present, or the Churchwardens, might bring the elements from the vestry, and give them over the rail to the consecrating priest; and if the clergy would condescend to come down from their stilts and explain these matters in a familiar way, there would be no opposition by the laity. The lukewarmness of the eighteenth century broke down all the good old customs of the Church; and now the unaffected apprehensions of the restoration of Popery by the revival of doctrines and customs of which the laity had never heard, alarms them; and in their alarm, which is increased by interested parties, they oppose themselves indiscriminately to doctrines which they have acknowledged and obeyed from their youth up. Among these is the oblation of the alms, and oblations, which are dedicated and solemnly offered in the prayer for the Church Militant. The word alms refers to the offerings of the congregation, which is their part of the sacrifice, and the priest represents the people to God. The word oblations, refers to the bread and the wine which have not yet been consecrated; but they are offered to God as, after consecration, the representations of the Body and Blood of Christ. In this prayer we humbly besesch God to accept them, which is a solemn dedication; and in the post-communion we beseech God to accept this our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving' or Eucharist. This is a well-timed pamphlet, and will do good in calming that excitement which the fear of Popery has on the public mind owing to the many apostacies from the ranks of those who have gone to the other extreme of ultra-high church THE LITANY IN THE AFTERNOON, appears to have been printed for private circulation; but it may be had at Messrs. J. H. and J. Parker's, Oxford and London. In a calm and moderate tone, the author draws attention to the Sunday Morning Services; and in order to shorten them he recommends the Litany to be omitted in the forenoon and repeated in the afternoon services. The following is his proposed plan: 'First, then, I would suggest that the services on Sunday be divided as follows: Matins at eleven; followed by the Communion Service. Evensong later in the afternoon, or in the evening. A sermon to follow one or more of these services, at the discretion of the priest of the parish. These changes would break up all our time-honoured associations; but we should be glad if Convocation would re-cast the psalms, and appoint different lessons for the evening and afternoon services, which would give different lessons and psalms for each of the three services. CHURCH No. CXIX. THE Ꮃ Ꭺ Ꭱ Ꭰ Ꭼ Ꭱ, And Domestic Magazine. THE SCOTTISH EPISCOPAL CHURCH SOCIETY. It is with great satisfaction that we acknowledge the receipt of the Seventeenth Report of a Society which might, if properly managed, be of incalculable benefit to the Church in Scotland. We are happy to perceive that a great improvement is admitted in the disbursement of the funds, and in the mode of operations. But before examining the particulars of this Report, we will take a hasty glance of that Church's history, since the downfall of the Papal Church in that kingdom. At the period of the great reformatory movement, in the 16th century, the Scoto-Papal Church was in a lower state of moral and ecclesiastical degradation than any of the other Churches in Europe. The greatest number of its bishops were merely laymen, who had never received any ordination to any spiritual function; but who were sons of royal and noble personages, that had been appointed to vacant bishoprics and abbacies in their infancy or youth; and who, on coming of age, performed all episcopal duties, but without having had ordination or consecration; they also took their seats and voted as of the spiritual estate in Parliament. These lay titulars assisted in the consecration of bishops, and they went through the form of ordaining priests and deacons; consequently, a moiety, at least, of so-called priests were laymen. And, therefore, we have reason to thank God the Almighty, that he raised up the rude and boisterous John Knox to completely extirpate that miscalled Church, which made no provision for the succession of its bishops; but allowed it to die out a natural death. Had the Scottish Papal bishops con VOL. X. K formed and continued the Church as in England, there could have been no certainty of their apostalicity, seeing so many of them were laymen. We have long been convinced that the cause of the fierce winds that have blown out of the Sanctuary against the true Church in that kingdom, has arisen from the act of a national synod or provincial council which was held at Linlithgow by Archbishop Hamilton, in the year 1552, 'in which the decrees and canons of the Council of Trent, which gave a new face to the Romish Church, were received as binding on the Church in Scotland in communion with the See of Rome.' (Vide Stephen's Hist. vol. i. p. 45.) In the year 1552, the Papal was undoubtedly the national established Church; therefore, the act of that national synod, was a national act. Although repudiated by all parties, yet by none of them, which have been since that period the established religion of the State, has a national denial of the Tridentine doctrines, or national protest, been nationally made against that national recognition of Popish idolatry and apostacy. Therefore, we have been long of opinion that, as the Tridentine millstone still hangs about the neck, so to speak, of that kingdom, so national religious convulsion has never ceased from that day to the present time; and, judging from the past, we may safely conclude, it never will, until a national