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IMapa, plataa, charts, ate, may ba filmad at diffarant reduction ratios. Thosa too larga to ba antlraly includad in ona axposura ara filmad baglnning in tha uppar laft hand cornar, laft to right and top to bottom, as many framas as raqulrad. Tha following diagrams illustrata tha mathod: Las cartas, planchaa, tableaux, ate, pauvant Atra filmto A daa taux da reduction diffArants. Lorsquo la document est trop grand pour Atre reprodult en un seul clichA. 11 est fllmA A partir da Tangle supArieur gauche, de gauche i droite. et de haut en bas, en prenent le nombre d'imagas nAcessaire. Lea diagrammes suivants illustrant la mAthode. 2 3 t i • 6 I i .wmmiM. mmAnm H1JZ.D m i!am CATMEIMIAL 0BB8CH flFf^B^ ON THE llTH JANUAEY, 1854, BY OIBORQB J; IDOU NT A IN, D. D, D. 0. L. i.ORD BISHOP OP QUEBEC. **^«*«»*«* «« f*f r«9«(Mf 9r ih€ €i0r0u» QUEBEC: PRINTED BY T. GARY. mi. \i i -m •mmiy^ A CHABGE DELIVERED TO THE CLERGY OF THK DIOCESE OF QUEBEC, AT THE f MEMMMIL ¥I[§nTMI®H HELD IN THE -t CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF QUEBEC, ON THE llTH JANUARY, 1854-, BY GEORGE J. MOUNTAIN, D. D., D. C. L. LORD BiSHOP OP QUEBEC. PubUahed at the requeat of the Clergy. QUEBEC : PRINTED BY T. GARY. 1854. A C H A R G £ DELIVERED TO THE CLERGY OF THE DIOCESE OF QUEBEC. i My Reverend Brethren, We are permitted to meet once more in Triennial Visita- tion, — a body of pastors having charge, within our sphere, of the cause of Christ, the interests of His kingdom and the sal- vation of immortal souls. A charge in any times and under any circumstances, sufficiently arduous, sufficiently respon- sible, sufficiently replete with anxiety — so trembling an anxiety that if we had only our own strength and wisdom to rely upon, in the execution of our task, we must sink in a despairing sense of impotency. And as the periods return which bring us thus together, we find in each advancing step, the shades still deepening upon us, which are suggestive of solemn and awful contemplation. The signs of the times are pregnant, more and more, with a magnificent future, perhaps to be ushered in upon the world, by great and terrible convulsions, and these, for what we know, nigh, even at the doors. We stand at the same time, with reference to the affairs of our own Communion in particular, in a highly critical conjunc- ture, and one of great promise intermixed with no small difficulties and perils. It may not be improper to spare a single moment for the consideration of the signs of the times. Twenty-two years ago — before my occupation of my present office in the Church, being called upon to preach a Visitation-Sermon, I was im- pelled to notice the grave and ominous aspect of affairs in the world and to express myself upon the subject thus : Let us in the present continuance of a most awful, altho' abated visita- tion, heretofore unknown except in remote regions of the East, which has ,^tl 8tiU been travolling westward over the countries of the earth and has fallen with almost unexampled severity among ourselves, bo found firm and faithful nt our post;; and warn those under our charge to '' hear the rod • and who huh appointed it,"— to heed the voice from Heaven which speaks to them in this appalling affliction.—" Bo ye ready also," it solemnly proclaims to us all. And when we shall be enabled to say, one wue is past — who knows that there may not bo cause to add, behold there come more woes quickly. It is not, indeed, for us to Icnotc the times and the seasons which the Father hath put in his own power, — but who knows that this pestilence, coupled as it has been already with other signs alike presageful in former instances, of mighty change and desolation, — with wars and rumours of wars, commo- tion in divers countries,— the powers ordainedby Heaven shaken upon their thrones, — distress of nations witli pi-rplcxity, —men's hearts failing them for fear and for looking after those things which are coming upon the earth, — who knows that thus coupled, it may not bo the prelude to other and yet sorer visitations .' Who knows that convulsions arc not at hand which will shake the earth, as it were, to iiur centre, — pangs perliaps maiking the birth of future blessings to mankind, but designed while they last, as a searching test of the constancy of our service, and ordained to " try every man's work of what sort it is '?' My brethren, it was this kind of language which I, (among others,) was laugiit to hold, at tlie distance of tinfie which I have mentioned, by a perusal of the lessons then presented in the course, character and tendency of earthly events. And if these twenty and odd years have passed away, and nothing has yet occurred visibly to disturb the condition or affect the prospects of the Church, but things to which the world may have often witnessed a parallel before, — shall we therefore, with reference to the coming of the kingdom of God with power, be prompted to borrow the language of the unbelievers described by the prophet, that say : Let Him make speed and hasten His work that we may see it, and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come that we may know it! or that of the scoffers of the last days^ marked out by an Apostle, who asked : Where is the promise of His coming for, . . . all things continue as they were? No— rather shall we re- member the prolonged notes of prelude to the coming of our Saviour Christ in the flesh, — the slowly developed yet strongly marked preparation of the (rain of affairs upon earth, for the disclosure of that mystery which, from the beginning of the world had been hid in God — the graduall;' awakened expec- tation of mankind, by a kind of afflatus from above, earnestly • Mic. vi. 9. This rather unusual figure of speech will remind the classical scholar of an expression used by Virgil, Nequp audit rurrns habenas. — Georg. 1. 514. I d has fallen and faithful * and who s to them in ins to us all. s that there h the Father oupled as it nstances, of rs, comino- 1 upon tlieir ng them for the earth,— lier and yet which will iig the birth a searching man's work , (among e which I ited in the (I if these ig has yet prospects ave often reference prompted i by the His work I One of 1 or that Apostle, Jor,..^ 1 we re- ng of our t strongly for the ig of the expec- earnestly le classical i I directed to some great and new interposition which, io God's own way and time, took effect, disappointing both the national ambition of the Jews and the subtle and fastidious philosophy of tho Greeks, but proving then and in all the ages which have followed, io them that believe^ the power of God and the wisdom of God manifested in Christ. The survey of scenes now passing upon the theatre of tho world, presents (jucstions, engenders speculations, excites ex- pectations, with which, as teachers of Religion, as scribes instructed vnto the kingdom of heaven and qualified to bring out of their treasure things new and old, wo ought to be prepared to deal. Wonderfid, most wondertul are the times in which our lot is cast. I couUI say nothing new, nothing ori- ginal, nothing but what suggcstsorratlier what forcibly presents itself to vxcry obscrvingand serious mind and must often, I doubt not, have formed the subject of your own monitions to your flocks, — were 1 to occupy your time in dwelling upon the amazing im|)rovcnnonts of the age, — taken in conjunction with the political movements and social changes of the world, — in their ordained cQoct, as we must devoutly believe, upon the loftiest interests of man and upon the progre.ss of the kingdom of God, travelling on to its predicted universality of conquest. Your attention, my Reverend brethren, cannot possibly require to be directed to the religious consequences which must be anticipated from all those new and still multiplying marvels which wo witness in the facilities, — first, of communication over the surface of the globe, promising, in their progressive operation, to afford the me;ms of bringing into familiar and easy intimacy all the branches of this vast family of man, and nej:t, of the transmisr jon of intelligence in such a mii^ner as to make the knowledge of all that is j)i!ssing in each part of the world, the property, in a manner, of the whole, in a single day. We all feel that the contemplation is, in itself, of an overpowering character ; and if we fix our regards, at the same time, upon the breaking up or the loosening, in conspi- cuous instances, of inveterate usage and immemorial prescrip- tion in many countries of the East, — so as to prepare the minds of men for foregoing, in other and higher points, their heredi!,«iy prejudices and for admitting the principle of change, — if we mark the heaving of whole empires, if we look 6 f at what is piissing in China, — if wo watch the struggle into which the Ottoman power, the centre of Ishimism, is now plunged, — and if wo trace, at the same time, so far as is per- mitted to us, the delineations of prophetic hands in pages re- ferring to the changes of the world, — we cannot fail, with all this varied combination before our eyes, of subjects for reflec- tion, to frame auguries of n grand and thrilling interest, for some approaching development of the destinies of the Church of God. Nor can we, in the opening, in particular to English and American enterprise, of long unsuspected treasures in the bowels of the earth, (whatever evils may, for the moment, at- tend the discovery of gold,) fail to note a powerful impulse given from the hand of God, to the dispersion over remote regions of the globe, of men springing from the two branches of one remarkable stock. • And we may contemplate under the same aspect, other and marked causes which lend a sti- mulus, specially in the same two quarters, to travel and ad- venture, — verifying the words that many shall run to and fro and knotvledge shall be increased. Have we, then, any special duty to perform in connection with this survey of things ? My Reverend brethren, it is, in my apprehension, very evident that we should lead our people to such solemn contemplations, when we see them backward, and that in other instances we should endeavor to guide, to moderate, to repress their too eager and unchastised enquiries, their too precipitate adoption of theories and expositions which may be thrown in their way. We ought lo apply for our own use, and teach others to apply for theirs the reproachful question of the Sa- viour : Hoiv is it that ye do not discern this time 9 and the instruction of His Apostle : We have also a more sure word of prophecy whereunto ye do well that ye take heed^ as to a light that shineth in a dark place. But we ought, at the same time, to cultivate in ourselves a watchful scn^e of those warn- ings which are addressed to us in the word of God against an impatient and presum[)tuous spirit of