with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads; where they shall obtain joy and gladness; and sorrow and sighing shall flee away."

a

Having thus discussed the grounds of the Christian's love to the Church, the author occupies a few pages with statement of the means by which he will endeavour to promote its prosperity. He enumerates, among those means, the winning and suasive influence of the believer's own example, an habitual attendance on the sanctuary, a diffusion of the precious word of life, and an extension of the knowledge of her principles and constitution; and to these, he adds, the application of his munificence to those of his brethren who may be unable to secure to themselves the enjoyment of the ministry and ordinances of the Church. To this enumeration we would have added what perhaps the author may consider as included in an attendance on the sanctuary, but what, to our view, justly claims a separate notice and enforcement-a compliance with the Christian sacraments, and especially with the Lord's Supper. This we think a powerful means of promoting the prosperity of the Church, for the brightest example of piety can never be regarded as compensating for a neglect of these positive institutions of our Divine Mastér. The devout composer of the Psalm, which has furnished our author with his text, would not have esteemed himself a promoter of the prosperity of that Zion which so often called forth the plaintive, and, sometimes, exulting strains of his muse, had he lived in habitual neglect of the Passover, or of any other of the stated festivals of his Church. Nor can the Christian be viewed in so favourable a light as the anxious friend of the spiritual Zion, if he constantly refuses to comply with the dying injunction of its Great Head and Preserver.

Having thus stated the grounds of the Christian's love to the Church, and the means of promoting her prosperity, the author turns to the duty imposed upon him by the occasion of an ordination which was to take place at that time-the duty of addressing the candidate upon the subject of the office he

was about to assume. This, of course, was no way connected with the subject he had discussed, and was a violation of the unity of his sermon. But it was a violation that could not be avoided, and one which we are very willing to excuse, on the single consideration of the excellency of his remarks upon the importance of the ministerial office, and the conduct to be observed by those who are invested therewith. We are strongly tempted to transfer to our review the several pages which relate to these points, but are forced to content ourselves with the following extract:

"Apply yourself unremittingly to the acquisition of knowledge of that knowledge especially which has a more immediate relation to our office. Our profession is one of incessant labour. We must always be pressing forward. Idleness may be ruin. Study habitually the oracles of truth, that you may be able rightly to divide the word of God, and give to every man his portion in due season. Shun not to declare the whole counsel of God: and do it with seriousness, with simplicity, with cogency, with gracefulness. Remember, it will be your duty to call men off from a world which lieth in wickedness, and to direct them in the pursuit of their eternal interests. Never compramise, therefore, with its follies or its vices by a reluctant, equivocal, or partial exhibition of the truth as it is in Jesus.' Discountenance and check, in every prudent way, the too prevalent propensity of worldly minds to fritter away the peculiar and essential doctrines of the Gospel, and to limit the scope of the obedience it enjoins, by displaying the former in all their simplicity, and enforcing the latter in all its extent and obligation. In whatever part of the Church militant your lot may be cast, let your standard bear this motto- For I am determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ, and him crucified'--and on the reverse be inscribed And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. Allure men to duty by displaying to their view the mercy of the Almighty in sending his Son to die for sinners, and by point

ing them to that eternal weight of glory reserved for his people. Or else knowing the terrors of the Lord,' persuade men. Tell them of the sanctions of his law. Erect before them the tribunal of his justice. Kindle to their view the flames of Tophet. Say to the righteous, it shall be well with him but to the wicked, it shall be ill with him. Remembering always who hath said, 'If thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his ways, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at thine hands.""

These are sentiments which it would be well for every minister of Christ, whatever be his age or standing in the Church, to have deeply imprinted on his mind. This is language which should often echo from the walls of the Sanctuary on occasions like the one which called it forth. The word of exhortation is as needful to the clergy as to the laity. Possessed of the same nature, subject to the same frailties, exposed to the same temptations, they too require their zeal to be excited, their languor to be forced off, and their exertions to be animated and encouraged by such plain and forcible appeals. And we doubt not that many who heard the, serious exhortation of our author, beside the youthful candidate to whom it was more particularly addressed, felt its application to themselves, and were benefitted by the remembrances it excited.

