the more uniform flow of poetic animation, while Dr. Butler, without his general sustainment, proves himself fully equal in detached passages. Both are deserving of the crown of victory, and were we called upon to decide upon whose head the bay should rest, we could only exclaim Arcades ambo Et cantare pares et respondere parati. ART. VII. A Charge delivered to the Clergy of the Archdeaconry of London, at the Primary Visitation. By J. Holden Pott, M. 4. Archdeacon of London. 4to. 30 pp. Rivingtons. 1815.. FEW appointments have given greater satisfaction to that most respectable and exemplary body, the Clergy of London, than the promotion of the worthy author of this Charge to the important station which he now holds. We consider it as fortunate for the Church, when Archdeaconries of so much weight and consequence are entrusted to those who are qualified by ecclesiastical experience to direct, and by their temperance to conciliate the Clergy who are committed to their care. The worthy Archdeacon calls the attention of his Clergy to the state of the Church in former periods of our English history, and to a review of those venerable characters, who, in former times, have filled the stations which they now occupy. It is not an uncommon cry with a certain party in the Church, that the faith of the Reformation are to be zealously contended for, and its leading features accurately preserved; intimating at the same time, in pretty plain terms, that they alone among the Clergy preach its doctrines, and maintain its cha racter and spirit. To such the following judicious observations are exceedingly applicable, both to regulate their zeal and to increase their candour. "In paying due respect to the modes of teaching, writing, and discoursing, which were practised at that period, our first care I think should be to strive to profit with each bright example, but to avoid an injudicious application of the pattern. The circumstances and occasions which gave the chief direction, and communicated the decisive turn to the thoughts and studies of men in those times, are much to be observed. The circle into which they were led was not altogether that to which their choice would have disposed them. The course which they took was that which the calls and exigencies of their day suggested. It was G 2 marked marked out to them by the great work which they had to do. Aecordingly to those points and questions which were the prevailing objects of attention at that time, their chief notice was directed, and their most assiduous exertions of necessity confined. Good men are the same in all times, but their minuter modes of thinking, of speaking, writing, and discoursing, will be borrowed from the special urgency of those inducements which press most on their regard. I am inclined to give to those distinguished persons, who braved the terrors and exposed the frauds of Rome, the full benefit of this remark, and I mean to claim it also for such as have succeeded them, who appear to me to have sometimes suffered undue censure for want of that allowance which should govern our opinions both of men and manners in their several ages. Without such considerations, we shall be apt to imitate improperly, or we shall be led to scatter harsh reflections with as little reason or advantage." P.5. The whole of this part of the subject is treated with so much ability by the Archdeacon, that we cannot sufficiently recommend it to be read and studied by all. To those, who in these days are in the constant habit of reprobating "will worship” as they term it, and are perpetually inculcating spiritual devotion, fnot according to the true meaning but the party application of the term,) these observations are addressed with considerable effect: "I shall only add one further illustration of that just measure of discernment, which we should endeavor to apply with reference to our own age. We have spoken hitherto of speculative topics; but when knowledge was much stinted in its channels, and when a species of devotion, ill-turned and ill-directed, served but to sever a few picus persons from the larger number of those who went forward in a mixed course of ceremonious pageantry, joined with real laxity of life, the general exhortations which were employed by such as stood forth to redress those evils, were adapted more particularly to that state of mens minds and habits. Admitting then that no speech can be too ardent or too plain, where corrup tions of the heart of any kind are to be taxed, and that no exhortations can be too piercing to induce those to return to spiritual courses, who at any time are wedded to unprofitable usages, coupled with deceitful remedies for the hurts of conscience, still will any one pretend to say that it is as necessary now as heretofore, to dissuade men from devoted habits of attention to external forms of duty, or to recall them from a blind submission to the yoke of arbitrary laws? Will any sober and considerate person, who knows the state and character of our own times deny that the mischiefs and obliquities of our days are lapsing fast to an opposite extreme, in which even very salutary laws and wise provisions, imited to the Word of God, and measured by that rule, are contemned, temned, and prove the frequent sacrifice to some wild cla'm of selfwilled and self-authorized commission ?" P. 10. The Archdeacon traces the features of the different periods of the Church down to the present day with equal accuracy and judgment. He reminds the Clergy of the many able defences both of Christianity at large and of the Church, to which the city of London has given birth. The Collection of Tracts against Popery by Bishop Gibson; the Collection of Cases and Discourses to recover Dissenters to the Church; the Discourses delivered both at the lecture founded by the Hon. Robert Boyle and Lady Moyer, which in themselves furnish a body of strength against the virulence of the deist and the infidel. To those, who have attempted in recent publications to undervalue these masterly defences of our Christian faith, as presenting nothing but "Socrates, reason, and moderation" the Archdea on thus warmly replies: "Shall we forget the debt of gratitude which we owe to such men, who shaped their weapons to their warfare; who defended the great truths of religion by clear, sound reasonings, and by solid strength of argument, against those who challenged them to such proofs, and provoked them to such demonstrations? Shall we be told now that the style and method to which the circumstances of their day and the vigour of their minds might lead, waś fit only for the closet; adapted to the calm seats of philosophy; but too cold and correct, and too much fraught with cautious argument and close reflection, to excite