8, 9, which says not one word about it? Or that free will votive offerings are really prohibited by the text-"Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage" ?*

ALTERING THE LESSONS.

SIR,-Permit me, through the medium of your Publication, to call the attention of my clerical brethren to some transgressions of ecclesiastical order; which, though, by many, they may be deemed trivial, seem to me both grave in themselves, and likely to produce results of the worst consequence to that most important part of our religious system, the liturgy of our church.

I am sojourning with my family at a small watering-place, which has, for some time, been blessed with the zealous and laborious ministry of a most devoted pastor. On Wednesday evening last, I was led to attend an evening service in the parish church, where the prayers were read in a devout and impressive manner by a curate, and followed by a powerful and searching address from the incumbent. So far, so good. Now comes my grievance. On entering the church-and again before the sermon-a hymn, or psalm, was sung, from some one of the many unauthorized selections now in use, which, having no book, I had not the means of making out, from the imperfect enunciation of the clerk and the singers. I looked at my common prayer-book, and could not help musing why such things were, and questioning whether the defects of our authorized version were not more tolerable, than the introduction of unknown matter into the public service of God. When the reader came to the lessons, judge my surprise at hearing, instead of Eccles. vi. and 1st Thes. v., the appointed lessons for the day, Is. Ixi. and Ephes. i. given out and read. I had, indeed, known clergymen substitute, on their own authority, lessons from the canon,-Scripture for those taken from the Apocrypha; and though I do not approve the practice, I can yet see some colour of reason for its adoption. But upon what plea, or on what principle of selection, canonical lessons, plainly prescribed in the calendar, should be set aside, and others substituted for them, ad libitum, I confess I cannot understand. It appears to me, that if so important a part of the liturgy as the lessons may be changed at the discretion of the officiating minister, there can be no safety for any part of the service, from alterations, transpositions, and substitutions, until uniformity is totally lost sight of.

These circumstances have led me to some serious reflections on the growing practice of departing from that great principle (uniformity) which is so essential a feature of the services of the church of England. It should seem that the value of this principle, as an aid to devotion,

• This letter arrived too late for the April Number; and it is a subject of great regret that a letter on so interesting a subject should have been afterwards so long overlooked. The writer, it is hoped, will kindly accept this apology.-ED.

is either imperfectly known, or not duly estimated. To one who enters thoroughly into the spirit of our daily service, it will, I think, appear of vast importance to preserve its unvarying character, both by excluding the intrusion of new and untried matter, and preventing all arbitrary interference with the established order of its arrangements. They who have formed a comprehensive idea of that great article of our faith-the Communion of Saints-will feel a holy delight in the notion, that the same portions of holy Scripture, the same scriptural and primitive prayers, the same songs of Zion, or hymns of the early church, are, at the same moment, fixing the attention, engaging the meditation, and exciting the devotion of their fellow Christians. The sacred sympathy which is thus created between those who are absent in body, and which makes them present in spirit, and joyful in beholding their mutual love to God, in Christ, and to one another, is surely of the very essence of devotion, and far too holy a thing to be sacrificed to the private views of individuals, respecting the better edification of their particular congregation.

Let me hope, that if these hints should meet the eye of any clerical brother who has adopted the plans here condemned, he may be led to consider whether (to say nothing of his obligations to canonical obedience) the church may not have had good reasons for ordaining strict uniformity in her daily service; and whether, among many more obvious ones, the one here urged ought not to have considerable weight. I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

-S

-T.*

July 20, 1836.

THE" ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITTANNICA."

SIR,-You will remember that a short time ago the impartiality of the Encyclopædia Brittannica" upon religious subjects was called in question at a public meeting, and that an action was commenced by the proprietors of the publication against the gentleman who made the objectionable statement. That gentleman (as every honourable man is bound to do) finding that he had been mis-informed, has made a public retractation of his assertion, which retractation is stitched into the last half volume of the "Encyclopædia," and may therefore, I presume, be considered as approved of by the proprietors. There is, in this short document, one sentence which I will beg to transcribe; it refers to the means employed to obtain correct information upon religious subjects:

"In consequence, however, of investigations which I have since necessarily made, and evidence which I have since received; particularly having ascertained that, in order to obtain the most correct and impartial accounts of religious sects generally, it was the practice from the beginning of the work, where there was an opportunity, to submit the articles giving an ac

• It is painful to hear of the extent to which practices like this prevail in Dublin. A letter from Dublin (with the name) mentions, that a friend of the writer was present at an evening service at an Episcopal Chapel, when the absolution, the first lesson, all the psalms, and some of the prayers, were omitted!-ED.

count of each sect to one of its leading members, a practice entirely consistent with the full right of editorial revision and control; I am now satisfied that the information upon which I acted does not warrant &c."

