of the subject-by the Rev. Dr. Beasley, Provost of the University of Pennsylvania. He has chosen an abstruse and difficult theme, but the more honour will redound to himself and the country, if he shall be found to have rectified false theories, and shed new lights on the science of our intellectual being. His researches into doctrines, and his investigation of first principles and appropriate phenomena, have, we know, been indefatigable. We believe the students of Metaphysics, and the class of persons generally, who have a taste for this exalted branch of knowledge, are more numerous in this country than is commonly imagined. It is not, therefore, to be apprehended, that there will be an absolute want of curiosity and judgment as regards the purport and value of his labours. His literary station and repute are such as to render it superfluous for us to say more in relation to his work, until its appearance shall enable us to speak of its execution. It is now in the press, under the title of A Search of Truth the same as that of the celebrated treatise of Father Mallebranch.-Philad. Nat. Gaz.

R. P. & C. Williams, of Boston, have in press the Sermons of the Rev. John Venn, M. A. Rector of Chapham, in 3 vols. 8vo. They are posthumous, and three editions have already been printed in England. The two first volumes made their appearance in 1814, and the third and last in 1818. Reviews of these Sermons are to be found in the Christian Observer, vol. 14, p. 26, and vol. 17, p. 655.

Both the above works will appear in the course of January, 1822, and will be for sale at the store of T.&J. Swords, No. 99 Pearl-street, New-York.

Conflagration of St. Philip's Church. We regret to state, that on the evening of Tuesday, December 18th, St. Philip's Church, in this city, was destroyed by fire. This church was finished and consecrated in the summer of 1819. It was designed for the use, and occupied by a numerous and respectable congregation, of the coloured members of our communion. The

parish was enjoying the ministry of the Rev. Peter Williams, jun. one of their own colour, who had been admitted into Deacons' Orders; and his services were blessed to the gradual increase and spiritual advancement of its members. The Clergy who occasionally assisted him in his public ministrations, bore uniform testimony to the orderly and devout manner in which the services of the Church were there conducted. There was every prospect of the establishment being largely instrumental to the religious and moral improvement of the coloured members of the community. The dispensation of divine Providence, which thus suddenly deprived the congregation of their place of worship, was naturally a source of deep regret and no small anxiety to its friends. These feelings, however, have been greatly relieved by discovering that the vestry had taken the prudent precaution to have the building insured. The amount which they will thus receive might, perhaps, enable them to rebuild of wood, the material of which their late church was composed. But the experience of this loss, and general considerations of propriety and safety, urge to the erecting of a church of brick or stone. To enable them to do this, they have determined to solicit public liberality. We hope it cannot be doubted, that they will derive from this source such an addition to the amount of their insurance, as will put it into their power to erect a durable, and fire-proof building, in which the benefit to themselves and to the public, arising from the religious and moral improvement of that portion of the coinmunity, will be secured to posterity as well as to the present generation.

The fact of their having insured the church will, we hope, increase the public confidence in the care and prudence with which they manage their concerns. The same fact also suggests reflection on the great advantage of always thus securing churches against loss by fire. The burning of one may be the ruin of a parish, while the small addition of the required premium to its annual expenses would hardly be felt. To the churches in this city, especially, many thousand dollars would have been

saved, within the last eight years, if the precaution so providentially taken by the vestry of St. Philip's, had been adopted by others.

DIED, on Friday, the 21st of December, 1821, Mrs. ANN C. LYELL, consort of the Rev. Thomas Lyell, Rector of Christ Church, in the city of New-York.

