A Pietro disse: "perché pur t'affanni, The minds of the disciples were not, at that early period, sufficiently enlightened to understand the real nature of our Lord's coming; but the opinion, "Si vede pur che cosi volle dire," that Jesus meant to shew his divine power in assigning, not, indeed, exemption from death, but "length of days" to the beloved disciple, is not in itself improbable; and it comes recommended to us by these circumstances of confirmation. The expressions, "the Lord is at hand," the "coming of the Lord draweth nigh," announce in scripture the approaching subversion of the Jewish polity; and St. John is the only one of the apostles, as far as we know, that actually outlived the destruction of Jerusalem. St. Peter, too, seems to have understood that he was not to tarry till the Lord came. "I know that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed Moreover, I will endeavour that ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance; for we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ," (2 Pet. i. 14-16.) He here speaks of the Lord's coming as not to happen till after his own decease; although he knew that the Lord would shortly come, for he had previously said, "The end of all things is at hand," (1. iv. 7.) But whatever may be the real meaning of John xxi. 22, we learn from history that St. Peter died a violent death, A.D. 65, previously to the destruction of Jerusalem, A.D. 70; and that St. John was gathered to his fathers in peace A.D., 100, in extreme old age, subsequently to that event. W. B. WINNING. me. Keysoe Vicarage, Beds. (To be continued.) DR. ARNOLD ON CHURCH REFORM. MY DEAR SIR,-After the severe flagellation inflicted on Dr. Arnold, by the learned Mr. Palmer, it would be presumptuous in me or in any one else to attempt to take the rod out of a hand so skilled to wield it; but having just perused the Doctor's "Principles of Church Reform," there are one or two particulars, not touched upon by Mr. Palmer, to which I wish to call your attention. But first I would observe, that whatever may be our opinion of Dr. Arnold's principles, we must acknowledge our obligation to him for the ability with which he vindicates the uses of an establishment, and exposes the sophistry that he would die a natural death, (xxi. 18-24.")-Horne's Introduction to the Scriptures, Vol. iv.: On the Gospel by St. John. This statement is not supported by any proofs; but the Scriptures themselves, as I have endeavoured to point out, afford sufficient evidence of its probability. of those who contend for the exclusion of ecclesiastics from the legislative council. He writes, too, for the most part, in the spirit of a Christian and the tone of a gentleman. It is only where he has occasion to speak of the church and of churchmen, that he seems to forget himself. Of the church, indeed, he speaks in no measured terms; he makes it part of (p. 74) "a detestable sectarian system, which will derange the very frame of society." When he speaks of churchmen, of honest and conscientious members of the church, who would die rather than eat the bread provided by 66 a detestable sectarian system," his kindness of heart leads him to moderate his expressions, yet he cannot refrain from letting us see his contempt for the intellects and principles of such characters. Thus, at page 57, he remarks:-" there are members of the establishment who believe episcopacy not expedient only but absolutely essential to a Christian church: and their scruples are entitled to quite as much respect as those of the Dissenters. And when experience has shewn, that episcopalians will be satisfied if the mere name of a Bishop is preserved,— for nothing can be more different in all essential points than our episcopacy and that of the primitive church,-and as this name is recommended, &c." Now, in these words Dr. Arnold insinuates that episcopalians, meaning by the term those honest and conscientious members of the church who believe in the divine right of episcopacy, are either knaves or fools. Knaves they are, if they represent that as essential which they admit to be nominal;-fools, if they think the name is all-in-all and then, to prove them either knaves or fools, whom dissenters may conciliate by a name, he quietly, in a parenthesis, begs the question. Dr. Arnold's mind is too upright wilfully to make a misstatement, but it shews how attachment to a system which he has himself thought out may blind a man, when we find such a writer as Dr. Arnold forgetting that a variation in particulars is not inconsistent with the most perfect identity of principle. What is the principle held by episcopalians with respect to episcopacy? It is simply this-that the rulers of the church of Christ must prove, by their regular succession from the Apostles, that they have the commission of Christ himself for the discharge of their office; and that no one without ordination from them may minister in sacred things, except under circumstances of strong necessity. As long as this principle is preserved, so long is the episcopacy of the modern church and of the ancient church the same-so long there is no essential difference, though in the manner of administering the office in Asia and in Europe, in regal England and republican America, there must be points of difference. Dr. Arnold, therefore, will find that something more than the concession of a name is required, before he will induce episcopalians to sanction his scheme, namely that the dissenting teachers whom he would introduce into the church must receive (which they will never consent to do) episcopal ordination. If we may judge from Dr. Arnold's writings, we may presume that he has been a student of the old puritanical writers, and finding this assertion frequently made by them, he may have been led to regard the essential discrepancy between our episcopacy and that of VOL. IV.