interpretation, in the application of propiiecy to the passing events of tl)e V\'orld. We ought lo steer clear alike of an inert indifference or a • The auri sacra James would gecm thus, in its indirect effects, to take the character of sacra in tlic more ordinary fcnsc, as well as in that which it bears in the words of Virgil. ggle into m, is now as is per* pages re- , with all ior reflec- erest, for 10 Church • English res in the jmcnt, at- im|)ulse sr remote branches ate under }nd a sti- ;l and ad- tn to and then, any survey of ehension, I) solemn t in other to repress recipitate rovvn in teach the Sa- and the ure word as to a tlie same so warn- linst an in the World, nee or a take the which it nd timid and .shrinking dc'inTcalion ut" the .suhject, on ihu ono hand, and, on the other, ol a dangierois temerity which serves to verify the description that " fooL rush in where angels fear to tread." There arc many believers who manifest the same kmd of spirit which is pictured to us in the parable of the tares : Wilt thou^ then, that we go and gather them up i They want, all at once, to see that new order of things and that glorious display of tho kingdom, Willi which their imaginations have been tired, and to their own favorite anticipations of which, they accommodate tho revelation of the Most High. And how unspeakable is the damage done in this kind of Wfiy to tho cause of the Gospel ! How multiplied are the exam- ples, recorded in Church History and occurring in almost all ages oi the Church, of tho rash proclamation that the Millen- nium, and that understood according to some dreamy imagi- nations, or else tho destruction of tho world, was close at hand ! These hardy interpretations indicating, in a precise manner, such and sucii results of tho movements taking place in the world, to bo immediately impending, and all being falsi- fied by the event, — the effect upon not a few minds which had been interested and excited by the glowing pictures put before them, is either a languor and decay of religion, under their disappointment, or an absolute rejection of faith in prophecy at all, because son.e plausible expositions, at once confident and ingenious, have proved to be without foundation. While, then, we endeavor to point to a momentous consummation to which all things are visibly tending, — the subject, in part, of the very petition taught us by the Lord and belonging to the simplest rudiments of our Religion, Thy kingdom come ! We ought, at the same time, to remember that the day and the hour of its commencing point, are among the things hidden from angels as well as men, and our motto and maxim must be in patience to possess our souls ; our prayer to God that He would direct our hearts and those of our followers into the love of Himself and the patient waiting for Christ. The indications of that which will shake not earth only but also Iteaven, may be gathering and condensing themselves from all quarters of the horizon, and yet it may be seen, as the course of events proceeds, that t'-e end is not by and by, * • See nolo A. i But I must not dwell long upon any one topic, and I pass to the consideration of the condition, the encouragements, and the difficulties of our own Communion. . The state of p; rties within the Church of England has recently been set forth in a well known literary quarter, with great cleverness, and, no doubt, with a great mixture of truth, and with merit also, in other points of view.f I am not to be, )by any means, understood as speaking with reference to the execution of this particular task or pointing at any particular publication, if I take occasion to remark, generally^ that men should be something more than men of the world — something more than men of acute parts, established character and exten- sive information, — to treat correctly and safely of matters in- volving the right exercise of a divine commission and the right application of spiritual truths to the hearts of sinners. A heavenly discipline of the mind ; a carefully cherished light within the bosom, which has been kindled from off the altars of the living God ; an experimental knowledge of the wants of fallen nature before God and the relief of those wants in Christ, are what we shall all feel, I believe, to be necessary to a just discrimination and an adequate appreciation of doctrinal dif- ferences relating to the mystery of L odliness. There is a certain tone of assumed superiority, a certain self-satisfied spirit of sarcasm, pronouncing, as from a seat of elevation, with an easy scorn and an ironical pleasantry upon the questions under review, whether religious, political or more general in their character, which has become very fashionable among the writers, on whatever side, for the periodical press — but which is often very shallow and ill-sustained in its pretensions — usually in vicious taste — and always irreconcilable with the temper of Christian humility and love. It is, in fact, not unfrequently a very dangerous snare to a Christian who is drawn into public discussions, to possess a facility, — and it is no very exalted gift, especially in the form of imitation, — for t The article is exceedingly unjust, however, towards the Bishop of Cape- town and some other Colonial Bishops of more recent appointment who are most devoted and Apostolic men. It appears strange that the reading of the Offertory sentences upon ordinary Sundays should be set down in a list of practices which are the badgM of Tractarianism — the practice having prevailed all along in many Churches, before Tractarianism was heard of. intl 9 igland has arter, with e of truth, I noi to be, ice to the particular I that men something and exten- latters in- d the right nners. A shed light the altars 3 wants of in Christ, to a just trinai dif- rhere is a f-satisfied tion, with question* general in imong the Jut which ensions — with the fact, not who is -and it is ion, — for )p of Cape- jnt who are on ordinary badgsa of ' Churches, indulging in this kind of style. It is nut in such a spirit that religious subjects can be safely approached or disposed of with even an approximation to a really enlightened view of their merits. i I do not mean to be too severe upon mere occasional play- fulness of style, even where grave matters are treated : it is something different from this upon which I am remarking. But pursuing such remarks no farther, I will only say with reference to the subject which has given rise to them, that, however painful may be the contemplation of these divisions in the Anglican Church and however hurtful to the cause of Religion any sportive and sneering exhibition of them before the world, — they are yet a sign of life as well as of liberty in the Church ; and if it were a necessary consequence that they should exist whenever the Church is roused from a state of stagnation and inertness, we might thankfully compound to submit to the evil of partizanship, in order to be saved from the evil of inefficiency. But surely it is a possible state of things in the Church of God, that peace and unanimity should pervade the body, at the same time that it is awake to its glo- rious calls of duty and instinct with spiritual fervor and life. This is evidently the condition of things for which we should pray and which, within our sphere, we should earnestly en- deavor to promote. We must not, of course, compromise principle, nor expect such a compromise from others, but, fol- lowing our own convictions of duty, we must jealously watch, at the same time, over the influences which act upon our judg- ments and must take care also, that if the differences in which we take our part, engender heat or bitterness of spirit, this consequence shall not be chargeable upon ourselves. * All parties disclaim party-spirit — and no party is justly chargeable with it for simple attachment to this or that set of opinions : for then it would be party-spirit to love the Gospel of salvation ; to defend essential and fundamental truth, to preserve any fences, at all, of order in the Church or sound- ness in the faith ; to insist upon the necessity of those remedies for the moral disease of human nature, the cause of spiritual and eternal death, which are proposed to the mind as objects * See note B. B 10 ii of belief and must take their effect, personally, by being so accepted. In one way or other, therefore, we must be content to be called prejudiced and narrow-minded bigots — for so we shall be called in the world, so long as we set a value upon any particular opinions and refuse to compromise our princi- ples. For this reason, I cannot think that the distinctive epi- thet oi broad is a term which, describing a party in (he classi- fication of the Church to which I have referred, whatever eminent and valuable individuals it may serve to comprehend, — is, in itself^ happily chosen : it is of rather an unfortunate affinity with the term latiludinarian, and has a more unfor- tunate affinity with the description of the broad way which is contrasted with the way of life. In genuine charity, however, of spirit and of judgment to- wards our brethren of mankind, God grant that we may be "as broad and general as the casing air'' ! And I do trust that we are not chargeable with party-spirit and prejudice, because we may feel ourselves compelled to stand aloof, when endea- vors are made to carry on the cause of the Gospel ander the banner of what is called " our commmon Protestantism." Our common Protestantism^ describing all bodies ; of pro- fessed Christians (except tha ancient Churches of the East,) which repudiate the claims of Rome, comprehends evidently and undeniably a prodigious amount of error such as every sound believer must deplore. 