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Carey, without a certificate, in a certain form, subscribed by the rector and vestry of his own or of some other parish. When Dr. Smith had arrived at the conclusion that Mr. Carey was holding opinions contrary to the doctrine of the Protestant Episcopal church, it was right for him to refuse the certificate, which no canon required him to subscribe contrary to his own conviction in regard to the facts. When he had refused the certificate, it seems to have been proper to communicate the fact of his refusal and the reasons of it to the Bishop. But there his responsibility appears to have ended. When Dr. Smith applied to his friend Dr. Anthon for advice, it was right for Dr. A. to give advice according to his best judgment, and there his responsibility ended. When the Bishop determined to hold a special examination in the case of Mr. Carey, and invited those two presbyters to be of the council that was to advise him on that occasion, then a new responsibility was imposed on them by the act of the Bishop. In that examination, it was right for them to do their utmost towards bringing out palpably before the Bishop those opinions of Mr. Carey's which they deemed contrary to the doctrine of the church; and then it was right for them, as members of the council, to give their opinion and advice when called for. But when this had been done, and the council (which was created only to give its advice to the Bishop) had ceased to exist, their responsibility ceased. What more had they to do in the matter? Was it their duty to oversee the Bishop, and make him do right? Should he do wrong, would they be answerable for that wrong, either to the church or to God? They seem to have supposed that they were members of a presbytery, or at least to have supposed that some portion of the ordaining power was directly or indirectly in their hands.

As to that call in the form of ordination, to which these two gentlemen responded with their protests, we have only to say, that most palpably it is a call for information. Certainly it is not a call for protests founded on alledged facts which the Bishop has already investigated to his own satisfaction, and on which he has formed a definitive judgment. The bishop is the ordaining power, and from his decision in a case of ordination there is no appeal. A protest, therefore, against his proceeding to carry into effect his own decision in a case which he had deliberately and formally investigated, was a mere impertinence. The minister of the Gospel who consents to exercise his ministry under the regulations of the Episcopal church, does so with his eyes open. He goes into that connection for the very reason that there the Bishop of the diocese is the sole ordainer of inferior ministers. He goes thither for the very reason that there he, as an inferior minister, is to have no potential voice and no responsibility in determining who shall take part with him in that ministry. His protest then, in a case which happens to be determined contrary to his judg ment, is only a blotting of paper which a more considerate man would have saved for some better use.

If the Bishop, in the exercise of his ordaining power, violates the constitution and canons of the church, he is of course responsible for that violation. He may be regularly prosecuted; he may be brought to trial before a council of neighboring Bishops; he may be judicially censured, or even deposed, according to the extent of his delinquency. Such is the course which these gentlemen ought to have taken with their Bishop, if they considered him guilty of a violation of the compact between him and his diocese. Their protest, their publication, their statement of "the true issue for the true churchman,”—we can make nothing of all

that, but an appeal against their Bishop to the people. As if the people had any thing to do or to say in a question of ordination.

(2.) There is another view which is to our minds equally conclusive. The reformation of the Anglican church, as completed and establish ed under Queen Elizabeth, was distinctly designed not to expel or exclude from the ministry of the church such men as Mr. Carey. A strong infusion of sound evangelical or Protestant doctrine was put into the articles and the homilies, and evangelical preaching was tolerated, provided the preacher would closely conform to the canons and the ru brics. On the other hand, the litur. gy, and to some extent the homilies, and even the articles, were-we do not say Popish or Romish, but— "Catholic;" and no pains were spared to conciliate and retain in the church every man who was willing to renounce the Pope's supremacy, to subscribe the articles, to obey the canons, and to perform the worship of the liturgy as purified and translated. Thus the reformation of the English church was essentially a compromise, or an attempted compromise, between opposite opinions. It was designed to include on the one hand the most extreme Protestantism short of that which rejected the hierarchy, the vestments and the ceremonies, and on the other hand the most extreme Catholicity short of Romanism. And from the age of the Reformation to the present day, nothing in the history of the Anglican church is more striking than its great toleration, to say the least, towards such opinions as Mr. Carey's. Queen Elizabeth herself was so much of a Catholic, that she had a crucifix to aid her devotions, and would never consent to legalize the marriage of the clergy. In the following age, the Calvinistic Arch

bishop Abbott was succeeded by the Catholic Archbishop Laud; and the moderate and evangelical Archbish op Usher was contemporary with both. After the restoration, Archbishop Leighton was contemporary with ever so many Bishops and Archbishops of the Laudean school. How is it with the church of England now? Does the avowal of such opinions as Mr. Carey's operate either to deprive a clergyman of his preferments, or to prevent the ordination of a candidate? To come nearer home, how is it-how has it always been with the Anglican American church? Was not Bishop Seabury its first bishop? And was not the church constituted and organized as one church by a compromise between opinions as variant as those of Bishop Seabury and those of Bishop White? Is not the most catholic Bishop Doane contemporary with the evangelical Bishop McIlvaine; and in the house of Bishops, has not one of these prelates as many rights as the other? Nay, what opinion has Mr. Carey been proved to hold, which can not be found plainly asserted in that stand. ard work, edited by Bishop Whittingham, Palmer on the Church?

