from being "again a burthen to the Divine mercy, and who dreaded' to seem to trample on what they had obtained,' he thus at last,timidly, or rather reverently, advances to set forth God's last provision against the malice of Satan, repentance after Baptism. 'God, providing against these his poisons, though the door of full oblivion (ignoscentiæ) is closed, and the bolt of Baptism fastened up, alloweth somewhat still to be open. He hath placed in the vestibule (of the Church, where penitents used to kneel) a second repentance, which might be open to those who knock." But how

does Tertullian describe this discipline? 'Full confession (exomologesis) is the discipline of prostrating and humbling the whole man; enjoining a conversation which may excite pity; it enacts as to the very dress and sustenance-to lie on sackcloth and ashes: the body defiled, the mind cast down with grief: those things, in which he sinned, changed by a mournful treatment; for food and drink, bread only and water, for the sake of life, not of the belly; for the most part to nourish prayer by fasting; to groan; to weep; to moan day and night before the Lord their God; to embrace the knees of the Presbyters and of the friends of God; to enjoin all the brethren to pray for them. All this is contained in full confession,' with the view to recommend their repentance; to honour the Lord by trembling at their peril; by pronouncing on the sinner, to discharge the office of the indignation of God; and by temporal affliction,—I say not to baffle, but-to blot out eternal torment. When therefore it rolls them on the earth, it the rather raises them; when it defiles, it cleanses them; accusing, it excuses them; condemning, it absolves them. In as far as thou sparest not thyself, in so far will God, be assured, spare thee.'

*

The writer of this Tract is very solicitous to relieve his quotations and his argument from the ill-fame of Popery. But in vain. In a note he thus props up the closing passage of Tertullian. This sentiment * has nothing to do with the Romish doctrine of satisfaction.' It has, however, we should say, the strictest affinity with it, were it not that the language of the Fathers is so extremely loose and rambling, that in some instances it would be very difficult to say what they really mean. But we must still ask, What do words mean? What is the meaning of temporal affliction,' having power to blot out

Repentance, without so much as the mention of faith, is the way proffered for the pardon of sin. And that in this we may not misrepresent, let us take another extract from page 62.

What one does mourn, is the loss of that inward sorrow, that overwhelming sense of God's displeasure, that fearfulness at having provoked His wrath, that reverent estimation of His great holiness, that participation of His utter hatred of sin, that loathing of self for having been so unlike to Christ, so alien from God; it is that knowledge of the reality and hatefulness of sin, and of self, as a deserter of God; that vivid perception of heaven and hell, of the essential and eternal contrast between God and Satan, sin and holiness, and of the dreadful danger of having again fallen into the kingdom of darkness, after having been brought into that of light and of God's dear Son,-it is this that we have lost; it was this which expressed itself in what men would now call exaggerated actions, and which must appear exaggerated to us, who have so carnal and common-place a standard of a Christian's privileges and a Christian's holiness. absence of this feeling expresses itself in all our intereourse with the bad, our tolerance of evil, our apathy about remediable, and yet unremedied, depravity; our national unconcernedness about men's souls; our carelessness amid the spiritual starvation of hundreds of thousands of our own people. We are in a lethargy. Our very efforts to wake those who are deeper asleep, are numbed and powerless. Until we lay deeper the foundations of repentance, the very preaching of the Cross of CHRIST becomes but a means of carnal security.

The

Here, repentance is made not merely prominent, but exclusive. The closing sentence shows how ill the effect of the true preaching of the cross of Christ is understood.

It is the preaching of the cross that softens, melts, and subdues the heart, more than any thing else. True repentance can never be promoted but by the liveliest exhibition of the office of justifying faith.

The following passage from the Preface to Professor Pusey's Tract on Baptism exhibits, in colours most gloomy, the scope of his argument concerning repentance.

The pardon in baptism is free, full, instantaneous, universal, without any service on our part; the pardon on repentance for those who have forfeited their Baptismal pardon, is slow, partial, gradual, as is the repentance itself, to be humbly waited for, and to be wrought out through that penitence; were the repentance at once perfect, so, doubtless, would the pardon be; but it is part of the disease, entailed by grievous sin, that men can but slowly repent; they have disabled themselves from applying completely their only cure; the anguish of repentance, in its early stages, is often the sharpest; it is generally long afterwards that it is in any real degree purified and deepened; and therefore the ancient Church diligently noted out of the Old Testament the means whereby repentance might be heightened and secured, as humiliation, voluntary affliction, prayer, self-denying bountifulness, and the like. Again, the penitent must regard himself, not merely as a novice, but as a very weak one: he has already cast away the armour wherewith he was clad; he is beginning an irksome, distasteful course, and having already failed, it becomes him not to be impatient of suspense, or too confident in his new steadfastness, but to be content to wear 'doubt's galling chain,' until God shall see it healthful for him gradually to be relieved. The fears, and anxiety, whereof he ignorantly complains, and would rid himself by the one or the other system of theology, is a most important, perhaps an essential condition of his cure, otherwise God would not have sent troubles, often so intolerable.