1 shall not take up your time by dwelling at great length upon this argument, which I have felt it my di^ty to pursue upon some former occasions of our meeting as we meet now — oc- casions upon which the operations of the Cbirch and the principles upon which they should be conducted, as well as the particular difficulties characteristic of the times, which we have to encounter in conducting them, — come naturally or rather necessarily under review. One prime, one prominent duty of the Christian Ministry is to watch jealously, con- stantly and closely, over the soundness of the faith as once delivered to the saints^ and its transmission in its unimpaired integrity as well as its unsullied purity, from age to age. If this be true, it is evident that we cannot discharge our duty with- out being exposed to the imputation of exclusiveness. It is my own belief that, but for the stand which is extensively made '^ # 1 y being so be content -for so we ra\\ie upon )ur prinoi- nctive epi- the classi- whatever )mprehend, mfortunate lore unfor- ^ray which idgment lo- may be " as trust that ce, because hen endea- d ander the dStantism." ies ; of pro- lies of the )mprehends , of error shall not upon this ursue upon now — 00- and the as well as which we iturally or prominent uwly, con- as once unimpaired ige. Ifthis duty wiih- ess. It is lively made M ••IP 11 in the Church of England against the indiscriminate fusion in public proceedings, of so many varieties of religious persua- sion, the cause of truth and Protestantism, undermined from year to year, by the implied concession of this point and that point in the articles of received belief, would be reduced to a tottering condition and fall gradually to pieces. * The bar- riers and bulwarks which are opposed to this advancing tide by the firmness of uncompromising Churchmen, do appear to me, by the appointment of God, to hold an important place among the means of preserving the citadel of the faith itself; and of averting consequences which sincere believers who dissent from us, would lament equally with ourselves. They have cause, themselves, (if I am not in error in this supposi- tion,) to be thankful to us for that which they are ready to condemn as intolerance or stillness. In fact the whole system of our Cliurth and the whole character impressed upon it, — its order, its stability, its standing provision for spiritual wants generally, and for special occasions, its sound and scriptural form of worship passed on without change through all the fluctuating sentiments, the varying predilections, the shifting theories, the transient excitements which succeed each other in the history of religion among mankind, — the whole system and character of the Church, thus regarded, constitute a safe- guard of Orthodoxy, of vrhich the effect is felt far beyond our own pale and for the sake of which, we may be content to encounter, if need bo, some prejudice and odium or even to forego, upon occasion, some templing advantage in pushing on the work of the Church. From (he time when I first enibarked in that work, I have often hoard the sentiment expressed that the multiplying divi- sions of the Protestant world, are matter rr less restricted. 15 ►me with all sources and I every side which we in warfare, and deeds []ach of us — an(? how »or of that 5t beautiful uid succour r minds by •d ! As a Y impressed is crisis in 1 wide the jject of pro- aithjto plant e ;'a{ions cf elf without nt of view, lich we are it religion, its different :ial changes \\ condition these anti- il extension e the mul- of perma- ? Ought rtain cxhibi- reter-natural d ; but I will opportuni- sc is undenia- 1 ictercourse \ discounte- in tlie New we not to believe that there is something real and encouraging to the hearts of those who love the cause of Christ, in the happy an'J jjopeful auguries framed in so many quarters, from the recent interchange of brotherly greetings and acts of Ca- tholic communion, which have passed between our own Church and her (hinghter in foreign America, when viewed, side by side, with the new energies developing themselves in each, before our eyes ! No doubt there may be in the pleasing glov/ which spreads itself over our survey of these transactions, some colouring here and there, of human feeling and fancy. Some mixture of a partial estimate biassed by our particular tastes, notions and predilections in religion, some lurking fond- ness for the credit and glory of what happens to be our own party, — may-contribute their share to the judgment which we are ready to f )rm upon the case, and from any such dross we should pray that it may be purified. But making all due allow- ance for these influences and these prepossessions, I do, for my own part, entertain the deepest conviction that there is a call from God, of a marked character, to our own Church in the British Empire and foreign America, at this day, to take a leading share in carrying on the evangelization of the world, and that we now see the beginnings of far greater things yet to be seen in this behalf. Whether we embrace or repudiate this particular view of the position assigned to us and the task which we have to dis- cliarge, in the present state of the world, — one thing is plain that it is by means of our own system fairly, legitimately and consistently carried out, — by means of the hierarchy, the worship, the forms, ordinances', rules and observances of the Church of England, as they stand delivered to us, that we are to do our ministerial work. We are not pledged to see no imperfections in our own system, or to wish for no possible change in any of its details, when the time shall serve, — but we are under vows, — vows stamped with the most awful solem- nity — so to minister the doctrine and sacraments and the discipline of Christ as the Lord hath commanded and as thin Church and realm hath received the same, according to the commandments of God, so that we may teach the people — observe — committed to our care and charge, with all diligencb: to krep and obseuvr the same. Thfre is tli 16 11 hi something which it is distressing to contemplate, in any deviation in the direction of Rome, from the principles and injunctions of the Church of England, on the part of any clergyman who is under these vows, — involving as, beyond a doubt, they were intended to do, a distinct reference to our rejection of Romish error. But the same kind of remark will apply to deviations in another direction also : and it is really monstrous, I cannot think the expression too strong — that the honest, faithful and unexaggerated maintenance of some of tht plainest principles of the Protestant Church of England, maintained uninterruptedly by the best of her Protestant cham- pions in successive ages, the greatest names that we have in our Church, — should be stigmatized as a spirit of innovation tending towards Rome. This species of misrepresentation is, in many instances, but too evidently an artifice, temptingly easy, to excite odium and suspicion, in order to serve a purpose in hand : — in other instances it is the ncere echo returned from an excited and uninformed crowd : in others still, it is the too ready adoption of alarm, coupled again with want of information, proceeding from a sincere love of the p".re and uncorrupted truth of God — but in all, '•' is not only utterly groundless and signally unfair, but esuentu^lly mischievo'is to the very cause of which the parties assume to be defenders. I might take many examples in illustration of these remarks — but I will con- fine myself to one. I take the example of the Apostolic succession. I have no wish to open my mouth about the Apos- tolic succession : I do not know that ever I used the phrase in the pulpit in my life, and very rarely indeed have I touched upon the subject : — the foundation and constitution of our Ministry ought to bo things received as of course : unchallenged and unquestioned things : we ought to be left in peace in the exercise of our authenticated commission, without the necessity of asserting a syllable in it's defence : and there is nothing which 1 recommend less than that we should be for ever thun- dering these matters in the ears of our people. But can it be right that, when the question of the title to the Ministry is forced upon us, members of our own Communion should raise a cry against the Apostolic succession, as if it were an idea brought in by a dangerous modern party in the Church and carrying a popish savour ? — What is the fact ? — Look at the assertioii " fri or PI fe ml i th I 17 ate, in any rinciples and part of any as, beyond a erence to our •f remaiknrill id it is really ong— that the e of some of of England, (testant chara- de have in our Mtion tending n is, in many igly easy, to I purpose in irned from an I the too ready information, uncorrupted roundless and e very cause might take lut I will con- le Apostolic )nt the Apos- he phrase in touched upon ur Ministry allenged and ?ace in the ;he necessity e is nothing r ever thun- ut can it be try is forced raise a cry dea brought carrying a ^ assertioij which our prayer-book carries upon its face, of the continuity from apostolic days, of the three orders of the ministry. Look at the established rule of our Communion everywhere, that, with all our strenuous renunciation of Romish usurpations and Romish errors, we admit into our ministry, without re- ordination, Romish priests who recant, while we re-ordain Protestant ministers. Look at the recognition, after formal and mature scrutiny, by a British Act of Parliament, passed more than a hundred years ago,* of the episcopal succession in the Unilas Fratrum, or Moravian body of Christians : (For even the secular department of the Church has held this as an avowed and necessary principle of the national establishment.) Look at the first formation ot the Episcopate in the United States of America, after the close of the revolutionary war, when recourse was had to an act of the same parliament to enable the English prelacy to consecrate Bishops for America, upon the evident and open assumption that without the succes- sion, the proposed ministry could not be regularly constituted, recourse having been, at the same time, declined to another quarter where the succession was regarded as questionable.! Or, if we would turn to the example of a national Church abroad, look at the anxiety manifested, the pains taken by Gustavus Vasa, distinguished and illustrious as a Protestant monarch, to preserve inviolate the principle of the succession, preserved to this day, in the Episcopate of Sweden. And ask now, among the very parties in the Church where this principle is made the object of attack, and perhaps of ridicule, whether they are, one and all, deliberately prepared, if it were to come to the point, to abandon it ; whether they would feel distinctly and comfortably satisfied in substituting a ministry and passing it on to their posterity, which would not and could not claim any such foundation. Let the answer be inferred from the recent instance of a celebrated Protestant champion of our Church at Liverpool, considered in many, quarters as an extreme • In 1749. t The letter which proceeded in March, 1851, from the English Arch- bishops and Bishops, in a body, recommending to their clergy, caution and prudence in alterations introduced into public worship, and abstinence from unwarranted innovations, assumes the principle of the succession in the Anglican Church. It affirms that Church to be the saine which subsisted before the Reformation, then in a corrupted state. C 18 I 3 liberal ami uUra-Protcstant, who, in one of his contests with Romish assailants, maintained his own title to the ministry precisely upon the principle here in (luestion. And if he had not done so, he would have quitted a vantage-ground against Romanism, which greatly fortitics our hands in the defence of the pure truth of God, and the loss of which would certainly in one point, place us in a difficulty, when engaged in