We say then, in conclusion, that Drs. Smith and Anthon, in protesting against the ordination of Mr. Carey, and in appealing to the public against the action of their Bishop, have forgotten their position, and have acted more like free ministers of the gospel of Christ, than like Episcopalian presbyters. The result will therefore be, that they will find the Bishop and the church too strong for them. The protests and appeal will react against their au thors. Mr. Carey, instead of being put down, as a Papist obtruding himself among Protestants, will be honored and esteemed as almost a confessor, and, if he lives long enough, will be a Bishop.

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LITERARY NOTICES.

Discourse before the Alumni of Yale College, August 16, 1843. By HORACE BUSHNELL, D. D., Pastor of the North Congregational Church, Hartford, Conn. New Haven, published by A. H. Maltby; pp. 39, 8vo.

THE professed subject of this splendid effusion of genius, is "the moral Tendencies and Results of Human History." A more appropriate title, perhaps, would be-the Natural History of Morality, considered both as an ideal principle, and as a practical law. The author's first position is, that "the order of nature is, what is physical first, what is moral afterwards." This he illustrates with his usual felicity, in the progress of the new-born infant, the natural world, language, religion, and civil government. His next and main position is, "that it is the great problem of human history to enthrone the moral element that is, the element of virtue." Af ter a passing remark on the great aim and object of the institution, whose Alumni he was addressing, he proceeds to illustrate his main position, by showing how the moral element of our being may be strengthened and made predominant.

"Virtue," he says, "is twofold. It includes an inward principle, and an outward conduct or manifestation." As an inward principle, it is "an idea of the mind-a simple, eternal, immutable idea, viz. right." All virtue, and all religion, consist in obedience to the law of this one idea. As an outward conduct or manifestation, virtue is a mere form of action, representing and exhibiting the eternal and immutable idea which is the substance of virtue; just as the mathematician's diagrams are forms and representations of his ideal right lines, circles, &c. But

on account of the endless complexity of the forms and relations of human actions, it is often difficult to distinguish what forms are "useful, equal, true, beautiful," in a word, what forms best express the idea of right. And hence the rules for virtuous action are indefinite, obscure, mere approximations to a perfect code, and liable to change according to the state of society in which men are placed.

According to the twofold nature of virtue, "there are two ways in which it may possibly advance its power, and only two;" viz. by invigorating the conscience, or the dominion of the idea which is the internal principle of virtue; and by quickening and disciplining the pow er of discriminating those forms of action which best display the beautiful characteristics of virtue. We will, therefore, first, show, in a general way, that the moral element in man is actually subject to these two laws of advancement; and then describe three distinct forces-the Greek, the Roman, and the Christian, entering most vigorously into this progress.

In the infancy of the race, as in that of an individual, the reflective habit is deficient; and virtue is impulsive, or the result of feeling, rather than the result of deliberation.

But as the mind becomes reflective in its habit, it perceives dis tinctly the imperative law of right, and "discovers remorse coiled up as a wounded snake and hissing under the throne of the mind." The cultivation of mathematics and of the exact sciences, likewise, “gives greater verity to ideas and to laws of mental necessity, and so to the law of the conscience." "Next, public law becomes a rigid science," establishing rules of right and wrong, and weighing merit and demerit in

her balance. And if a condition of liberty be achieved, the tone of moral obligation is the more strengthened. Such are some of the stages of advance in "the moral tone of the conscience."

But the outward code of virtue must also be perfected, or virtue can not enjoy vigorous health. Of course, this code is continually revised, refined, and enlarged. For, as an outward code, "it is no fixed immutable thing, as many suppose. Custom is its interpreter, and it grows up in the same way as the common or civil law, or the law merchant, by a constant process of additions and refinements." Not that virtue itself is a mutable thing. But as it is a mere idea of the mind, commanding the right and forbid ding the wrong, it lies not in the outward actions themselves, any more than time in the clock that measures it, but only in the form of actions as manifesting its eternal and immutable laws. The statutes of the revealed law of God are of two kinds, positive and permissive. The former are eternal and immutable in their obligation; but the latter change with the advancement of society. Angelic law is possible only to angelic advancement." God must train man gradually, and wait long for his advancement to such perfection, that his moral taste shall "approximate to a coincidence with the perfect moral taste of God himself." If we look at the faults of Noah, Abraham, Jacob, &c., "it was not so much sin as barbarism, that marred their history." And the harsh features of the Jewish moral code gradually became more mild, till at length Christianity infused into it "benevolence and forbearance," and "the Jew is lost in the man, and the man becomes a brother of his race.'