Man desires to have, under any circumstances, certainty of salvation through Christ to those who have fallen, God holds out only a light in a dark place,' sufficient for them to see their path, but not bright or cheering as they would have it and so, in different ways, man would forestall the sentence of his Judge; the Romanist by the Sacrament of penance; a modern class of divines by the appropriation of the merits and righteousness of our blessed Redeemer; the Methodists by sensible experience: our own, with the ancient Church, preserves a reverent

silence, not cutting off hope, and yet not nurturing an untimely confidence, or a presumptuous security.

As our own beloved church is thus represented as silent in propounding faith in Christ to the penitent, thus leaving him in the

horror of a great darkness," on a subject of all others most interesting to those who daily confess themselves "miserable sinners," we beg to direct the reader to the Homily of the Church of England Repentance and true Reconciliation unto God. An essential part of genuine repentance, represented to consist in faith. Hear now the Anglican Fathers:

on

The third part of repentance is faith; whereby we do apprehend and take hold upon the promises of God, touching the free pardon and forgiveness of our sins: which promises are sealed up unto us, with the death and blood-shedding of his Son Jesus Christ. For, what should avail and profit us to be sorry for our sins, to lament and bewail that we have offended our most bounteous and merciful Father, or to confess and acknowledge our offences and trespasses, though it be done ever so earnestly, unless we do stedfastly believe, and be fully persuaded, that God, for his Son Jesus Christ's sake, will forgive us all our sins, and put them out of remembrance, and from his sight?

Therefore, they that teach repentance without a lively faith in our Saviour Jesus Christ, do teach none other but Judas's repentance; as all the schoolmen do, which do only allow these three parts of repentance-the contrition of the heart, the confession of the mouth, and the satisfaction of the work. But all these things we find in Judas's repentance, which in outward appearance did far exceed and pass the repentance of Peter. (Matt. xxvii. 3.) For, first and foremost, we read in the Gospel, that Judas was so sorrowful and heavy, yea, that he was filled with such anguish and vexation of mind, for that which he had done, that he could not abide to live any longer. Did not he also, before he hanged himself, make an open confession of his fault, when he said, "I have sinned, betraying the innocent blood?" And verily this was a very bold confession, which might have brought him to great trouble. For by it he did lay to the High Priest's and Elders' charge the shedding of innocent blood, and that they were most abominable murderers. He did also make a certain kind of satisfaction, when he did cast their money unto them again.

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No such thing do we read of Peter; although he had committed a very heinous sin, and most grievous offence in denying his Master. We find that he went out, and wept bitterly:" whereof Ambrose, speaketh on this manner; Peter was sorry and wept, because he erred as a man. do not find what he said. I know that he wept. I read of his tears, but not of his satisfaction. But how chance that the one was received into favour again with God, and the other cast away, but because that the one did, by a lively faith in Him whom he had denied, take hold upon the mercy of God; and the other wanted faith, whereby he did despair of the goodness and mercy of God?

It is evident and plain then, that, although we be never so earnestly sorry for our sins, acknowledge and confess them; yet all these things shall be but means to bring us to utter desperation, except we do stedfastly believe that God our heavenly Father will, for his Son Jesus Christ's sake, pardon and forgive us our offences and trespasses, and utterly put them out of remembrance in his sight. Therefore, as we said before, they that teach repentance without Christ, and a lively faith in the mercy of God, do only teach Cain's or Judas's repentance.

When persons advance erroneous doctrines, we know not how far they may go, or how long they will stand to what they have once stated, nor can we tell how many followers they shall have, or how long these followers may adhere to them. The doctrine of the

One and only one Repentance' after baptism, is, however, of such a nature, that we are unwilling to regard it as likely to obtain a very extensive, or a very abiding influence. We can indeed conceive young enquirers to be for a time fearfully awe-struck, and overwhelmingly embarrassed in their consciences: but prayer, with the use of the scriptures, will, we are persuaded, show to them a more excellent way; rather let it be said, a way opposite to that which the following passages point out.

We are then washed, once for all, in His blood; and that, if we again sin, there remaineth no more such complete ablution in this life. We must bear the scars of the sins, which we have contracted; we must be judged according to our deeds.

The wounds then received after bap

tism are curable; but not as before, in that then remission is given through faith alone, but now through many tears, and mournings, and weepings, and fastings, and prayer, and toil proportioned to the greatness of the sin committed.