I conceive that this statement may fairly be considered as a profession of impartiality on the part of the editor and proprietors. No plan can be more proper and satisfactory than that alluded to in the above paragraph, provided the editorial revision and control be fairly and impartially exercised. The same rule, I presume, ought to be applied to the biographical department. The life of Knox, for instance, would, with propriety, be intrusted to a zealous admirer of that individual. And, in compiling his account, the writer would certainly be justified in giving a full and fair view of the opinions, and quoting extracts from the writings of the subject of his memoirs, how objectionable soever those opinions or expressions might, in themselves, appear to persons of opposite sentiments; but I question whether it is quite consistent with the impartiality of an "Encyclopædia" to permit the writer of such an article to make it the vehicle of his own sectarian prejudices, or to allow him to censure or to sneer at the principles of others. Having premised thus much, I will request your attention to the following extracts, and will leave you and your readers to judge how far the "editorial revision and control" has been exercised in these instances:

"The Scottish reformation differed in many respects from that of the neighbouring kingdom. In the one case the most essential trappings of a proud popish prelacy were left uncurtailed,* nor was the church sufficiently purified

"The genuine high churchmen seem to feel some lingering regret for the discontinuance of the popish prayers for the dead;" (then follows an extract from Origines Liturgica, Oxford, 1832, upon which are the following observations, to which the reader's attention is particularly requested.) "This work, which is learned and curious in its way, might, with a considerable degree of propriety, have been entitled The Conformity of the Church of England with that of Rome.' Among other important facts, he (Mr. Palmer) is pleased to state that the bishops who rule the churches of these realms were validly ordained by others, who, by means of an unbroken spiritual descent of ordinations, derived their mission from the apostles, and from our Lord. This continual descent is evident to any one who chooses to investigate it. Let him read the catalogues of our bishops, ascending up to the most remote period; our ordinations descend in a direct unbroken line from Peter and Paul, the apostles of the circumcision and the Gentiles. These great apostles successively ordained Linus, Cletus, and Clement bishops of Rome; and the apostolical line of succession was regularly continued from them to Celestine, Gregory, and Vitilianus, who ordained Patrick bishop for the Irish, and Augustine and Theodore for the English, and from those times an uninterrupted series of valid ordinations have carried down the apostolical succession in our churches to the present day. There is not a bishop, priest, or deacon among us who cannot, if he pleases, trace his own spiritual descent from St. Peter and St. Paul.' To this last assertion it is only necessary to oppose another; namely, that there is not a single bishop, priest, nor deacon who can trace his own spiritual origin for one half of the requisite period. But what advantage could possibly result from their tracing it with the utmost certainty? Till they make an unequivocal display of their miraculous powers, we must totally disregard their extraordinary pretensions. By arguments equally logical and cogent, the bishop of Rome undertakes to prove that he inherits all the spiritual gifts and graces of St. Peter, and to these is fully entitled to add all the temporal power and possessions to which he can extend his impious hand. This delirious dream of apostolical succession is disgraceful to the protestant name, and all those whom it bewilders would best maintain their consistency by returning to the bosom of their mother church."

from popish devices and observances. The sign of the cross in baptism, with the entire apparatus of godfathers and godmothers, some part of the funeral service, kneeling at the communion, the power of the priest to remit or to retain sins, and the power of the bishops to confer the gift of the Holy Ghost, ought to have been left in the sole and undisputed possession of those who still adhere to the mass and to transubstantiation. Pluralities and non-residence, two manifest remnants of popery, have been closely interwoven with an establishment in which the idle splendour of one class of ecclesiastics is placed in so indecent a contrast with the laborious poverty of another."*

The following are a few extracts from the article "Leighton (Abp. of Glasgow)":

"To this idle and arrogant ceremony of reordination, Sharp, who had swallowed down greater matters, submitted, with no small reluctance; but, as Dr. Mitchell has remarked, Leighton submitted easily to this, not because he was eager to put on a mitre, but because he had good sense enough, and a sufficient acquaintance with Scripture, and the writings of early antiquity, to know that it was a matter of no consequence whether he submitted to it or not."-p. 214.