that controversy. Nor do I think that wo ought to regard it as otherwise than providential that the documents establishing the unbroken succession of the Anglican Episcopate, have been preserved, and were accessible to a Romish writer, in a noted instance, who in his resistance, on belialf of the Gallican Church, to ultramontane pretensions, maintained the validity of English Ordinations. * But it is not so much the value of the succession in itself, which is to our immediate purpose, as the simple fact of its constituting a plainly recognized prin- ciple of our own communion all along, and yet being treated as if it were the mark of a new and peculiar school. And it would be easy to shew in the same way, that there are other principles now assailed as if they were badges ot the same school ?nd deviations from pure Protestant principle, which are not only incorporated with the system of the Church of Englancl, but with that of the other great branches of the Reformation. So fliat men are hastily and inconsiderately charged with quitting the principles of the Reformation, when, in the very particulars brought into question, it is on the side of the very persons making such a charge that a variation from those principles is really to be witnessed. My Reverend Brethren, if does not follow from all this, that we undertake arrogantly to condemn, root and branch, all those other sections of the Reformation which, under the violent re-action of the times or from the strong necessity of circumstances, were driven to establish the Church upon a novel basis and in a truncated form. We may say with King Charles, f that when we are constituted the judges of those • Couraycr, the appendix to wlioso original work coneists of 4 volumes, exhibiting full vouchers for what hn had maintained. t In the second of the admirable letters to Henderson, being the reply to No. lof his opponent. Very similar language is known to have been held by Hooker, Thorndike, AVake, &c. ; and it is possible that an unwillingness to denounce the reformed National Communions abroad may have influenced the wording of our own definition of the Church in Article xix. 19 ontests with he ministry 111 it' he hail unil against 5 defence of Id certainly ;cd in that rci^ard it as iblishing the , have been •, in a noted 10 Gal I inn the validity the value of purpose, as nized prin- Mng treated )o!. And it e are other of the same e, which are Church of ches of the ►nsiderately tion, when, on the side I variation I this, that )ranch, all under the iccessity of rch upon a with King Ds of those 4 volumes, the reply to been held by illingnesg to influenced i Churches, then we will pronounce upon them. Wc may valuu our own primitive Orders and our regularly traceable title to the ministry : — wo may believe it to be most important to the interests ot llio faith at large, that we should rigorously and inviolably [jrcserve the ancient fences of discipline among ourselves : — we may indulge in some modest feeling of triumph when ministers or aspirants to the ministry, pass over to lis as tl'o result of their convictions, from other Protestant denomi- nations * : — we may rely upon our undamaged retention of the privileges here considered, as a rallying-point hereafter, when it may please God to heal the divisions of Christendom, — and yet vvc may feel respect and good will towards those who, while from the causes above noticed, they ivalk not with us and it is impossible for us to regard their ministry as standing upon the foundation occupied by our own, are charged, in their respective courUries, with the maintenance of a reformed and purllied faith and arc bringing iorih fruit unto holiness. VVhat wc are doing ourselves for Christ, — and what we are teaching with the effect of bringing sinners to him, — these are the grand, the awful questions which we must individually bring home to our bosoms. U it will be to little purpose that we boast an apostolic minisliy — to little purpose that we glory in the beauty and primitive character of our liturgy, in the orderly and chastened solemnity of all our venerable forms, — to little purpose that we arc found straining, after our ability, to clothe with all due and reverential ellect, the material sanctuary of our worship, — to little purpose that we exhibit ever so dutiful and in itself 'audable a conformity to rubrics and rules, — to little, little purpose, if, in the meantime, we are not faithfully feeding the sheep of Christ. — watching and praying, hour by hour, for the souls committed to us, — vvork- * In the sinjtlc year 1818,1 received overtures, — certainly not prompted by any glitteriup bribes which the Ciiurcii here has to offer, — from ten such persons, belonging to seven dlfTercnt religious bodies, exactly one half of wiiom were ultiuiiilcly accejitcd. Four of these iiersons belonged to what may be called national institutions or off-shoots from such institutions: the remainder were from the looser and indehuitely multiplying list of self- constituted sects. Tt is well known how very large a proportion of the ministers of our com- munion in the States of America, were trained in other systems and have embraced episcopacy from n close imd conscientious investigation of the subject 20 ing, in humble but earnest imitation of our divine master, while it is day, in remembrance that the night cometh when no man can work : The niglit of that gmve in which there is neither work nor device m r knowledge nor wisdom, and our small distance from whicti, at best, prescribes the lesson with special solemnity to us who are engaged in the ministry ot the Gospel, whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might. Preach the word : be instant, in season, out of season. In one sense, all that we do is, or ought to be preaching. Our lives ought to fireach : • we, above all others, ought to let our light so shine before men that they may see our good works and be led by the recommendation of our faith fur- nished in our example, to glorify our Father which is in Heaven, — to acknowlego the divine origin of such a religion and to adore and bless its author. Our private and public ministrations, of whatever kind, have the character of preach- ing : if going from house to house, we warn, we comfort, we instruct individuals, sick or whole, f if, with the catechism for our basis, or otherwise, we familiarly instruct the young, we are still, in all these acts and in nil their details, enforcing and practically applying revealed truths, — testifying the Gospel of the grace of God and bringing it to bear upon the case : it is all preaching Christ. If we meet our people for worshij) on the Sunday, the very day and purpose preach Christ risen from the dead. If we lead the way in prayer, in praise, in con- fession of sin, in profession of belief, we make, in all these acts, an open recognition of our relations with God as learnt from the Bible. If we administer the sacraments of Christ's institution, wc exhibit by sensible emblems, (not to notice the language of the forms employed) the cardinal doctrines of the Gospel : — the cleansing influences of the Holy Spirit, and the washing of the blood of Christ to remove the guilt of sin, are what we represent to the eye in Holy Baptism : and in the Supper of the Lord, we do, as the Apostle tells us, shew forth His death till he come; we set before men by a visible sign, the great doctrine of the atonement. So in the course and distribution of our observances throughout the ecclesiastical year, — we have a perpetual rotation of solemnities in which, d(i ('.(;■ th » See note D. t See noto K. 21 mo master, ometh when iiich there is visdom^ and the lesson the ministry *, do it with t of season, preaching. , ought to let ee our good )ur faith fur- vhich is in ch a religion I and public r of preach- comfort, we :atechism for e young, we nforcing and ie Gospel of zase '. it is all )rship on the risen from se, in con- in all these )d as learnt I of Christ's notice the rines of the rit, and the of sin, are and in the shew forth isible sign, course and cclesiastical s in which, m is one by one, the Incarnation of Christ, —his submission to the exactions of the law on behalf of man, — his temptation, his passion, resurrection, ascension into Heaven and eiTusion of the Divine Spirit, are prominently brought out; and the grand doctrine of tlio Trinity in Unity, involved in all these other celebrations, is separately and distinctly marked at the close of them all, by its own special day. In the minor festivals of com- memoration, we point to the power of faith and the biographical exemplifications of the work of grace in the persons of martyrs and apostles whose names are left upon record in holy writ : Car- rying out precisely, in this series of ecclesiastical appointments, the spirit of those apostolical injunctions which, in subordina- tion always to our contemplation of Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, refer us to the examples of holy men of old and that cloud of witnesses, in particular, of whom the me- morable catalogue is given in the 1 Ith chapter to the Hebrews. And thus it may be said of the whole cycle of observances, even by the simple specification of their respective objects, that their sound is gone out into all lands and their words unto the ends of the world, in proclaiming the Gospel of salva- tion. All these provisions, then, in their periodical iteration, or all of which local circumstances will admit the use, we should turn to their full account ; feeling that thus to repeat the same things, to us is not grievous and for our people is safe : Safe as affording one great preservative among them, of truths which, as history shews, are often in danger of becoming obscured in the Church. And we ought so to minister in all these things, — so reverently, so distinctly, so feelingly to minister, as to promote, in each instance, the intelligent appreciation and the serious, devout application of the particular appointment. We ought to correct the prevalent ideas that preaching consists only in the delivery of sermons, and that preaching, in this exclusive sense, is the sum and substance of the purposes of attendance upon the house of God. And yet hovv important, how tremendously important and how gloriously too, is the task of preaching in this popularly received acceptation of the word ! — We stand in the pulpit, "the legates of the skies,'' the messengers of the Most High, the Am- bassadors for Christ, — pleading with men, in ChrisVs stead, to he reconciled to God. We have before us, for example, in all w 22 '/':'?' congregations, stray members of the Saviour's ilock, — prodigal sons of the father of all, — thoughtless beings unprepared for the eternity which is advancing upon them, the good seed choked within them by the cares and riches and pleasures of this pas"iing