church, that the reformers did not separate from Rome, but that Rome separated from our reformed church in the twelfth year of Queen Elizabeth's reign.

The present church of England is the old catholic church of England, reformed in the reigns of Henry, Edward, and Elizabeth, of certain superstitious errors; it is the same church which came down from our British and Saxon ancestors, and, as such, it possesses its original endowments, which were never, as ignorant persons foolishly suppose, taken from one church and given to another. The church remained the same after it was reformed as it was before, just as a man remains the same man after he washes his face as he was before; just as Naaman, the leper, remained the same Naaman after he was cured of his leprosy, as he was before. And so regularly, so canonically, was the reformation conducted, that even those who thought no reformation requisite still remained for a time in the church; they did not consider what was done (though they did not approve of it) sufficient to drive them into a schism. It was not till the twelfth year of Queen Elizabeth's reign that, listening to the exhortations of the Pope, they quitted the church and formed a new sect, from which the present Romish dissenters have descended, and in which were retained all those errors in opinion and practice, all that rubbish which the catholic church in England had at the reformation corrected and swept away. Let it always be remembered that the English Romanists separated from us, not we from them; we did not go out from them, but they from us. The slightest acquaintance with that neglected branch of learning, ecclesiastical history, will convince us of this. They left the Church of England, to which they originally belonged, because they thought their bishops had reformed too much, had become too Protestant; just as Protestant Dissenters left us, because they thought we had not reformed enough; that we were, as they still style us, too Popish. The one party left us because they wanted no reform, the other because, instead of a reformation, they wished a religious revolution, the

reformers of the Church of England carefully preserving the middle path.

The Church of England, then, that church to which we belong, is the old catholic church which was originally planted in this country. But the founders of the Church of England-remember, I do not mean the reformers, for nothing but ignorance the most gross will speak of them as our founders-ignorance which concedes to the Papists an argument of the very greatest importance the founders or planters of the Church of England, both Britons and Saxons, were bishops ordained by other bishops, precisely as is the case at the present time; the catalogue has been carefully and providentially preserved from the beginning. And the bishops who ordained them had been ordained by other bishops, and so back to the apostles, who ordained the first bishops, being themselves ordained by Christ. This is what is called the doctrine of the apostolic succession, which is a doctrine of considerable importance. For, unless the ministers of the gospel are sent by Christ, what right have they to act in his name?

'Let us ever remember, that the primary object for which the church was instituted by Christ, its author and finisher, and for which the apostolical succession of its ministers was established,--that the primary object for which through ages of persecution, and ages of prosperity, and ages of darkness, and ages of corruption, and ages of reformation, and ages of latitudinarianism, and now in an age of rebuke and blasphemy, now when we have fallen on evil days and evil tongues,-the primary object for which the church has still been preserved by a providential care, marvellous sometimes, if not miraculous, in our eyes, was and is, to convey supernaturally the saving merits of the atoning blood of the Lamb of God, and the sanctifying graces of his Holy Spirit to the believer's soul. In the church it is that the appointed means are to be found by which that mysterious union with Christ is promoted, in which our spiritual life consists; in her it is that the third person of the blessed Trinity abideth for ever, gradually to change the heart of sinful man, and to make that flesh

which he finds stone, gradually to prepare us for heaven, while our ascended Saviour is preparing heaven for us. And oh! my brethren! what a privilege it is to have this well of living water in which you may wash and be clean!

You know that you are sinful creatures, very far gone from righteousness: you know that your condition is such that you cannot turn and prepare yourselves by your own natural strength and good works to faith and calling upon God; you know that by nature you cannot love the Lord your God with all your heart, and soul, and strength; you cannot discharge the various duties of your various situations in life; you know that, whatever your condition now may be, the hour must come of affliction and sorrow, of sickness and sadness, the inevitable hour of death; and the church is instituted to convey to you pardon upon your repentance, and grace in time of need; it is instituted to instruct you in your ignorance, to comfort you in your sorrows, to elevate you in your devotions, to bring you into communion with your Saviour, your sanctifier, your God; to prepare you for the hour of death, yea, for the day of judgment; and this she chiefly does through the sacraments of the gospel, and the other divinely appointed ordinances of religion, if of them you will but avail yourselves.

But this is not all; while the church thus ministers grace to individuals, it is part of her business to preserve, hand down, and proclaim the truth, the whole truth, as it is in Jesus. And our duty, therefore, it is especially if we happen by God's providence to be called to situations of influence, rank, or authority-by all the means in our power to increase her efficiency in this respect, to place her on the watch-tower, that her voice may be heard through the length and the breadth of the land; our duty it is, to take care that her faith be preserved intact and pure; our duty it is,to vindicate her from the glosses of ignorance, and the misrepresentations of prejudice and malice; our duty it is, clearly to define, and zealously to maintain those peculiar doctrines and that peculiar discipline, which have always marked,

and do still continue to mark, the distinctions between the Church of Christ, administered under the superintendence of chief pastors or bishops who have regularly succeeded to the apostles, from those sects of Christianity which exist under self-appointed teachers.

