power of Hamilton, conferred on Prideaux, who formerly had been his tutor; all of them of good parts and merit, and under some especial character of esteem and favor in the eyes of the people, though some of them declined afterwards from their former height. Nor were there more changes after these, till the suppressing of episcopacy by the Ordinance of the Lords and Commons, bearing date October 9, Anno, 1646, but that Frewen, dean of Gloucester, and president of Magdalen College in Oxon, was consecrated Bishop of Coventry and Litchfield, on the death of Wright, in the beginning of the year 1641; and Howel, one of the prebends of Windsor, and chaplain in ordinary to his Majesty, was preferred to the bishopric of Bristol, on the death of Westfield, before the end of the same year."* "Then I said, I have laboured in vain; I have spent my strength for nought, and in vain." LORD, who thy blood for man hast shed, Regard me with a pitying eye: Thy waves and storms around me spread, I teach, and toil, and pray in vain, My longing eyes to thee I strain, Thou who hast known that bitter smart, Fix to thy cross my wavering heart, Jan. 12, 1837. Heylyn's Life of Laud. Anno 1641. U VOL. XIII.-Feb. 1838. e. "The servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves.' Jan. 17, 1837. STRIVE not too rudely, thou mayest chance To strive unlawfully, in vain : In meek long-suffering advance, On peaceful minds and gentle hearts In quietness and confidence O tarry thou, his leisure wait, e. PSALM CXXIII. "Ad Te levavi oculos meos." O THOU who dwellest in yon infinite height, Who ridest in the storm, and bidd'st the light To Thee I lift my failing eyes in prayer; I see Thee not, but Thou art present there. As slaves obsequious at the opening gate As youthful maidens' anxious eyes await So wait our eyes, O Lord our God, on Thee, Until thy mercy and thy grace we see. Mercy, good Lord, have mercy, Lord, with speed, And leave us not to mourn: Thou art "our only help in time of need." See how forlorn, Despised and scorned we kneel; nor has the day With boastful taunts of worldlings, as with swords, We shrink before the high presumptuous words Base Mammon, "giant Pride," confederate stand, Ꮎ . THE RISING OF THE FLOODS. "The waves of the sea are mighty, and rage horribly: but yet the Lord, who dwelleth on high, is mightier." GEBAL and Ammon, Amalek and Tyre, They hate each other, but they hate thee more, O Sion, lovely city! and their ire Chafes like the infinite billows on the shore, That vex the ancient rocks with never-ceasing roar. High o'er the water-flood the Lord doth reign, And rules the people in their maddest hour: "Peace! be thou still!" shall calm the darkest storms that lower. And angels with their golden harps were heard Yet once more he will come-girded with might, The sun shall cease his glorious beams to shed, Oh! what a time of fearfulness and power- J. C. P. CORRESPONDENCE. The Editor begs to remind his readers that he is not responsible for the opinions LETTERS ON THE CHURCH OF THE FATHERS. NO. XXI. (Continued from vol. xi. p. 522.) FROM what has been said it would appear, that the canons called apostolical came to us under circumstances which make them of especial service in our present inquiry. That inquiry is this-whether in the records of antiquity there are any traces of that sudden corruption or declension of primitive Christianity which ultra-protestants say certainly did take place, or else Christianity, as we find it in history, would not be so unlike their own Christianity; or whether, on the other hand, this argument itself be not the real and sole ground of the alleged fact, viz., "Christians must necessarily have fallen away, or else ultra-protestantism is not divine." Is the suffered declension proved historically, or is it argued and inferred that it cannot but be so, as being a necessary hypothesis, or key-stone, for reconciling discordant evidence, viz., ancient facts with modern opinions? In short, is there, or is there not, any ground for the imputation thus urged upon the Christianity of the second and third centuries, beyond the necessity of making it on the part of its supporters,-beyond the duty of selfdefence, and the right of self-preservation ? However necessary and becoming as is such a struggle for life, I do not think it will avail the ultra-protestant who makes it. The problem before him is to draw a line between the periods of purity and alleged corruption, such as may have all the apostles on one side, and all the fathers on the other, which may insinuate and meander through the dove-tailings and inosculations of historical facts, and cut clean between St. John and St. Ignatius, St. Paul and St. Clement; low enough not to encroach upon the book of Acts, yet so high as to be out of the reach of all extant documents besides. And any how, whether he succeeds or not, so much he must grant, that if such a system of doctrine as he would now introduce ever existed in early times, it has been clean swept away as if by a deluge, suddenly, silently, and without memorial; by a deluge coming in a night, and utterly soaking, rotting, heaving up, and hurrying off, before cockcrowing, every vestige of what it found in the church; so that "when they rose in the morning" her true seed "were all dead corpses"— nay, dead and buried-but without grave stone. "The waters went over them; there was not one of them left; they sunk like lead in the mighty waters." Strange antitype, indeed, to the early fortunes of Israel!-then the enemy was drowned, and "Israel saw them dead upon the sea-shore." But now, it would seem, water proceeded as a flood "out of the serpent's mouth," and covered all the witnesses, so that not even their dead bodies "lay in the streets of the great city." Let him take which of his doctrines he will, his peculiar view of selfrighteousness, of formality, of superstition, his notion of faith, or of spirituality in religious worship, his denial of the virtue of the sacraments, or of the ministerial commission, or of the visible church, or his doctrine of the divine efficacy of the scriptures as the one appointed instrument of religious teaching, and let him consider how far antiquity, as it has come down to us, will countenance him in it. No; he must allow that the supposed deluge has done its work; yes, and has in turn disappeared itself; it has been swallowed up in the earth, mercilessly as itself was merciless. This representation has been usually met by saying, that the extant records of primitive Christianity are scanty, and that, for what we know, what is not extant, had it survived, would have told a different tale. But granting this, the hypothesis that history might contain facts which it does not contain, is no positive evidence for the truth of those facts; and this is the question, what is the positive evidence that the church ever believed or taught a gospel substantially different from that which its extant documents contain? All the evidence that is extant, be it much or be it little, is on our side; ultra-protestants have none. Is none better than some? Scarcity of records-granting for argument's sake there is scarcity-may be taken to account for ultra-protestants having no evidence; it will not account for our having all that is to be had; it cannot become a positive evidence in their behalf. That records are few is no argument or presumption in favour of their being worthless. Whether, however, there be scarcity of primitive documents or not, I would contend that, supposing the appeal to facts be allowed as a legitimate line of argument, not only there is none for them, but there is enough for us. But the advocates of the creed, by courtesy called protestantism, do not allow the appeal; they aver that the apostolic system of the church was certainly lost, when they know not, how they know not, without assignable instruments, but by a great revolution,-of that they are certain; and then they challenge us to prove it was not so. "Prove," they say, "if you can, that the real and very truth is not so entirely hid from the world as to leave not a particle of evidence betraying it. The very speciousness of your error is, that all the arguments are in your favour. Is it not possible that an error has got the place of the truth, and has destroyed all the evidence but what witnesses in its behalf? Is it not possible that all the churches should everywhere have given up and stifled the scheme of doctrine they received from the apostles, and have substituted another for it? Of course it is; it is obvious to common sense it may be so. Well, we say, what may be, is; this is our great principle: we say that the apostles considered episcopacy an indifferent matter, though Ignatius says it is essential. We say that the table is not an altar, though Ignatius says it is. We say there is no priest's office under the gospel, though Clement affirms it. We say that baptism is not an enlightening, though Justin takes it for granted. We say that heresy is a misfortune, though Ignatius accounts it a |