life — their hearts and alfections alienated from God. And we stand there to awaken them from tlioir fatal lethargy by returning the echo of that voice which speaks from heaven, — warning them on tiie one hand, that it is a fearful thintr *~ j^ii ifiiQ the haiids of the livin^^ God — winning them, on the other, by the accents of divine compassion and the overtures of Gospel love. How ought we, in the execution of such a task, wliile we keenly feel our own utter un worth- iness and incompetency, in ourselves, — how ought we to rise above the torpor of worldly influences and the laggardncss of the flesh ! — what earnestness, what fervent unction ought to be infused into the delivery of the Christian preacher and how immeasurably ought he to be removed at the same time, from all feelings which minister to the gratification or glory of self; from all the dangerously ensnaring love of human praise ; from all pandering to itching ears; from all adaptation of himself to the predilections of this or that party in religion, of this or that favoring and flattering circle ! * My younger brethren whose habits are not fully formed, or if formed, are not absolutely fixed, will do well to consider the importance of their style and delivery in the pul[)it. A style either pompous or flashy, — inflated or replete with glaring touches, a composition upon whicli Purpiireus late ((ui splendcat unu3 ct alter, Assuitur panuus, these, or the very approach to them, are, I hrrdly need say, to be eschewed by the minister of Christ. A manner cither the- atrically studied or boisterously ronting, is equally to be con- demned. But there are men who, with a purified eye to the glory of God alone and in a severe repudiation of all meretri- cious ornament, ambitious efTect, or popular trick, contract and even systematically cultivate a certain coldness and dry- ness both of language and delivery, — one of the pre-eminent faults of our Church and one wiiich has contributed to her lo b( tl di an Ih ell ho is fe nail .{& * See note F, 23 k, — prodigal iprepared for e good seed nd pleasures lienated from )m tlioir fatal li sicaks from is a fearful od — winning ission and the lie execution ter unworth- ht we to rise aggardness of Uion ought to ;her and how e time, from glory of self; praise ; from on of himself on, of this or |y formed, or consider the t. A style \vi th glarnig locd say, to either the- to be con- ;d eye to the dl ineretri- ;k, contract ?ss and dry- jrc-emincnt )uted to her '<•¥ losing not a few of her children, — which, constituted as human beings are, will always be a hindrance to the appeal which they have to i^arry to tiieir hearers' hearts. * The gravity and dignity of the pulpit ought, indeed, to be never compromised and the arts of the actor or the demagogue can only profane the place . but if it would please God to gift us all for our work, like Apollos who was an eloquent man and mighty in the scriptures, we should combine two chief requisites, for elfectually preaching the Gospel. Without any pretensions, however, to what is commonly considered as eloquence, there is the valuable eloquence of a plain and grave but deep and feeling earnestness of manner within the reach of all men, — natural I may say to all men, if they do not repress it, who have an adequate sense of the momentous character of their message, — which will never fail to tell upon their auditory. A sermon which, in point of delivery, can only be described as correctly read, does not answer to the idea of Christian preaching. Plainness and perspicuity are great points in the pulpit. Very long new words, (most questionable additions, by the \Vay, in the vast majority of instances, to the stock of our English tongue,) or words presenting ideas which are im- perfectly apprehended by a great portion of the audience, are always to be avoided. They are to be avoided, not only in sermons, where perhaps they are not so likely to be intro- duced, but in any composition, controversial or otherwise, in which the Clergy speak as the organs of the Church, f Restriction to written discourses is apt to have a bad eflfect upon the manner — restriction to extemporaneous delivery, * See note G. t It may not he quite useless to fiirulsb the pabjoined exemplification?, some of wliicl) followed liero in tlie MS, of the (j'hnrge, but were suppressed in the delivery, as bi^iiin; judged rather familiar for the occasion. Such word.'^, for example, as cvcnUuililicf:, (cdlwlif^ or ii'iosijncrasic'^ would figure wonderfully ill in a sermon. And the adoption of certain word.s or phrases u])ou which the changes are rung, with an uppnrent self-complacency, by writers for the common press, such as stdrUinj;, uiDni-.lnkeublc, patent to de- note, iiluiiilji I'vid.i'iit, lunalilji imiiroperly used as convertible with place, st)lemniTc improperly made to signify tlie production of solemn eflfect, or rralizi: in tlie sense of regarding as a reality, — or again the adoption of any of that new and fiist multiplying coinage of which intenf.if'ii may be taken as a .specimen, is what 1 would venture co pronounce, in any compo* sitior. a violation of good taste. I am rpilte ivwaro that these coinages, and these new acceptations of w«rd,-j m i m (what is much worse,) upon the matter of men and bodies of men who discharge their part in the pulpit. The preceptive, and in whatever branch of theology, the didactic portion of our pulpit instruction, should invariably be interwoven with the assertion and exposition of the doctrines of grace. Keeping still this necessity in view, I feel prepared to say that we deal far less in direct practical teaching than we ought to do The epistles of St. Paul among inspired writings, and the Homilies of our Church among human com- positions, may be taken as models of the constant intermixture or altfernation of doctrinal and practical teaching, — practical in the way of detail, — practical in the way of laying down the common duties of every day, — the conscientious fulfilment, specially and point by point, of our personal and relative, our domestic and social obligations. I am strongly impressed with the belief that vast mischief has been done to the souls of men and to the interests oi human society, by throwing these branches of Christian teaching into the shade. * I was much struck by this thought in reading, a year or two ago, a remark- able article in one of the London journals, headed Trade Morality, and having reference to the awful exposures whicli had been then recentl}' made, of frauds and adulterations to an incredible extent, in the preparation of articles of food for sale, and that by the hands of men of established respectability in the world, including, I am afraid, many of a high strain in reli- gious profession, and assumed by certain tests to be converted man. — I was prompted, then, to ask myself, would this wick- edness so widely prevail and in such classes of society, if common honesty had been more insisted upon, in the religious training of ihs young, f the voice of the pulpit and the lessons may gain, si volet ums, to which gramniar and correct construction them- selves must bend, tlieir fixed and acknv, .-/ledged place in the language. As, for example, it is now a received practice to use the word recommend as we should use tulvL'ie: we say I recommended him to take the atr, instead of / recommended it to him to take the air. But we may still exercise our own taste and judgment in following or declining the fashion of our cotempora- ries in this behalf. • It would be well if many Christian preacliers would lay to heart the ex- press directions solemnly given to them as teachers of religion, in such texts, inter alia, as Matth. v, 10, Tit. ii. i et seq. & iii, 8. t The summing up of our duty towards our neighbor in the simple Cate- thism of the Church, presents a basis for more extended religious instruction such as is often dangerously overlooked. I Mt ■! 25 le religious of the religious press? Moreover I do not believe that either children or men will ever be more eftectually led to that dis- cernment of the horror of sin which must prepare them for their reception of the Saviour as their hope of mercy, than by a careful inculcation of the common points of duty before God. The time was, we all know, when the error in preaching was altogether on the other side ; and, although it appear^i to me that some recent accounts of the state of the Church in the latter lialf of the last century, have in this and in some other respects, been exaggerated, — it is sufficiently notorious that sermons were then very apt to be little more than moral essays. * That, I need not say, is a defectiveness which ab- solutely destroys the character of Christian preaching. All our preaching, all our ministerial performances, all our labours, plans, endeavors, sacrifices, to promote the prosperity and credit of our charge, — all, all directly or indirectly, imme- diately or remotely, should tend to one supreme and paramount object, — all should converge to one point, — all should centre in Christ and his salvation. Christ crucified should be the absorbing thought in the mind, the absorbing theme upon the tongue of the Church, as Christ crucified constitutes her hope. The circumstances connected with my late visit to England, as well as the objects of that visit, have been so fully ex- plained in my Pastoral letters, — one issued before my depar- ture and the other since my return, that I need not trespass upon your time by enlarging upon them here. I will simply, upon this subject, make two remarks : First, — with reference to the letter of Sir James Stephen, which, trom his long con- nection with the Colonial Office, and other claims to consider- ation, has perhaps done more to obstruct our hope of obtaining Synodical Action than any other single effort used against us, that, having taken part in the deliberations of the English Arclibishops and Bishops upon the provisions of the proposed bill, — I perfectly know that bill to have been drafted, — and with a peculiar care, — precisely lo guard against the effisct which Sir James represents as the consequence if not the object of the bill. It is very possible that there may be tech- nical phrases used in this bill which are foimd in an Act Sco iidte H. ]> p I Ft. framed for a totally diilerent purpose and in a totally different spirit. That is a matter beyond the range of my enquiries. But such co-incidence of phraseology, in points not giving its character to the bill, cannot afford the grounds for judging of its aim and effect. Let the bill be looked at in its own proper and naked force and in the plain meaning of its own provi- sions, one by one. as they stand : — any man, lawyer or n^t, can judge of these, — and any man may see that there is a jealous exclusion of all prerogative or power given to the Church of