Sudden was the dispensation of Providence which we here record: for the Sunday subsequent, to that when she attended as a worshipper in the House of God, beheld a large assemblage there collected to solemnize the rites that committed her mortal part to the tomb. It was the remar able characteristic of her, whose death we now notice, that she discharged all the duties of a wife and a mother with a tenderness and fidelity not to be excelled. Her own me and gratification were forgotten in her devotion to her husband and her family. And, as far as numerous domestic cares admitted, her kind attentions were extended to the circle of her acquaintance and friends; in her intercourse with whom she always manifested a mildness and unaffected courtesy which won their confidence and affection. Exemplary in all the relations of life, she was not a stranger to those pious exercises that sanctify all our other duties; and which afford the ground of confidence, that, through the merits of the Divine Master whom she served, her spirit has gone to the Paradise of God, awaiting in bliss and joy the period when her corruptible shall put on incorruption, and her mortal immortality.

Publishers' Address.

THE Publishers of the Christian Journal, in acknowledging with gratitude a large increase to the list of their subscribers during the last year, respectfully solicit a continuance of its present patronage, as well as the further countenance of those who are friendly to the interests of religion and the Church, and of literature in general. It is important to those interests that

permanency should be secured to this Journal; and the Publishers have great pleasure in assuring its friends, that the prospect of attaining this object is very flattering. They trust this declaration will not induce any to withdraw their subscriptions, but that it will stimulate its friends and patrons to continue their names and exertions in its favour, and will prompt new ones to add theirs to so laudable a purpose.

The Publishers are aware that some have objected to the Journal as not sustaining that entire theological cast which could be desired. In reply to this objection it is sufficient to state, that among its subscribers there is a great variety of tastes, and that in every instance to please all can scarcely be expected. The abstracts of the journals of the various conventions present a view, and form an accurate history of the Church: while the accounts of the proceedings of the numerous societies connected with her, show the interest which Episcopalians take in advancing the good of society at large. These abstracts and these accounts must be gratifying to every one, and are sufficiently important to form of themselves a separate publication. But to give variety to its pages, biographical sketches, reviews of books, passages illustrative of historic fact, or of the manners and customs of nations or communities, moral anecdote, and occasionally moral tales, &c. &c. have been, and will continue to be selected. These also cannot fail to be pleasing to a great majority of the readers of the Journal.

In our last volume the mass of original theological essays has not been large; but the Publishers indulge a hope, that the lovers of this kind of reading, whose gratification they are ever inclined to consult, will not have cause to complain on this score in the volume now begun and they trust, that the permanent establishment in this city of the Theological Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church will have a benign influence on the Christian Journal, in securing for it valuable communications, and will be instrumental in advancing its literary reputation, and in obtaining for it a large additional patronage.

Life of Archbishop Sancroft; abridged from a Review of his Life, by Dr. D'Oyly, in the British Critic.

WILLIAM SANCROFT was born at Fresingfield, in the county of Suffolk, January 30th, 1616-17. His family was ancient and respectable, having been settled and possessed of property at Fresingfield, from the time of Henry III.or Edward I. He appears to have been educated at Bury, and, at the age of eighteen, he was entered a member of Emmanuel College, in Cambridge, of which his uncle, Dr. William Sancroft, was at this time the master. By this circumstance his choice of a college was naturally determined; and though he was deprived of his relative and patron before he had finished his acade mical course, he must, as Dr. D'Oyly observes, be considered as peculiarly fortunate in having commenced it under such superintendance.

For he had not only to guard against the common dangers which assail every youth on his first entrance into life, but others to which he was more particularly exposed by the society into which he was thrown; as the college had, it seems, been long noted for the prevalence of puritanical opinions among its members; and a young man of eighteen, of Sancroft's character, which appears to have been early marked by strong impressions of piety, and an anxious desire to fulfil his religious duties, might have been in some peril from the contagion of such examples. His college attachments, however, were formed with great prudence; and his conduct clearly proves, that he was then, as during the whole of his subsequent life, steadily and zealously attached to the genuine doctrines of the Church of England; and that he well knew how to distinguish their dictates from that morose and gloomy fanaVOL. VE

[VOL. VI.

ticism, which was by too many mistaken for an improvement upon her pure and apostolic discipline.