We intended to offer some remarks more at length upon the style and sentiments of this sermon, but we have time and space only to observe→

1st. That we exceedingly admire the simple, manly, unaffected style of its composition. There is no attempt to glitter, no effort to procure, by figure and fancy, the applause of such as are delighted by flowers and ornaments. Nor are we disgusted by any affected toarseness of language which, with the many, passes for strength. The style is adapted to the subject and to the place. And the author seems to have been more anxious, as every writer of - sermons should be, about the substance of his discourse, than the peculiar dress in which it should be clothed.

2dly. We desire to bestow equally

hearty approbation on the pure evange lical sentiments which pervade this sermon. It is this fervent strain of disciplined piety which we delight to hear emanating from the pulpits of our Church. Enemies, we profess ourselves to be, to that cold explication of the moral code, which is sometimes falsely called a sermon-and not less hostile are we to that ultra-evangelical declamation which more rarely is heard from our pulpits. Give us sound, sensible, fervent, scriptural discourses like the one before us, and we are satisfied.

For the Christian Journal,

I HAVE recently seen a splendid edition of "The Book of Common Prayer, &c with notes explanatory, practical, and historical, from' approved writers of the Church of England. Selected and arranged by the Rev. Richard Mant, D. D." &c. &c. Its plan is, I' presume, similar to that proposed by Bishop Brownell, of Connecticut, for an edition of our Liturgy, which, it is hoped, will meet with adequate encouragement from the members of the Church.

But my reason for bringing Dr. Mant's book to the notice of your readers is, because it confirms the construction which I ventured upon the authority of Mr. Reeve, and Horne Tooke, an eminent philologist, to give to the disputed rubric concerning the use of the ante-communion service. Dr. (now, I believe, Bishop) Mant explains this rubric by a quotation from Wheatley, whose book I have never seen. The quotation is too long to be here introduced; but, after a satisfactory historical view of the matter, he observes" But afterwards, as piety grew colder and colder, the sacrament began to be more and more neglected, and, by degrees, entirely laid aside on ordinary week-days. And then the Church did not think it convenient to appoint any of this service upon any other days than holy-days and Sundays. But upon these days she still requires that (ALTHOUGH there beno communion, yet, &c. &c. &c.)" He gives many reasons for this order of the Church,

and, among others, that there are many things in the ante-communion service which ought to be read as well to those who do not, as to those who do, communicate; such as the Decalogue, the Collects, Epistles, and Gospels, PROFER to all Sundays and holy-days, without which those festivals would not be distinguished either from one another, or even from ordinary days, nor consequently celebrated so as to answer the end of their institution the Nicene Creed, wherein the divinity of our Saviour, the ground upon which our whole religion was planted and propagated, is asserted and declared, the offering and the prayer for "the whole state of Christ's Church militant here on earth."

Most of these things, he remarks, made up the "Missa Catechumenorum" of the ancient Church, that is, that part of the ancient service at which the Catechumens, who were not admitted to the reception of the Eucharist, were allowed to be present. And he shows that the use of this service, according to his construction of the rubric, accords with the practice of both the Greek and Latin Churches.

It is conceived, then, that the force of these reasons for the use of the antecommunion service is in no manner weakened by the interpolation of the words "sermonor" into the ancient rubric; that the omission of it is against the immemorial custom of the Church; and, we may add, upon the testimony of those by whom the words were introduced, that it was not their intention or design that the meaning of the rubric, as to the occasions when the service is to be used, should be changed. It has, moreover, been shown, by a critical analysis of the words of the rubric as it stands, that its fair construction is such as is here contended for.