England, in any shape, as an establishment in the Colonies, of all ascendancy to her hierarchy, and of all com- munication of privilege to that Church beyond what is enjoyed by all other religious bodies. In fact no two things can well be more contrasted than the grounds of alarm conceived by my old a«id friendly acquaintance, Sir James Stephen, and the true intent of the bill, according to my own personal know- ledge of the case. The other remark which I have to offer relates to the passing notice which I have taken in my late Pastoral letter, of a prin- ciple (a vital principle, as I conceive it) affecting the regula- tion of our proceedings in synodal action — upon the supposition of our obtaining that privilege. I merely wish to say here, that I should have abstained from any notice at all of that principle, had I not been made aware that efforts had been used, while I was absent from Quebec, to prejudice and mislead the public mind upon the subject, and that nothing, I believe, was done to counteract them. Of the character of those efforts I do not desire to speak, farther than to observe that they form part of a particular series of attacks upon the Church of Eng- land and her guardians, which date, I believe, from a time serving to connect them in a good degree, with the meditated spoliation of the Clergy Reserves. It is evident that this mea- sure might so far be facilitated, if damage could be done to the estimation of the Church. My own acquaintance with these productions is extremely limited indeed : I only know that unless I have been very unfortunate in the few specimens brought under my notice, they are remarkable throughout for want of truth. Alas ! I should not say remarkable. For is it not but too notorious that, in productions of this nature, of calculation, »pt Iropped wholly with charity, and often with decency by her side ? 27 It is a great question, the consideration of which is suggested by these circumstances, whether, among the multifarious issues of the periodical press, it is desirable to possess in the diocese what is called an organ of the Chnrch. (I do not mean by this the Bishop's organ, or a publication which is assumed to iden- tify itself with his particular sentiments.) It is certainly a good object gained to make the vehicles of popular information sub- servient to the spiritual good of our followers : it is a good object gained to diffuse intelligence in detail respecting the progress and operations of the Church over the world, and to promote in the minds of her members a feeling of interest in her proceedings. And constant occasion is given to rebut calumny, to correct hurtful misrepresentations, and to satisfy the minds of well-affected parties upon matters which are called in question before the public. Yet it appears to be scarcely possible to conduct a religious newspaper, especially when under the necessity of a defensive warfare, without falling into a newspaper tone and spirit, and with some adop- tion of newspaper manoeuvres. Between Bible religion and newspaper religion, the difference is apt to be very marked. And party is always stamped upon the latter. Even with re- ference to what passes within our own pale, a religious news- paper is understood almost as a matter of course, to be in the interests of a party ; nay, it is often said that a paper cannot long be sustained without eniisting in its support the excitement of party spirit. And the man who rises from the perusal of religious newspapers, though he may read both sides, and pro- pose to himself to strike a balance between them, perhaps rarely rises so affected and influenced as unmixedly to improve his Christian temper and frame of mind. For these reasons it would appear that the safest kind of newspaper in the Church, is that which confines itself strictly to the character of a Gazette^ — compounding for the loss of support wiiich follows from its not being spiced with contro- versy nor open to promiscuous communications ; and also for the disadvantage of leaving the field to ungenerous adversa- ries, without check. This experiment has been tried in our own Diocese ; and, although the number of subscribers was "respectable, the encouragement, upon the whole, was not suf- ficient to justify the continuance of the enterprizo. A new •* 28 scheme is on foot for a Gazette designed for the three Dioceses conjointly, to be publislied at Toronto: — it will rest with you, my reverend brethren, to decide whether you will encourage it. The signification of my own encouragement I reserved till after tl.i.s opportunity ot our meeting. I am informed that it has been also in agitation, for some time, to establish a new Church paper, within the Diocese itself, but I do not under- stand the project to have been matured. The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge made a grant last summer, at the instance of the Principal of Bishop's College, towards procuring a Press for the use of the two Lower Canadian Dioceses, which might be rendered auxiliary to the object here in question. I have had occasion to mention the threatened confiscation of the Clergy Reserves, but that is a subject too unhappily fami- liar to us, to demand from me any lengthened notice upon this occasion. It is our plain duty to make a stand to the last, for the patrimony of the Church of God. I shall take the liberty of putting into the hands of each of my brethren who have not already received it, ^ copy of a letter upon this subject, which I addressed, in a printed form, while in England, to the Prelates of the English Bench and the representative Irish Bishops. It is of great importance, — of great importance to the most sacred interests of man, in all perpetuity, within this Diocese, — that etVorls should be made in the actual conjuncture of our affairs, to put the Church upon a firm basis in the Colony and to secure, wherever it is possible, some permanent means for her support. The Diocesan Church Society has, in this point of view, no loss than with reference to its more imme- diate ellects, an especial claim upon our regard ; and I trust that upon all occasions and in all the out-lying circles of its operation, as well as at the centre of the Diocese, we shall none of us be found wanting in the manifestation of that zeal and energy on behalf of this Institution, without which it must fall, before long, into a languishing and discreditable state. Some effectual plan, I hope, may be devised for securing in every mission, an endowment in land. * The time is rapidly * TLo agriculturnl advantages of Lower CanaJa being comparative])- Einall and the Diocese of Quebec being situated in the least favored portion 29 sm e three Dioceses 1 rest with you, will encourage Jment I reserved m informed that establish a new I do not under- ^'he Society for last summer, at College, towards lower Canadian • the object here d confiscation of unhappily fami- notice upon this d to the last, for take the liberty bren who have on this subject, England, to the esentative Irish nco to the most n this Diocese, juncture of our the Colony and lent means for TY has, in this ts more imme- rd ; and I trust g circles of its :;ese, we shall )n of that zeal lout which it reditablo state. )r securing in imc is rapidly ig comparativelj- favored I'ortion advancing when the Missions will only be partially maintained from home : — the Society for the propagation cf the Gospel, having, after repeated warnings, at last made definite arrange- ments for putting in train those retrenchments which must be presumed to lead ultimately to the extinction of its expen- diture from its home funds, for the Canadian Dioceses. It is necessary that I should draw your serious attention to the desire of that Society that Reports and returns should be rendered by the Clergy, for it's information, of the state and progress of the Missions. It was officially signified to me in England that serious complaints have often been made by persons called upon to support the Society, respecting the scanty and imperfect imformation of the details of Missionary operation and the fruits of Missionary labour, in these Colo- nies. The particulars of all the points which I have just men- tioned I purpose, if it please God, to communicate to you in our more private intercourse during your stay. And suffer me to express a hope that as we meet for three high occasions of the Church, — brought for your convenience, into this con- junction, — you will be ready to make some sensible sacrifice in order that the benefit of your counsel and the comfort ot familiar conference with you, maybe prolonged as far as cir- cumstances will permit. The Church Society Anniversary having been changed during my absence, by unanimous vote and after sio; months notice everywhere circulated^ I had no right to regard the change as anything else than the voice of the Diocese, to which, where no principle was of that section of the Province, the means of raising help to support the Ohurch, in the rural districts, by the stated contributions of the people, must, in proportion, be limited and precarious. The claim is, of course, the stronger for extraneous aid to be furnished by the still prolonged Christian bounty of the mother-country, as well as upon the exertions of the citizens of Quebec, and the few members of the Church in other parts of the Diocese, who are persons of any substance. But these arc not the questions here. Our hope of the secure, permanent, and definite support of religion among us, must be rested, in a considerable measure, upon endowments. it appears from official documents that, in 1851, the wheat crop in Upper Canada was in the proportion of 13. .'J3 bushels to each inhabitant : \n Lower Canada, in the same year, in the proportion of 3.4G minots, (the minot ex- ceeding the busliet by about one-twelfth.) It must be quite needless to add that, in the event of our retaining what has been left to us of the Clergy Reserves, we shall not thence be placed above the necessity for creating endowments. w 30 ? f; \r involved, 1 felt that I must yield. And this change carried with it the consequence of my calling you together for the Viaitaticm, before the lapse of the ordinary interval. The Meeting of yourselves and the Lay-Delegates having re- ference to the subject of Synodical Action^ was naturally fixed at the same season also : but I have to regret that the whole District of Gaspe, an important section of the Diocese, is by these arrangements, cut ofi from participation in our proceedings. This deficiency I must repair, as God shall best enable me, in other ways. So far as the Visitation of the Clergy is concerned, I shall be obliged to go down to that District again, if so permitted, to hold there a separate Visita- tion. It will be quite necessary for us, in my opinion, to make some move, through the Church Society