Faith alone in the first instance at baptism is made the means of justification: afterwards, repentance alone.

The following passages from the Tract under consideration are further adduced, as shewing the writer's view concerning the one repentance after baptism.

And therefore, I say unto you, that, after that great and holy calling (Baptism) if any be tempted by the devil and sin, he has one repentance. But if he sin again, and repent, it will not profit the man who doth such things, for hardly will he live to God. And I said, 'Sir, I revived, when I diligently heard these commandments. For I know, that if hereafter I add not to my sins, I shall be saved.' And he said, 'Yea, and all who shall do these commandments, shall be saved.'

Rightly are they blamed,' says St. Ambrose, who think that repentance is frequently to be re-enacted, for they wax wanton in Christ. For if they were truly repenting, they would not think it often to be repeated-for as there is one baptism so also one repentance-one, I say, public repentance-for we ought to repent of our daily sins; but this repentance is for lighter offences, that for heavier. But I have found more readily persons, who retained their innocence, than such as repented, as were fitting.'

If such men as Noah, Daniel, and Job, cannot by their righteousness save their children, with what confidence shall we approach to the palace of God, if we keep not Baptism pure and undefiled? He who dealeth corruptly in the fight of incorruption, what shall be done to him? For of such as have not kept the seal, He saith, I their worm dieth not." Let us, then, while we are on earth, repent.

The same truth was expressed by the Fathers, in that oft-misinterpreted metaphor, that they who had fallen into grievous sin after Baptism, should cling to repentance, as to a plank from a shipwreck; not (as Romanist writers insist) as if the plank were different from the ship, and so designated a Sacrament of Repentance, a means of grace distinct from that of Baptism; or, again, with some Protestant writers, as if the ship yet remained whole, and the plank were to bring them back to their former security in Baptism; the Fathers thought

of no such refinements; they would by this metaphor express only the great peril, in which such persons were placed, and would exhort them to cling, for their eternal life, to the only hope yet remaining to them in the shipwreck wherein their souls had well-nigh perished,-an earnest, and persevering repentance. Thus St. Ambrose concludes the exhortation to the penitent, before quoted; 'If sinners could see what judgment God will send forth, and man's understanding was not distracted by the vanity of the world, or weighed down by unbelief, they would gladly bear any degree or kind of torment for the present, yea, though life were longer than it is, so they might escape the punishment of eternal fire. But thou unhappy one, who hast now entered upon the trial of repentance, hold on, abide fast, as to a plank in shipwreck, hoping thereby to be freed from the depth of sin. Hold fast the repentance to the very end of life, nor anticipate that any pardon should be given you from man's judgment; he who would promise you this would deceive you. For what thou hast sinned against the Lord, thou must expect the remedy from Him alone, in the day of judgment.'

Let us again turn to the Formularies of the Church of England: and as the office for the Visitation of the Sick has been by the Tractwriters specially-(we had almost said, cruelly)-selected for the purpose of supporting their favorite notion, that justifying faith is not apposite to devotional subjects, we will make our first quotation from that very office. The Tract-writer exults to find the Creed placed there at full length: and he presents it, solitarily, to the view, as though he would taunt those who look for justifying faith in devotional offices. But is this fair? Assuredly not: it is unfair, both to them and to the Church of England herself. For look but a few lines further, and we find that

truly repent and believe in Christ.’ Next, we find the penitent described as putting his full trust only in God's mercy.' Then 'former sins are no more imputed to him;' and this is through the merits of Christ:' which merits therefore are the object of faithof justifying faith. And to prove that this is not a faith destitute of assurance, feeling and

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see the closing prayer, that the Almighty Lord.... would make the sick, the probably-dying man to know and feel, that the name of Christ, and that alone, is his health and salvation. Observe also the Prayer for persons troubled in mind or conscience.' How deep, how tender, how wise, how scriptural that prayer! And is there nothing of justifying faith in that devotional exercise? What else means the petition that the distressed man

may neither cast away his confidence in thee, nor place it in any

where but in thee.'

We might, did our limits admit, notice further, that our reformers, when treating on this subject even in the Articles, yet could not refrain from the language of fervour; speaking of justification by faith as a most wholesome doctrine, language might be viewed by some and very full of comfort. Such moderns as enthusiastic, and needing a second reformation for the correction of style: but our venerable fathers knew the truth, and felt the truth: well might they feel it, for it had just set them free from popery, darkness, and misery!

THE wisest of men long since remarked, that of making of books there is no end. Had he lived in our day, he might perhaps have adopted some more decided expresion of disapprobation at the un

numbered multitudes of publications which periodically appear. And yet we are not sure whether his general censure would not be attended with many particular exceptions. He who spake of trees