the heat of any warm attachment in the hearts of men? Shall we offer this return for labours which have placed the towers of truth upon the ruins of an hideous Babel, and raised triumphant banners high over the prestrate wreck of long laboured sophistries, of false reasonings, wild, indecent declamations, calumnies, and slanders? Do their writings furnish to the world no other proof that they knew how to lay the first foundations of the faith in simple hearts, as well as to refute deceitful adversaries, and withstand audacious disputants? Let us then be just at least to the past service of the wise and good, of whom so many stood where we stand at this day, and were the guides and pastors of this great metropolis; let us render that tribute of acknowledgment, even if we feel disposed to claim a preference for other modes of teaching and discoursing as adapted more to ordinary purposes, and better framed for general utility.” P. 18. In the latter part of the Charge the subject of National Education in the principles of the Church of England is treated with the earnestness due to so important a point. The lamentable deficiency of Churches not only in the metropolis, but in all our great manufacturing towns is mentioned as an object worthy worthy of the interference of the legislature. We trust that the representation of the Archdeacon will not be without its weight, but that the wisdom of Parliament will provide a remedy for an evil which is daily increasing and has already grown to so alarming a magnitude. From the pleasure which we have received from the perusal of this excellent Charge, we trust that it will not be the last which will come before us, from the worthy Archdeacon, either in his present, or in a more exalted capacity. ART. VIII. A Sermon preached in the Church of Aylesbury, at the Visitation of the Right Rev. George, Lord Bishop of Lincoln. By the Rev. C. J. Blomfield, Rector of Dunton, Bucks; and late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Published by Desire of his Lordship and the Clergy. 4to. 31 pp. Mawman. 1815. IT seldom falls to our lot to record in the same review the suc cessful labours of the same author in two brauches of literature so apparently distinct from each other. We record them, however, with the greater pleasure, as they shew in the strongest point of view how close a connexion exists between theological and secular learning, how they mutually confirm and strengthen each other; all human knowledge preparing and enlarging the faculties for the reception of things divine, and they in their turn enlightening and adorning the bulwarks which form their sup port. On the union of the scholar and the divine, Christianity rests her surest hopes and her ablest defence. The subject which Mr. Blomfield has chosen for his discourse, is the dignity and the responsibleness of the Pastoral Office. That the ministry is a sacred trust, will be allowed by all, even by the wildest enthusiast and fanatic; now this very trust implies the notion of its being entrusted, hence Mr. B. very ingeniously and justly argues. "Whoever is accountable to God for the fulfilment of a trust, must in the first instance have had it committed by Him to his hands; those, who have, as the Apostle says, to give account of the souls for which they watch, must first have been appointed to watch over them by Him to whom they are accountable. It is the same in civil affairs. No man is responsible for the discharge of an office, to which he has not been regularly constituted and ordained: he is, indeed, punishable for the illegal usurpation of authority, but not for the ill discharge of the duties of his franchise. In like man ner, ner, no self-elected minister of God's word can, in strictness of speech, be termed accountable for the souls of those whom he directs; for that responsibility is evidently nugatory, which any man may assume or lay down at pleasure. And where this person or that, as vanity or enthusiasm may prompt him, exchanges the workshop or the plough for the pulpit of the conventicle, which of them is to be considered as the shepherd who may be called upon to answer for the flock? or how is it possible for the flock, who thus heap up to themselves teachers,' to know,' as the Apostle says, 'them which labour among them and are over them in the Lord ?" " P. 9. Mr. B. proceeds to shew that the Divine institution of the priesthood, and its legal collation upon us, can alone make under it, spiritually speaking, an accountable office. "From which truth arise two important considerations. We ought not, on the one hand, to be suspected of selfishness, in endeavouring to establish this point: because, if we succeed in doing so, we place ourselves in a predicament of great labour, difficulty, and danger of labour, from the multiplicity and magnitude of those duties, which an office of this nature must impose upon us; of diffi culty, in qualifying ourselves to perform them in an edifying and effectual manner; and of danger, in proportion to the difficulty. On the other hand, it is not to be wondered at, if we lift up our voice against the intrusion of those, who call themselves ministers, being such neither according to divine institution, nor by legal collation; because, even were we to allow that the responsibleness of this office is not necessarily dependent upon regular ordination to it, yet the extreme danger, which must result from misinterpreting important texts of scripture of simple and unlearned people, places in a strong point of view the temerity of those men, who, without any previous qualification, undertake the exposition of those sacred mysteries, which even we, who have been brought up in the schools of the prophets,' venture upon with diffidence and fear. For although there can be no doubt, but that the Scriptures are a book, intended for the comfort and instruction of all Christian people without distinction, and that to debar them from the perusal of it, is to prevent their access to the well-spring of life; although the main doctrines of the Gospel be laid down in so plain and perspicuous a manner, that to understand them requires no other qualifications than a sound head and a sincere heart; yet it is no less certain, that many parts of the sacred volume, which have a peculiar reference to the circumstances of time and place under which they were written, are for that reason necessarily obscure and ambiguous to the unlearned reader, and, of consequence, liable to be perverted to a mischievous sense. Of many passages in the Apostolical Epistles, in particular, no man can reasonably pretend to develop the exact drift and application, who has not previously qualified. himself for the task, by obtaining an accurate knowledge of the language |