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What we see in sacred history, is equally visible in the general history of man. "The moral code of a savage people has always something

to distinguish it as a savage people's code. So with that of a civilized. The very changes and inventions of society necessitate an amplification and often a revision of the moral code. Every new state, office, art, and thing, must have its law.” “If bills of exchange are invented, if money is coined, if banks are established, and offices of insurance, if great corporate investments are introduced into the machinery of business, it will not be long before a body of moral opinions will be generated, and take the form of law over these new creations. Fire arms, also, printing, theaters, distilled spirits, cards, dice, medicineall new products and inventions must come under moral maxims, and create to themselves a new moral jurisprudence. The introduction of popular liberty makes the subject a new man, lays upon him new duties, which require to be set forth in new maxims of morality." New arts and inventions often so change the relations of old things and practices, as to require a revision of their laws. The Jew may rightfully take his interest money now; for he lives in a new world, and sustains new relations. And we are now "revising the moral code in reference to three very important subjects— wine, slavery, and war." Look also at the international code, the law of nations. It originated with Hugo Grotius, about two centuries ago, and how has it changed the whole intercourse of nations! Commer cial and municipal law, too, have made equal advances. "The world has become another world. Anarchy and absolute will are put aside, to suffer the dominion of scientific justice. The nations are become to a great extent, one empire. The citizen of one country may travel and trade in almost every other. Wars are mitigated in ferocity, and military preparations be gin to wear the semblance of antiquated usages."

Such progress is seen in the history of the past. "What now is to come? By what future events and changes shall the work go on to its completion ?" Of the forces that have been at work some were temporary in their effects, as the Gothic irruptions, the crusades, the feudal system, the free cities, and their commerce: but there are three other forces which still continue to act, and will ever act; namely, the Greek æsthetic discipline, the Roman law, and the Christian faith. "These must always work on together, as they have done up to this time, to assist the triumph of the moral element."

The Greek character lacked a moral tone. The best of her philosophers "were charmed with virtue, rather as the fair than as the right." "At the same time, their sense of beauty in forms, their faculty of outward criticism is perfect." Hence, every thing they do or write," is subtle, ethereal, beautiful, and cold;" they were "blind to the real nature and power of the moral element. And yet this people have done a work in their way, which is essential to the triumph of virtue. Their sense of beauty, their nice discriminations of art and poetic genius, are contributions made to the outward life and law of virtue." For, "to mature the code of action, and finish its perfect adaptation to the expression of virtue, and render it the ornament of life, requires a power of form, or of outward criticism in full development. Considered in this view it is impossible to overrate the value of the Greek art."

"As the ideal of the Greeks was beauty, so that of the Romans was law and scientific justice." "It was a distinction of the Roman people, that they had a strong sense of moral principle. They would feel the authority of what some call an abstraction, and suffer its rigid sway. Their conscience had the tone of a

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trumpet in their bosoms." may be owing, in part, to their strict military discipline, which requires implicit obedience, and subjects every action to rigid law: in part, also, to their religion which acknowledged gods that kept their integrity," and "erected temples to the mere ideals of virtue, Faith, Concord, Modesty, Peace." The sobriety, frugality, and all the rigid virtues of rural agricultural life, in the intervals of war, conduced to the same end. Witness Cato, the Censor. "Roman virtue, therefore, became a proverb, to denote that strength of principle which can bend to no outward obstacle or seduction." "In her civil code she has erected the mightiest monument of reason and of moral power that has ever yet been raised by human genius."

"Such is the moral value of the Greek art and literature, such of the Roman law-one as a contribution to the outward form of virtue, the other to the authority and power of the moral sentiment itself." "It remains to speak of a third power, descending from above, to bring the Divine life into history and hasten that moral age, towards which its lines are ever converging." "In religion, in Christianity, we view God himself as coming into mental contemplation, as objective to the intellect and heart, and operating thus as a moral cause. Here he shows, above us an external government of laws and retributions connected with the internal law of the conscience; opens worlds of glory and pain beyond this life; presents himself as an object of contemplation, fear, love, and desire; reveals his own infinite excellence and beauty, and withal, his tenderness and persuasive goodness; and so pours the Divine life into the dark and soured bosom of sin." But Grecian æsthetic criticism and Roman enthronement of law were necessary, to render the great excellence and beauty of Christianity intelligible. And hence

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