or otherwise, — in fact in every way which may be open to us,— in order to the modification, in certain particulars, of the provisions of the existing School Act, as they alTect our own people. No persons can be better aware, my Reverend Brethren,than your- selves, of ttvo characteristics conspicuously attaching to that extent inoperative, and that it is that it is to a great grievously Act unjust, — most rest of the country. We designed to be : but so unjust, towards the Protestant inte- have no right to say that so it was beyond question, it practically is. Small communities of Protestants, intermixed with a dense population of Roman Catholics, are paying, year after year, for the support of Romish Schools from which they derive no particle of benefit and which do not, in the least, need their help, — while, for the education of their own children, for which object the smallness of their number gives them the more claim to assistance, these Protestants receive nothing from the public purse whatever. The wrong is so flagrant that it seems impossible to suppose the case of its being, if properly represented, left unredressed. We have a very clear claim for the establishment of separate Church of England Schools, wherever practicable and so desired. There are, however, many way in which we are very plainly ag- grieved, — and in which, nevertheless, we have little or no prospect of relief, — some instances there are, in which things will not improbably wax worse and worse and we can do 31 mge carried ther for the erval. The s having re- ^as naturally ;ret that the the Diocese, tiun in our i>d shall best ation of the iown to that rate Visita- on, to make lerwise, — in •in order to )rovisions of )eople. No n,than your- bing to that that it is testant inte- at so it was actically is. ith a dense after year, ley derive east, need children, ives them receive vrong is so :ase of its We have a Church of There lainly ag- tle or no ch things wc can do nothing to help it. We do not know what is in the womb of time : but we certainly must not build upon any fond imagi- nations of being protected and cherished by the ruling powers, as the Church of an illustrious Protestant Empire, in any re- cognition of the principle that they are to b the nursing fathers and nursing mothers of true religion. That hope has gone by. There is a better hope which remains to us ; and the Church should always be prepared even for exercising the lesson of her early days, that Preces et lacrymce sunt arma Ecclesiee. With respect to the higher means of education, I do most earnestly commend to you, my brethren, — to your love, to your prayers and to your active sympathy, an institution which I believe is dear to the hearts of those among you who have been trained for your ministry, in whole or in part, within its walls, — the College for which we have recently obtained a Royal Charter for the privilege of conferring degrees. * An institution upon a small scale and with very slender resources, to be thus invested with the character of a University. I have no expectation, while I am tn thistabernacley to see the College, — though I have the brightest hopes for it in days beyond, — in any other than a poor and a struggling condition, lifting its modest head by the side of those towering establishments of another faith, which are crowned with every proud advantage of wealth and numbers and political importance. But it will be, I trust, more and more, as it has been, a seat of sound learning, a witness for the truth of God and a nursery for both the Lower Canadian Dioceses, of a faithful, eflicient and la- borious ministry. O what a blessing will it be ! — and let me charge it upon you, my Reverend Brethren, since the need of ministers is likely soon to be severely felt, to turn your oppor- tunities to such an account, — what a blessing will it be if, in your pastoral intercourse with families or with individuals of promise among the youth of the country, you can gain recruits for this holy service, the most glorious, under whatever cir- cumstances of privation or of toil, in which man can be en- * The opportunity may be here taken to mention that it is in immediate contemplation to form a Museum at the College — and that presents of speci- mens in mineralogy and other kindred sciences, or objects of curiosity, natural or artificial, will be most thankfully received. Presents of books to the College Library will also be highly acceptable. 32 I- gaged. And let us who are already engaged in this service, in the name of Christ, toil on. No matter if we exhibit, in our actual position and resources, a mortifying contradiction to the claims which we may conceive to belong, in the Colony, to the Church, the national Church of mighty England, and of which some shadov;y recognition hangs still, here and there, about our skirts ; — no matter if our situation dejure and de facto are found to be two widely different things and proceed in a visibly increasing divergence from each other ; — no matter what discountenance we meet with, nay, what dishonor may be put upon us, as to our place and our pretensions, in our own day and generation, by the world, — no, — no matter, if, in the meantime, we approve ourselves to GOD ABOVE. The day will yet come when our cause will triumph, — for it is the cause ol the Most High. We are not ripe for carrying on the operations in which the established Church of Ireland is now, in one part of that country, engaged with the marked blessing of heaven : all our efforts, all our resources are far too little to respond adequately to the demand made upon us for the supply of Protestant wants : for this object it is to us in their straits, that men have learnt to look. But the founda< tion which we are permitted to lay, in our College, in our Church Society, in our public charities, and in all the work of our Clergy, not excepting the most obscure and humble eflforts of our missionaries in the woods, is, we may well trust, a foundation, — besides the benefit, to our own peoplr, in our own day, and to their children after them, (which would be reward enough,) — of future good to the land at large. The process though it may be without observation, is going on. So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground, and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. 33 ADDITIONAL NOTES. ons, in our arrying on Note A. Page 7. Some of the cautionary remarks here offered are particularly applicable to a small pamphlet under the title of The coming struggle among the nations of the earthy which has had considerable popularity both in England and this country, having been reprinted last year at Montreal professedly from the ninety-fourth thousand of the publication in England. The pamj)hlet has the merit of seriously inviting the attention of men to the signs of a great imjiending crisis in the world and to warning predictions of the Ribie, which are applicable to the case. But not to s[)cak of its being faulty in the adop- tion of a very bombastic style, it is peccant in the graver points of a most unwarrantable dogmatism in theory and dangerous confidence of tone in the application of prophecy, as well as, in some instances, of exceedingly strained, fanciful and injudicious interpretation; and, lastly, of a sweeping con- demnation of our standard expositors, which manifests an ex- traordinary want of acquaintance with what is to be found in their writings. Ot the second of these three faults, one signal example is seen in the explanation given of the two witnesses of the Revelation of St. John, who are made out to be no other than civil and religious democracy^ and whose happy resurrection is identified with the commencing point of the horrors attaching (o the French Revolution in the close of the last century ! — Of the last-menlioned fault, a curious instance may be found in pp. 9, 10, where the author of the pamphlet speaks tlius : " Tliey," (our divines nnd theologions,) " do not iitidcrstand or rather re- fuse to believe that the Jews will be restored to their own land and that the kingdom of Israel will once more bo established, though not after its ancient nodol or with its former sidondor. With n very restricted partiality, they have construed all those glorious promises of a physical restoration, which have lighted up the hope of the wandering Jew, into nothing else than a spiritual conversion and they claim for the Church all the glory of the latter day. This, we apprehend, is a fatal mist''ke." Whoever is at all familiar with (he names of celebrity among expositors of prophery in the Church of England, will per- ceive the grossness of mistake exhibited in the statements of the foregoing extract ; and if we go hack for an example in contra- E 34 ^/^i r diction of them, to \V. Lowthy whose commentary upon haiah was published in 1714, (and who insists everywhere upon the same view of the case,) we find him, in commenting upon cap. xi. V. 11, furnishing the following valuable and interesting ac- cumulation of prophetic testimony upon the point in question. " I take this pnrt of the chapter from the 10th onward, to foretell those glorious times of the Church, which shall be ushered in by the restoration of the^sh nation : when they shall embrace the Gospel, and be restored to their own country from the several dispersions where they are scattered : this remarkable scene of Providence is plainly foretold by most of the Pro- phets of the Old Testament, and by St. Paul in the New. (see Deut. xxx, 3— 5, xxxii, 43. Isaiah xxvii, 12 13, xlv, 17, &c., xlix, G, ic, liv, lix, 20, Ix,— Ixii, Ixv, Ixvi. Jeremiah xxiii,8, xxx, 8,— 10, xxxi, 36, 40, 1, 4. Ezckld xi, 17, &c., XX, 34, &c,, xxxiv, 13, xxxvi, 24, &c., xxxvii, 21. Hog. i, II, iii, 5. Joel 1(1, 1, Sic. Amos ix, 14, If). Obadinhver. 17, Ac. Micah vii, 14, 15. Zecha^ riah viii, 7, 13, x 16.)" (i, kc, xii, 10, xiv, 8, &c. Rom. xi, 2;'), 2G. 2 Cor. iii, i Note B. Page 9. There is one point which, as it appears to me, has not always been sufficiently considered or observed, in the agitation of differences within the Church. I refer to the fact, as I con- ceive it to be, that we sometimes call upon men whose views are found to jar with our own, to do as we do and sink party in carrying on a common work, — (as, for example, we disclaim all party character for the Society for the Propa- gation of the Gospel, in the selection or adopton of its mis- sionaries and recommend the example to other Societies,) when, in reality the particular character of those views in which they differ from us, itself forbids their following such a course. There are distinctions held to be points of vitality in faith and there are tests and evidences of the work of grace upon which some believers insist, which, in their eyes, make all the difference between the Gospel and no Gospel ; between the reality of religion and the name which men may have to live when they are dead. If they were right in this, we could not, — or if they are, without being right, possessed of «iie sincere conviction of being so, we still cannot expect thern to sur- render an inch. The question between certain of the different parties in the .same Church and children of the same holy mother, is, in the estimation of one side, (or rather the extreme of one side,) a question of life and death ; and, in fact, in this hk 35 ipon Isaiah re upon the g upon cap. e resting ac- in question. foretell Jhose I restoration of 10 restored to ire scattered : )at of the Pro- Dcut. XXX, 3— •, lix, 20, Ix,— Ezckldxi, 17, 1, iii, 5. Joel 4, 15. ZecLa- i. 2 Cor. iii, not always agitation of ;t, as I con- nen whose lo and sink kample, we ke Fropa- of its mis- Societies,) ? views in Mng such a vitality in race upon ce all the tween the ive to live .