And, may it not be hoped, that those of our clergy who, with good intentions, have fallen into a practice contrary to this construction, whether it be from a too easy disposition to indulge the impatience of their congregations, or some of their members, who complain of the length of our service-or from a mistaken desire to make more room for

the sermon-will reconsider this matter gravely and conscientiously. They will bear in mind their vow to "give their faithful diligence always so to minister the doctrines, and sacraments, and the discipline of Christ, as the Lord hath commanded, and as this Church. hath received the same;" a vow too solemn and obligatory to be broken upon any pretence of convenience. In the words of Archdeacon Sharp, "we may affirm in general, that we are under higher obligations to observe the rubric, than any other ecclesiastical law whatever; that, excepting a very few cases, or under some necessary limitations and reservations, we are bound to adhere to it literally, punctually and perpetually; and that whosoever among the clergy, either adds to it, or diminishes from it, or useth any other rule instead of it, as he is in the eye of the law so far a non-conformist, so it behoves him to consider with himself whether, in point of conscience, he be not a breaker of his word and trust, and an eluder of his engagements to the Church." A.Layman. Philadelphia, October, 1822.

For the Christian Journal. Sermon, delivered at the opening of the Annual Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the State of New-York, in St. Paul's Church, Troy, on the 15th day of October, 1822, by the Rev. William B. Lacey, A. M. Rector of St. Peter's Church, Albany.

2 TIM. iv. 2.-Preach the Word.

IN condescension to the exigences of our fallen and guilty race, God has not only provided for them a Redeemer in the person of Jesus Christ, a Sanctifier and Comforter in the Holy Ghost, but likewise instructors in the ministry of the Christian Church. When Messiah had accomplished his mediatorial work below, he ascended on high, leading captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men: and, among these gifts, an active and efficient ministry held a permanent and and important rank. He gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and

teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come, in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.

And to inspire this ministry with a deep sense of their responsibility to God, they were solemnly assured, that to them was committed the word of reconciliation that they were ambassadors, appointed in Christ's stead to beseech men to be reconciled to Godand that on the character of their ministrations, the final destiny of their hearers would intimately depend. “I charge thee, therefore," said the great apostle to his son Timothy," before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom, preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and doctrine."

The word here employed by the apostle, to express the matter of our preaching, like many other terms in the Holy Scriptures, is susceptible of various interpretations. It sometimes signifies a particular message from the Most High, denouncing his special judgments, or exhibiting his extraordinary promises as "O earth, earth, earth, hear ye the word of the Lord." At other times it denotes the second person in the adorable Trinity-as "in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God." And not unfrequently it means, the entire system of the Divine economy, as displayed in the New Testament, in rescuing fallen man from the degradation of the apostacy. It has this meaning in the text.

On the Christian ministry is imposed the important duty of proclaiming to the world the word of life. "Go ye, therefore," said the Great Head of the Church, "and preach my Gospel to every creature; teaching them to observe all things which I have commanded you, and, lo, I ani with you al ways, even to the end of the world."

The Gospel here committed to their care includes not only the principles of natural, but also of revealed religion;

not merely a code of pure and unexceptionable morals, but a system of evangelical doctrines; not simply the outlines of the social, but the principles of the Christian life. It comprehends the unity and character of the Divine essence, and the Trinity of Persons in the Godhead: the apostacy of human nature, by the transgression of our first parents, and the redemption of mankind by the death of Christ: justification in the sight of God, by faith alone in the merits of his Son, and the gift of the Holy Ghost to renew us in righteousness and true holiness: the necessity of seeking the Divine blessings in the use of the prescribed means, and the certainty of their proving effectual, if we use them as we ought: the existence of a retributive state in a future world, in which we shall be rewarded according to the deeds done in the body; and the participation of our entire nature in this irrevocable award.

This is the important word that is enjoined upon the Christian ministry to preach; and they should preach it thoroughly-affectionately earnestly— plainly-and with a deep sense of their responsibility to God.