PROTEST, nauonally, and with perfectly sincere humiliation, be made. John Knox, whose name will ever be associated with the Scottish Church, began his reformation by demolishing the cathedral churches; and this was followed up by a parliamentary confiscation of all the lands of the bishoprics and religious houses, and afterwards by seizing on the tithes for the use of the State. But Knox did not establish Presbytery; he settled an episcopal regimen, under the titles of superintendants, ministers, and readers; names which he substituted for bishops, priests, and deacons. Before his death, the ancient titles were revived; but still without any ordination; for John ruled that, albeit the apostles used the imposition of hands; yet, seeing the miracle is ceased, the using of the ceremony we judge not to be necessary.' All the Romish bishops and clergy, about three thousand, were proscribed, and peremptorily prohibited from officiating in public; and, to supply the place of this large body of clergy, the Reformation was undertaken by five superintendants and nine ministers, all unordained. Knox died in 1572, and by that time all the bishoprics and the parishes, the number of which had been reduced by unions to under 900, were filled by unordained ministers. Two years after Knox's death, a Jesuit, named Andrew Melville, started the, till then, unheard-of project of the Presbyterian form of church government; but he experienced such a determined opposition from the episcopacy, such as it was, that it cost him twenty years of agitation before he succeeded in gaining an establishment for it; but which only lasted eight years. The confusion which the Presbyterian system introduced, and the tyranny which it exercised over all classes and degrees, were so great, that the people demanded, and the Parliament enacted, its expulsion; when the former imperfect episcopacy was restored, which continued till the 21st of October, 1810, when three of these titular bishops were consecrated at London; and the following year they consecrated their brethren in Scotland. James Beaton, the last of the Papal bishops, died in full possession of his See of Glasgow, in 1603; so that there was only a hiatus of about seven years, betwixt the last of the Papal and the first of the Reformed episcopacy. Although Presbytery only existed as an establishment for eight years, yet its sting remained, rankled and festered, till it produced the Solemn League and Covenant which caused the murder of the sovereign, and the overthrow of the Church in the three kingdoms. On the Restoration, the Presbyterians were split into two hostile and irreconcileable factions; and episcopacy was again established by law. Four men were selected by Charles II. himself, and were solemnly consecrated in Westminster Abbey; two of whom were already priests, but the other two were ordained priests before they were consecrated. Dr. Sharp, who was murdered by the Presbyterian faction, was appointed Archbishop of St. Andrews, from whom the present race of Scottish bishops derive their apostolic succession. At the Revolution in 1688, the Scottish bishops were witnesses for a great principle of Christian morality, and refused to transfer their allegiance from their sovereign, to whom and his heirs they had sworn obedience, to the Prince of Orange. The Presbyterian faction, for it was merely such, lawlessly and tumultuously 'rabbled' the episcopal clergy out of their churches and manses, with the connivance of the new government, throughout the diocese of Glasgow; and the bishops were dispossessed of their Sees and their political station; but they still maintained their spiritual authority over their dioceses, and never dropped their titles as bishops of such and such Sees. The whole nation was with them, except a small, but turbulent faction, which experienced great difficulty in filling up the vacancies in the northern parishes as the episcopal incumbents died out. There was a flourishing Church in Scotland, and all the Sees were full; but the persecuting spirit evinced by the Presbyterians compelled the British Parliament, in the year 1712, to pass an act to prevent the disturbing of those of the episcopal communion in that part of Great Britain called Scotland in the exercise of their religious worship, and in the use of the Liturgy of the Church of England; and for repealing an act passed in the Parliament of Scotland, entitled an Act against Irregular Baptisms and Marriages; and declaring it lawful for all Episcopalians to assemble for divine worship in any place, except in parish churches, to be performed after their own manner, by pastors ordained by a Protestant bishop. This act relieved their fears of persecution from the Presbyterians, during that period of change and suffering; and they had some hopes of further relief from their sufferings, until the unfortunate risings in 1715 and 1745, when a persecution of the Church by the Parliament of England and the Presbyterian functionaries commenced, such as has never been experienced by any branch of the Church since the last Pagan persecution under Dioclesian. An act of the Imperial Parliament was passed, which declared every clergyman in any episcopal meeting-house in Scotland, who had not registered his letters of orders, nor taken all the oaths required by law, nor prayed for King George by name, should, for the first offence, suffer six months' imprisonment; and for the second, be transported to the colonies into slavery for life; and in case of returning, then to suffer imprisonment for life. This unchristian act was not allowed to remain a dead letter; for every judge and |