baptismal regeneration.'

If the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge had heedlessly admitted Dr. Mant's tract twenty-five years ago, and, unwilling to lose its dignity by formally undoing its own act, were now quietly consigning the tract and the deadly heresies it contains to oblivion, every man of right feeling would judge the committee leniently, even if he deemed a bolder course more desirable. But alas! the very reverse of this is the case. The sermon of the Bishop of Oxford, prefixed to the Report of the present year, plainly teaches that the children baptized in the Church of England are in that rite made Christians; and publications placed on the society's catalogue for the first time during the past year (two of which publications are named above) assert the obnoxious tenet, in words as explicit as those employed by Dr. Mant. Hear first the lord bishop.