-July, 1833. G the primitive church as an admitted fact. Perhaps, therefore, he will be surprised to hear that the arguments of the old puritans, on this point, have been refuted and exposed by the judicious Hooker, in his 7th book. I regret that want of room will prevent my being able to make any lengthened extracts from the "Eccles. Polity"-nor perhaps is it necessary, since, with most of your readers, that immortal work is no doubt a text-book; but one passage I must quote:-"Sundry dissimilitudes we grant there are, which, notwithstanding, are not such that they cause any equivocation in the name, whereby we should think a bishop in those times to have had a clear other definition than doth rightly agree unto bishops as they are now. Many things there are in the state of bishops which the times have changed; many a parsonage, at this day, is larger than some ancient bishoprics were; many an ancient bishop poorer than, at this day, sundry under them in degree. The simple, hereupon, lacking judgment and knowledge to discern between the NATURE of things which changeth not, and these outward variable ACCIDENTS, are made to believe that a bishop heretofore and now are things in their very NATURE so dis- . tinct, that they cannot be judged the same. Yet to men that have any part of skill, what more evident and plain in bishops than that augmentation or diminution in their precincts, allowances, privileges, and such like, do make a difference indeed-but no ESSENTIAL difference between one bishop and another. As for those things in regard whereof we use properly to term them bishops-those things whereby they essentially differ from other pastors-those things which the natural definition of a bishop doth contain; what one of them is there more or less applicable to bishops now than of old?" This question I leave Dr. Arnold to answer; and until he can answer it, I hope he will forbear to make such assertions as that which I complain of. If his object be conciliation, he ought to reflect, that he is not likely to obtain it by evincing all his partialities on the side of the dissenters, and shewing ineffable contempt towards those members of his own communion, who, not unmindful of their declaration of 66 unfeigned assent and consent to all and every thing contained and prescribed in and by the book, entituled the Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments, and other rites and ceremonies of the church, according to the use of the United Church of England and Ireland; together with the Psalter or Psalms of David, pointed as they are to be sung or said in churches; and the form and manner of making, ordaining, and consecrating bishops, priests, and deacons ;" are slow to regard their church as part of "a detestable system, which will derange the very frame of society." Let me now offer a few remarks on the inefficiency of Dr. Arnold's scheme to accomplish the object he has in view. With all the fervour of a warm and benevolent heart, he portrays the evils brought upon a nation where dissent from its institutions is carried on to any great extent. The evil we are all ready to admit and to lament; but by his scheme, instead of being diminished it would increase tenfold. In order to see this, let us consider how it would operate-first, with respect to those who now dissent from the establishment; and, secondly, with respect to those who now conform. With respect to dissenters, I presume that Doctor A. has judged of them from the writings of some of their most able divines, and that he has only thought of what would satisfy such admirable men as Doddridge and Watts. But if he will go to any of our large manufacturing districts, where dissent flourishes most, he will find that, of late years, a very material change has taken place in the opinions of dissenters; and that they have now discovered a bond of union which unites in one confederacy the highest supra-lapsarian Calvinist and the lowest semi-sceptical Socinian. The dissenters of the present day are no longer horror-stricken at the sight of that rag of popery, the surplice; they have discovered that he is no real philosopher who attends not to little things; and in their appearance and dress they approach the clergy as nearly as they can. Our titles of reverend, and even very reverend, they usurp. Many of them have no scruples as to the use of the Liturgy, and not a few compose their sermons before hand, and some even go so far as to read them. It is not unusual to hear the more moderate among them state, that they can subscribe to the doctrines of the church of England; and it was only last week that one of them told me that he and many of his friends prefer our services to their own; but what they all unite