The following extract from a letter to his father, written about the time when he entered into holy orders, expresses the serious feelings with which he contemplated the duties of the ministerial office; and the deep sense he entertained of the awful responsibility incurred by those to whom it was committed.

"I have lately offered up to God the first fruits of that calling which I intend, having common-placed twice in the chapel; and if, through your prayers, and God's blessing on my endeavours, I may become an instrument in any measure fitted to bear his name before his people, it shall be my joy and the crown of my rejoicing in the Lord. I am persuaded that for this end I was sent into the world; and, therefore, if God lends me life and abilities, I shall be willing to spend myself and be spent upon the work."

About the year 1642 he appears to have been elected a fellow of his college; and during his residence there, he discharged the usual collegiate offices, and was diligently employed as a tutor, in superintending the education of the junior members of the society. It is pleasing to observe the respect and veneration in which he seems to have been held by his pupils, with some of whom he long continued to correspond after they had been separated from him, and with others he preserved an uninterrupted friendship and familiarity throughout his life; so far was he from being what a partial historian has represented him," a cold, dry, reserved, and peevish man, whom none loved, and few esteemed."*

"But the times in which Mr. San

5

Burnet's Own Times, vol. i. p. 393.

croft rose into life were times of confusion and alarm, pregnant no less with calamity and mourning to the whole nation, than with severe trial to the feelings of individuals, and detriment to their worldly prospects. More especially were they times of sore anguish and tribulation to those who, being the authorized ministers of the Established Church, were called upon by feelings of duty and conscientious attachment to defend it against assailants; but whose anhappy lot it was to behold its sacred institutions profaned, its fences rudely broken down, and the axe of desolation applied to its roots."

His conduct under these trying circumstances was eminently prudent. He steadily refused to commit himself, by any compliance with the illegal requisitions of the now prevailing party; and he indignantly rejected the solemn league and covenant, declaring that he would cut his hand off before it should be lifted up to subscribe his name to such a document.

But though he was determined not to comply with the unlawful injunctions of the usurping authorities; though he was firm in his refusal to take the covenant or the engagement; and could not be induced by any fear of personal losses to conform to the Directory, which in the prosecution of their favourite work of overthrowing the Church they had substituted for the Liturgy; he seems to have early taught himself to believe, that in his situation patient submission to the evil which was likely to befal him was his only duty. He suffered the stream to flow over him, without a murmur on his own account; he felt only for the calamities which it was bringing on the Church and nation; but, though he scorned to bend to the current, he never thought of resisting its course, or contributing, by strenuous personal exertions, to divert it from those objects, for whose safety he was much more nearly concerned than for his own.

But when called upon to decide upon his own conduct in this emergency, he chose that middle and safer course, which, while it refuses to comply with iniquitous commands, avoids irritating those in power by active opposition.

"I do not," says he to the same friend, "count myself obliged to go to chapel, and read common prayer, till my brains be dashed out."

To his perseverance in this cautious line of conduct, not less perhaps than to the exertions of some individuals, who employed their influence with the ruling powers to protect him, he owed his undisturbed continuance in his fellowship, while numbers of his contemporaries were ejected: and it was not until the middle of the year 1651, that his time of persecution arrived, and he was forced, as he said, to "sigh out a long and sad farewell to Cambridge."

We are far from laying it down as a rule, that, in times of national peril, all are called upon, without regard to their habits, situations, or circumstances, to array themselves in active opposition to the advance of such a torrent as then swept away the very foundations of our holy Church. But we may be allowed to remark, that a much higher meed of commendation should be awarded to those who thus "jeopardy their lives unto the death in the high places of the field," in defence of principles which they conscientiously approve; than to those who, like Sancroft, take refuge in caves and dens of the earth from the fury of the tempest, and satisfy themselves with patiently submitting to the inflictions of illegal penalties, rather than comply with illegal demands. In the Church of England many at that time were found, who, with a noble contempt of personal danger, continued in defiance of threats and injuries, publicly to celebrate her holy worship; aud some, who could not even be deterred by the danger of a pistol, from praying according to their duty. To such heroic courage our highest encomiums are owing; and to such men should we look, as to those around whom the true friends of the Church of England would rally, if in the wise dispensations of Providence it should be determined, that a similar course of suffering were again preparing for her. At the same time we are willing to give due applause to the passive courage of a Sancroft, and to the disinterested integrity which would suffer every deprivation, rather than act illegally for the