'Against the church the world seems at this time to be set in array. To be a true and faithful member of the church requires no little moral courage. Basely to pretend to belong to her while designing mischief against her in the heart, this is easy enough; but manfully to contend for her because she is the church, a true church, a pure church, a holy church, this is difficult to those who court the praise of men, or fear the censure of the world. May the great God of heaven, may Christ the great bishop and shepherd of souls, who is over all things in the church, put it, my brethren, into your hearts and minds to say and feel (as I do) "As for me and my house," we will live in the church, we will die in the church, and if need shall be, like our martyred forefathers, we will die for the church.'

Now these statements are pregnant with erroneous views and conclusions. Dr. Hook appears to attribute that to the church which really belongs to the word of God. It is by that word according to the language of St. Peter, that believers are born again, and accordingly whoever is led under the influence and teaching of the Holy Spirit to believe, embrace, and obey the word of God, is truly born again, and becomes a child of God, and an heir of everlasting life. Such a person is entitled to admission into the visible church-the ministers of religion are to baptize him and his offspring-to admit them to the table of the Lord, to instruct, exhort, edify, and watch over them-and the lay-members of the church are to receive such as fellow-members, as brethren in Christ-not because certain persons calling themselves the church, pronounce them to be brethren; but because they have come unto God in the way prescribed in the word of God, and have believed and embraced those blessed promises which are set before them in Christ Jesus.

Our limits will not allow us to en

large, and we fear our brevity is necessarily connected with somewhat of obscurity; but at the same time, we cannot but apprehend that the positions of Dr. Hook are calculated to draw men off from that

simplicity of dependence on the declarations of holy writ, which the word of God inculcates, and which is the grand and important distinction between Romanists and Protestants.

While, in the Diocese of Ripon, we have only three hundred and twenty churches and chapels, for a population, as has been stated, amounting to nearly nine hundred thousand, being about one for every two thousand seven hundred. It appears, therefore, from this, that the Diocese of Ripon stands next to the Diocese of Chester, as regards the spiritual wants of the population. But we have been anticipated, by ten or twelve dioceses, whose wants are much less than our own, in the formation of associations similar to the one we propose this day to establish. Will you consent to allow one day more to pass over your heads without taking such measures as shall, under the divine blessing, ensure the supply of such means as

we believe to be most conducive to administer to those wants? I am persuaded that such appeal will not be made to you in vain. But in order to commend still more to your support the object in view, allow me to state the steps which it is proposed to take to remedy the evils that are so manifest. It is intended, under the divine blessing, to establish a society to aid in the building, enlarging, and endowing of churches, due provision being made for the repairs of those churches. Now, with regard to the building of churches, there is no question or difficulty. As it regards the endowment of churches, I will take leave to mention, that one great evil and difficulty which we manifestly perceive the Church Establishment to be labouring under, is the very inadequate provision which at present exists for the ministers of those churches that have been recently built. The consequences are, frequent changes in the ministers themselves; the congregations become unsettled; and the change of ministers leads to evils and inconveniences that I need not dwell upon. It injures the church collectively, and the spiritual interests of the people decidedly suffer. One great object, therefore, will be, not only to build churches, but to make such provision as shall, at the same time, secure permanently resident ministers amongst them. But if that object can be effected; if the erection and endowment of new churches seem so desirable, we may carry it still further, and increase the endowments of those churches which have not yet amounted to £100 per annum. That part of the scheme is, I believe, peculiar to ourselves; I am not aware that it exists in any other diocese; but I see no reason why we should not set a precedent, an example in that respect. an object which I think, must commend itself to your good feeling and good sense, and which I hope there

It is

will be no difficulty in accomplishing. So much then for the objects of the society; I will now just touch on the subject of repairs. We propose that a fund shall be set apart, in the case of every new church or chapel that may be built, for the repairs of that church or chapel. Now, let no one suppose that, in doing that, we are in any degree infringing upon the principle of a national establishment.I am most anxious to explain that clearly. As regards the churches already built, any land that may have been purchased, has been purchased with the lien of church-rates upon it; and that must have been clearly understood when the land was purchased; so far as the churches then existing were concerned, it was so liable. But it is a very different thing when individuals, like ourselves, meet together for the purpose of building churches; to impose the churches thus built, not by the nation, but by individuals,