in objecting to is, any national church whatever. They object to the thing in the abstract as anti-scriptural. They contend that it is contrary to scripture to pay the clergy otherwise than by voluntary subscription; and they are most especially hostile to what Dr. Arnold would advocate, and what they call, an act-of-parliament church. Thus, then, Dr. Arnold's scheme would, if carried into effect, fail in its object. He would spread confusion among the members of the present establishment, and might gain perhaps a few individual dissenters, whose attachment to the principles of dissent are as equivocal as that of the Doctor to the principles of the church; but the great dissenting body would remain as it now is. Nor would the small addition which might thus probably be made, in any degree compensate for the secession which would immediately take place from the new establishment;-for a new establishment it would be, in which all the principles of the present establishment could be violated. Among the present clergy of England, all ancient party-names are happily vanishing into thin air. And they may now be ranged into two classes-the high establishment men or Erastians, and the high churchmen or episcopalians:-the high establishment men are they, who, though to a certain extent attached to episcopacy, (that is to say, they like to see right reverend lords sittings in the upper house of parliament,) yet, not regarding episcopacy as essential, would equally conform to a presbyterian establishment, though preferring (as they would complacently represent it, with a pardonable prejudice) their own. Some of this class are conscientious men, who, having, like Dr. Arnold, persuaded themselves that Christ and his apostles did not institute a church, consider that, in the formation of national religious institutions, they are to be guided only by expediency. These would, of course, conform to the Arnoldian establishment; and with them would be found to act those worldlings, whose god is their belly, and whose sole object would be to save their loaves and fishes. All this class we would make over to Dr. Arnold; but I believe that, at such a crisis, the number of sound churchmen would be found far greater than those who contemn them are apt to suspect. The high churchmen are those who, whether they give a Calvinistic or Arminian interpretation to our articles, believe "episcopacy to be essential to a Christian church;" who believe that the church, instituted by Christ himself, has always been so governed, and who are guided in all present regulations by the principles which influenced the first governors of this church in the first ages of its existence. It was by this rule that the original reformers of the English church shaped there course. They, like our modern reformers, sought to conciliate; but the parties they had to conciliate were papists. It became necessary, therefore, (in addition to its being their principle,) for them, in correcting the abuses of their church, to adhere as closely to the primitive model as possible; and to shew (as bishop Jewell has shewn) that those points on which there was any difference between them and the papists, were innovations comparatively novel. Thus, under Providence, has the church of England been preserved to us, a true catholic church, reformed from popish corruptions. The object of our modern reformers is also to conciliate-but to conciliate puritans. And this they can only do by receding from primitive practices as far as may be. Thus they will endeavour to reduce the English establishment from its present position, as a true church, to the character of a mere sect. Hence it is that sound churchmen are found to be antireformers. They do not assert that no improvements can be made ; they only fear that any alterations which may now be attempted will not be conducted in the spirit of our first reformers, and that, consequently, they will be injurious. This class of persons would agree in all that Dr. Arnold says, and says so well, with respect to the advantages of an establishment and the duty of making religion a national concern; but where, to secure the establishment, they are called upon to renounce, as Dr. Arnold proposes, all the fundamental principles of the church, they are prepared to follow the noble example set them by their venerated brethren the episcopalians of Scotland, who, from the year 1688, when the episcopal church ceased to be the establishment of that country, have cheerfully and with thanksgiving endured, for conscience' sake, the severest persecution and the most galling poverty. Nay, they well remember the example set them by seven thousand of their predecessors, in the reign of Charles the First, who suffered ejection rather than conform to the iniquitous measures of a persecuting though liberty-loving parliament. I know that the march of liberalism has been great among many, even of those who, when sound principles were likely to lead to high preferment, were reputed sound: I know that many, who have assumed to themselves the title of the orthodox, have become latitudinarians; yet I have little doubt that there are more than seven thousand of the clergy in England who are now ready to suffer ejection, if any such measures are proposed as those suggested by Dr. Ar |