1. They should preach it thoroughly-should exhibit, in their due proportions and prominence, the great variety of its provisions should disclose its precepts and its promises; its terror and its glory; its reproofs and its exhortations; and that, precisely as they are disclosed in the Holy Scriptures.

Had it been devised merely in the counsels of human wisdom; or sanetioned only by the authority of created beings, there might be some pretext for a partial disclosure of its matter; but as it was devised by him who cannot err, it would be criminally presumptuous in any creature, to exercise merely his own option, in the exhibition or suppression of its doctrines; or even to give to some points a pro minence disproportionate to their im portance. Having been planned in the counsel of unerring wisdom, it must be, precisely what it was intended to be and, consequently, the smallest disruption of its component parts, would be an implication of the Divine omniscience.

2. The Holy Scriptures, including a mysterious and complicated system of Divine operation, the perfection of which, consisting in its several parts, being reciprocally dependent on one tanoher, it is impossible to disclose the symmetry and beauty of this system, but by exhibiting, in their just proportions, its various elements. The plan of salvation revealed to us in the Holy Scriptures, comprehending the connexion of events occurring in the remotest periods of time-the bearing of contingent circumstances on the final destiny of man-the relative importance of different duties and the influence of the Divine agency on the condition of our fallen species, it is impossible morally and physically impossible to communicate a just knowledge of this plan, by partial and insulated exhibis tions of the Holy Scriptures. They are a whole, and it is only by representing them as they really are, that we can hope to elicit their saving power.

3. When the apostles were commissioned to go forth and reform a guilty world, they were commanded to preach the Gospel. They were not left to the guidance of their own taste, in the selection of the topics of discussion; but were required, in the most solenin and peremptory manner, to, preach the truth as it was in Christ and lest, in any instance, they should stray from the path of duty, in the performance of this new and unpractised work, he sent them his Holy Spirit to guide them into all, truth. Settle it, therefore, said he, in your hearts, not to meditate before what ye shall answer; for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist.

4. And in connexion with the commands of God to preach thoroughly the Gospel of his grace, are the most inpressive and tremendous menaces, in the event of disobedience. Son of man, says he, I have made three a watchman unto the house of Israel: therefore, hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me. When I say unto the wicked, thou shalt surely die, and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked of his wicked way, to save his

life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity-but his blood will I require at thy hands. And he declares, that he will accomplish his wrath, alike upon the wall, and upon them that have daubed it with untempered mortar : that he will say unto them, the wall is no more, neither them that daubed it, to wit, the prophets of Israel, who prophecy concerning Jerusalem, and which see visions of peace concerning her, and there is no peace saith God.

II. But although it is incumbent on us to exhibit the entire Gospel of Jesus Christ; to disclose its peculiarities with a prominence correspondent to their importance; to rescue its Divinity from the scorn of infidels; its matter from the misinterpretations of the ignorant, and its purity from the uncandid glosses of the licentious; to make it speak its thunders to the immoral, its menaces to the lukewarm, its promises to the penitent, and its precepts to every one-yet we should do it affectionately.

1. The pulpit is, of all places, the most unsuitable for the exhibition of an unfeeling and relentless spirit. It is there the Gospel, in all its tenderness, unpolluted by the acerbities of human nature, ought to be proclaimed. Even amid the thunders and menaces of the angry and violated law, the soft and subduing promises of mercy should be announced. Here should we elevate the standard of the cross; and, by am exhibition of the unbounded and amaz ing love of Christ, beseech his guilty subjects to be reconciled to God. And, although these topics may not inspire that awful and magisterial tone of de clamation, which was once characteris tic of the sacred ministry, they will furnish arguments incomparably more subduing to the obdurate heart, and productive of Christian duty, than simple denunciation ever did. I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, saith the apostle Paul, for it is the power of God unto salvation; to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile.

2. The adoption and pursuit of this course, are recommended by the example of God himself. Come, now, said he to his rebellious people, and let us reason together; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as