sake of present advantage. In such an hour it is no mean praise to have withstood temptation, and to have chosen rather to suffer evil, than to concur in it. But we are bound to place active exertion on a higher grade than mere passive fortitude; and to esteem those more highly who suffer for doing well, than those who endure affliction patiently, rather than violate their faith or their engagements. We speak not this invidiously, or with any desire to depreciate the real merits of the venerable prelate who is the subject of Dr. D'Oyly's eulogy; but we live in times when it will be our wisdom to prepare for the recurrence of the calamitous scenes he has alluded to; and if such a day should come, we trust that the Church of England will find among her affianced sons, and the ministers of her holy services, many who will defend her boldly, as well as suffer with her patiently; many who will not only reject with scorn the offers and the shreats of her enemies, but will openly and firmly bear testimony to the truth, and, if need be, resist even unto blood striving against sin."

Thus driven at last into retirement by the faction which had succeeded in establishing itself upon the ruins of the Church and the monarchy, Mr. Sancroft employed his talents in endeavouring, through the medium of the press, to guide the opinion of the public into a healthier course.

The first of these was a Latin dialogue, entitled Fur Prædestinatus, intended to expose those Calvinistic doctrines which were then held, in all their rigour, both by the Puritans and the Independents; and were pushed by each of these conflicting parties to the extreme of Antinomianism. It is necessary to bear this fact in mind, in order fully to appreciate the merits and utility of the Fur Prædestinatus. We must consider Calvinism, not in the subdued and milder form in which it is now generally presented to us by those, who would reject not less readily than their opponents, the consequences which in this tract are ably deduced from it; but as it was then exhibited by the stern uncompromising advocates of the supralapsarian hypothesis, by

the bold assertors of the horrible decree of reprobation in its most gloomy and repulsive form.

"The dialogue," says Dr. D'Oyly, "is managed with great address and ability; and, what must have given it its greatest effect, the statements of the Calvinistic doctrines are made in the actual words of the principal writers of that persuasion, of whom not fewer than forty are quoted, and specially referred to, in the course of this short work. It may, perhaps, be deemed, on the whole, the most successful exposure which has ever appeared of the tendency of the Calvinistic doctrines when maintained in their unqualified strictness; as showing that, instead of nurturing and encouraging those feel ings of humility, piety, and goodness, which are the genuine fruits of Christianity, they give birth to spiritual pride and self-satisfaction; give a free rein to licentious passions; bring the sinner to a hardened and impenitent state; and thus pervert the whole effect which this holy religion ought to have upon the human heart,"

"It should also be remembered that, at the time when this tract was written, the effects of these doctrines were exhibited to the eye of every observer in the most frightful forms. Under the assumed sanction of a perverted religion, the worst crimes had been perpetrated; all the sacred institutions of the country had been torn up by the roots; hypocrisy and enthusiasm had, with a portion of the nation, whom the success of their machinations had raised on an eminence so as to be seen from far, usurped the place of genuine Christian feelings; and they who sig nalized themselves by the commission of the boldest enormities, had made their unhallowed boast that they were doing the work of the Lord. At such a time, the disease was so violent in its symptoms, and so fatal in its effects, as to admit of no sparing hand in the application of the remedy. This was no season for disguising the truth, or flattering with soft and smooth speech. But it became an imperative duty to pourtray, in broad and deep lines, the harsh and rugged features of a system from which these evils had, in great