"He did not permit his friends to give him the title of lord, nor did he willingly acquiesce in its being given to him by others; for he evidently had not unlearned the presbyterian lesson, that Christ has no lords in his house." -p. 214.

"In the French king there might be a certain species of consistency when he cut the throats of his protestant subjects because they refused to embrace popery; but in the English king there was manifestly none when he cut the throats of his presbyterian subjects because they refused to embrace episcopacy, unless we can discover some consistency in the mere consideration that those converted to episcopacy were brought one step nearer to his own faith." -p. 215.

According to Dr. Paley, the appointment of various orders in the church may be considered as the stationing of ministers of religion in various ranks of civil life. The distinctions of the clergy ought, in some measure, to correspond with the distinctions of lay society, in order to supply each class of the people with a clergy of their own level and description, with whom they may live and associate upon terms of equality.' In conformity with this evangelical distribution of rank and office, the English curate is reduced to the condition of the labouring poor, and the archbishop is raised to the level of the first nobility. All this is frequently described as very apostolical, but we are

Bishop Lowth has stated, that there were some in England who, by the pope's authority, possessed at once twenty ecclesiastical benefices and dignities, with the dispensation moreover of holding as many more as they could lawfully procure, without limitation of number.' In what protestant country, except England and Ireland, is the system of pluralities and non-residence maintained to any extent? They are an intolerable nuisance, which even there must very speedily be abated. Even the regius professor of divinity at Oxford is convinced that there is a great and general demand for church reform; and as Dr. Burton is a man of sense, as well as learning, he must likewise be aware that when there is a great and general demand for some commodity, it can, in most cases, be supplied. His notions of reform, as the reader may easily conjecture, are not extravagant; and some of his suggestions are not deficient in worldly wisdom. It is notorious,' as he avers, that many clergymen enjoy the income of their benefices because the presentations have been bought and sold; and if any legislative enactment should reduce their incomes, the patrons must, in all fairness, refund part of the purchase money. All the lay dealers in such articles must therefore perceive the dangerous tendency of a reform in the church."

VOL. X.-Sept. 1836.

+ Charles II.

2 s

not aware that the apostles recommend their successors to a seat in the house of lords, nor have they clearly taught us to infer that the prosperity of the church of Christ has any necessary connexion with such splendour. We recollect the appropriate remark of a writer, eminently distinguished by his acuteness and candour of mind, Exorbitant wealth, annexed to office,' says Dr. Campbell, may be said universally to produce two effects-viz., arrogance and laziness.'

"We are very far from wishing to reduce the order to a primitive state of poverty; but we are not prepared to acquiesce in the opinion, that the respectability or the spiritual influence of a clergyman is more effectually secured by five thousand than by five hundred pounds a year.”—p. 213.

Had the work been called the Encyclopædia Scotica,' these passages might not be objectionable; but in a work professing impartiality, surely the editor's power of revision ought to be applied in curtailing his biographical articles of the flippant remarks of the writers regarding the established church of the chief parts of the empire. I was induced to become a subscriber to the work chiefly by the list of contributors, whose names I thought would secure the church from being wantonly attacked. Amongst them I find an English bishop and clergyman; and I understood that one or more of the Scottish bishops were also connected with it. I will not extend the length of this letter by any remark on the above passages, but I will just take the opportunity of inquiring whether the following statement respecting Cranmer can be quite correct :—

"A bishop may make a priest by the Scriptures, and so may princes and governors alsoe, and that by the auctoritie of God committed to them; and the people alsoe by their election."-Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. xiii. p. 214. Abp. Leighton.'

T. S.

PROTESTANT MONASTERIES.

SIR, The judicious Herbert Thorndike, in his excellent treatise, called "Just Weights and Measures," speaks of "an unchristian, rather than an unreasonable apprehension, that the farther we run from the church of Rome, the nearer we shall come to the truth of Christianity." It has often struck me that this breach-widening humour (as Jeremy Bentham might have called it) has, in few instances of practice, been more fully exemplified than in the horror with which everything like monastic institutions has been looked upon in this country since the time of the dissolution. It is true that, amid the universal clamor, a single voice has been heard at intervals, attempting to shew that such foundations were not an unmixed evil; and that though many great abuses had, indeed, crept into them, they had yet some claims, not barely to toleration, but to respect and gratitude; and that the true reasons for their suppression were to be

• The Editor has no time to search for the passage in Cranmer. He cannot find it by the index to Mr. Jenkyns's edition. If it is correct, it may give Romanists an occasion for justly attacking Cranmer. But it does not, of course, affect the church. -ED.