upon the national property. Ifthe nation comes forward to build churches, it would very properly follow that they ought to be supported out of the national contribution which, according to the law, still exists; but I do not myself see, nor, I hope, will any present be of that opinion, that in taking the steps to make provision for repairs, which we are about to do, we are, in any degree, sinking this important principle.'His lordship then proceeded to state various particulars relative to the constitution of the society and its plan of operation which we regret that we are compelled to omit. The meeting was afterwards addressed by the Hon. W. S. Lascelles, M.P.; L. Fox, Esq. M.P.; W. R. Stanfield, Esq. M.P.; the Hon. E. Lascelles, the Rev. Messrs. Roberson, Herbert, Franks, Sharp, and several other clergymen and gentlemen. Subscriptions and donations to the amount of £7000 were received in the room.

A LETTER addressed to Lord Bexley, entitled The Baptists and the Bible Society, by the Rev. J. HINTON,' has been recently somewhat extensively circulated. Its object is to complain of the Bible Society's having declined to support certain versions of Scriptures prepared by the Missionaries at Serampore in the East Indies.

Those Missionaries it will be recollected are Immersionists; and in translating their several versions, they uniformly substitute the word immerse where our version has baptize. While they stood alone, this passed very quietly, but when Missionaries who entertained other views of the nature of baptism, became acquainted with the native languages, they felt that a somewhat unfair advantage had been taken, and consequently complained to the Committee of the British and Foreign Bible Society. That committee conceiving the difficulty could best be solved on the spot, referred the question to the Calcutta Auxiliary; by whom the question was referred back to the Parent Committee, who in consequence determined on July 1, 1833:-' That

they would cheerfully afford assistance to the Missionaries connected with the Baptist Missionary Society, in their translation of the Bengalee New Testament, provided the Greek terms relating to Baptism be rendered, either, according to the principle adopted by the translators of the English Authorised Version, by a word derived from the original, or by such terms as may be considered unobjectionable by the other denominations of Christians composing the Bible Society.'

This resolution was of course very contrary to the general views of the Baptists, though framed and brought forwards by the late Rev. Joseph Hughes, himself a Baptist minister; but who doubtless felt that his brethren in the East had gone too far; and the object of Mr. Hinton's Letter is to call on the British and Foreign Bible Society to rescind or modify this resolution.

The argument appears to us to lie in very little compass. A committee like that of the Bible Society, consisting of persons of very different denominations, ought not to give an unnecessary advantage to any one in particular. If however they con

sent to translate the word rendered in our own version baptize, by the word immerse, they immediately give the immersionists an advantage over all those who maintain that the terms wash, pour, sprinkle, are as correct interpretations of the original term baptize, if not more correct than the term immerse.

The Committee are therefore right in withholding their assistance, until some more unobjectionable term is adopted by the immersionists; and were our Baptist brethren more anxious to promote general edification, than to advance their own particular notions, it would not, we conceive, be difficult to discover some such term: at present there is, we fear, too much cause to apprehend another schism in the Bible Society; for which there is no adequate ground, and which must in various ways be productive of serious injury to the cause of scriptural religion.

This subject is the more painful since the recent correspondence of the Society evinces that God is mercifully rendering his own word instrumental to the enlightening, and we trust conversion of many who are out of the way: and that more especially in those very countries where this controversy originated. Thus the Calcutta Committee state 'that they have strong grounds for encouragement, as the pupils in those schools in which Christian and Scriptural instruction is not allowed to be inculcated, themselves apply for copies of the Scriptures, that they may read them with their friends and companions in their own habitations. When such youths apply for the New Testament, and

are asked for what purpose they wish to have it, as they do not read it in their schools, the reply frequently is, We will read the Testament, and pray to God in our own houses.' It will be seen, that by these means, also, the truths of the Scriptures are brought to the notice of many who are not placed in circumstances so favourable as those previously alluded to.

The Scriptures obtained from the Depository during the past year, have been in the English, Bengali, Hindustani, Hindui, Orissa, Italian, French, Portuguese, and Hebrew languages; but by far the greater proportions have been in English and Bengali. The increased demand of the Natives for the Scriptures in English has doubtless been, in a great measure, caused by the advancement of education in that language. The pupils of the various Colleges and Schools can take home a copy of the Bible or Testament in English, without exciting those fears, on the part of their relatives, which the same books in the native languages would be likely to excite. The English Schools and Colleges may be instrumental in preparing the mind of the Natives for the appreciation of truth, and so far may prepare for the reception of the Gospel. The Committee therefore conceive it to be their duty to embrace the opportunities now afforded for supplying the New Testament in English to those institutions in which that book is customarily read, and of furnishing the same to the pupils of other schools wherein the New Testsment is not admitted, who manifest a desire to search the Scriptures for themselves.'