-;ouId not, sincere to sur- c different ame holy e extreme ct, in this w ii point of view, approaches very closely to the question between Protestants and Romanists, the latter of whom believe that the tenets of the former place them out of the |)alo of salvation. Whatever pain, whatever sadness of heart it may cost us to como to this conclusion, whatever chill it may carry to our Christian feelings, it is better to know things and to deal with them as they are, than to smother the reality of the case and call upon brethren to identify themselves with us, in the man- ner just described, (although we should be ready to act with them whenever we can meet upon common ground,) whoso views must be first altered to permit their being able to do so. It would rather seem that we should begin by endeavoring to convince them, if possible, that they associate wrong ideas with the principles which we profess, and fasten consequences upon us which do not in reality flow from those principles ; and, on the other side, that the particular process of conversion through which they may have passed or the particular school in which they may happen to have been formed to seriousness in religion, is not universally necessary to the attainment of a state of grace and salvation. Nothing is more desirable than that they should be brought to see how persons, from whom they differ, really are, (I am speaking here of clergymen,) filling the part, in all humility, ofservants of the Most High God in shewing unto men the way of salvation. And certainly there are prepossessions in many minds, respecting the criteria of vital religion, whether in points of opinion or of practice, which are capable of being removed or greatly modified by a candid recourse to the declarations of the word of God ; by reference to the formularies of the Church, mutually admitted to be in harmony with that word ; by adduction of the sentiments, the practice and the personal history of our own Reformers and other illustrious examples among the Saints of God, and by appeal to genuine developments of tiie Christian character in living men, as well as to the work of the Church, now pro- ceeding over the world. We should take care, above all, as the best and most convincing argument, that our own spirit, temper and deportment, — our faithfulness to our vows, — our correctness in ministerial duty, our devotedness to our flocks, our ceaseless endeavors to lead them directly to the great Shepherd and Bishop of their souls, serve to recommend the principles which we uphold. We must all grieve when we 36 tail in this kind of argument, and we all fail but too much : but if, by the grace of God, we so far succeed that conviction is thus mutually carried to the breasts of men differing in opinion, respecting the effect or concomitant qualities of their respective systems, it may lead to the conclusion that, after all, their differences have consisted, to a great extent, rather in a dif- ferent application of words and phrases in theology, than in any substantial diversity of religious views and feelings. [The remarks now thrown into the form of the foregoing note, were originally incorporated, nearly in the same words, with the Charge itself: but. were retrenched from it partly for the sake of abridging that address and partly because they were conceived to be of a nature better adapted for deliberate perusal than for being caught, as they passed, by the ear.] There is a passage very much to the purpose here, in the preface to the later editions of Doddr/dgo's Rise and Progress of Religion in the soul. Ho corrects, (at the suggestion of a friend and with an expressi )a of regret,) the comprehensive- ness of his own language in having described, as it they were invariable, certain marks of the work of grace, of which he admits the exhibition to be oal^ necessary in a particular class of human subjects. t. m Note C. Page 11. The language which I have here used is sustained by the testimony which I have since met with, of a living divine of note in the Church of England, (Archdeacon Sinclair,) whose visit to Quebec and preaching in the Cathedral, during my absence last auturrui, left very favorable and well-remembered impresjions in this community. In the course of his address, upon occasion of visiting the New Ytirk Theological Seminary, with otiicr representatives of the Church of England, who at- tended the Conventiun of (he Church in America, he warned his hearers against two of the popular errors of the day, the first of which was to decry the study of the ancient languages. He said : ■ . - "The other was the miseral)ly jalse idea, arising from a false charily, that union among Christians of all denominations would be possible, if they Tvould only look at the things in which they agreed, and give up those on ► much : but onviction is 5 in opinion, r respective • all, their er in a clif- fy, than in ings, le foregoing lame words, it partly for e thoy were rate perusal ere, in the id Progress gestion of a prehensive- Ihey were tf which he icular class ined by the g divine of ir,) whose uring my membered is address, Seminary, d, who at- 10 warned e day, the anguages. Minrity, that ible, if they up those on 37 which they diirered. This gencniliziuion of Chriatianity, lie declorod, would prove to bo aheer Deism. IIo aaid ho had had occaaion to look -ough tho papers left by the celebrated Dwiu IIl'me, and found there r. -ceipt for making infidcla. It was to the effect lliat tho Christian faith of a believer was not to be assaulted all at once ; bnt little by little, until, almost impercepti- bly, It has vanished away. Bisiiop 13EnKEi,EY, in his Minute. Philosopher, gives also the same precise account of the mode of warfare which was likely to meet with most success against Chriatianity. Nothing whatever could bo parted with, from the scheme of the Gospel as given us by CHRtST and his Apostles, in those very parts most controverted, lies the sec.et of Its strength.'' There is a brilliant and extraordinarily popular as well as an earnest and devout, if not a very solid and profound writer and preacher of the day, whose pages abound witii views the very opposite of tliese. The judicious and penetrating mind will form its own judgment between the two contraries. The world in general, perhaps, will see nothing censurable or dan- gerous ill the following extract from an announcement made by a late itinerant dealer in religious wares in Canada and the United States : " Many estimable men refuse to unite with any Church, through fear of pro- motins; seclarianism, but all 'nay sign t'.ie following Pledge, which has been signed by ministers of leiigion, members of Congress and Parliament : — We, the undersicned, promise, by Divine assistance, to abstain from everytiiinu liurtfuii and unnecessary — to do to others as we w13ii them to do to us — taking the ijlbi.e to be the uui-e of our faith and practice. This Pledge is recommended to people of all creeds and all political opi- nions. Should the Roman Catholic brother object on account of the rules of his Church being omitted, he may enjoy his own Bible and the rights of his conscience. Should ministers of the Gospel and teachers of the rising race adopt this plan, it is exj)ected that many thousands, not members of any Church, would unite in suppressing vice and in promoting true religion, as stated and explained by Christ and tlie Apostles." It is from the natural operation of principles of this nature, that the leaders and other members of communions holding evangelical truth, are led, step by step, to countenance every description of irregularity ; and some ;-i' their ministers have been found, in a recent instance, taking part in the Ordination, (in the United States of America,) of a female, who assumes the title of Reveicnd and is stated in the papers, to have so- lemnized a marriage. ji'. 38 Note D. Page 20. We are toM in the life of Hooker that " he never failed on the Sunday before Ember-week, to give notice thereof to his parishioners, persuading them both to fast and then to double their devotions for a learned and pious Clergy, but especially for the last ; saying often that the life of a pious clergyman was visible rhetoric, and so convincing that the most godless men, (though they would not deny themselves the enjoyment of their present lusts,) did yet secretly wish themselves like those of the strictest lives " vera lie in sinsj adm grea the othcl hot I butil wisef self desic prudj the I- 'II I fi -^ Note E. Page 20. The following remarks are found in Bingham's Origines Ecclesiaslica, in connection with the account which he gives of the execution of ordinary pastoral duty, in the early ages of the Church and the judgment of the lathers upon that subject. " Some eminent persona who have lately considered the duties of the Pastoral office, reckon this one of tl" principal and most necessary functions of it; which consists in inspecting le lives of private persons, in visiting families, in exhortations, warnings, veproofs, instructions, reconciliations, and in all those other cares, which a pastor ought to take of those over whom he is const' ed. For as tliey rightly observe, neither general exhortations, nor public discipline, can answer all ^he occasions cf the Church. There are certain disorders which pastors neither can, nor ought to repress openly, and which yet ought to be remedied by them. In such cases private admonitions are to be used. Tlie concern of men's salvation requires this, and it becomes the pastoral carefulness to seek the straying sheep, and not to let the wicked perish for want of warning." Bingham informs us also of the sentiments and practice of the early Church respecting the adaptation required to the dif- ferent tempers and dispositions of men, in the cure of souls, (some reference being understood to the then existing disci- pline of the Church which was recognized and valued alike by C .T,y and Laity.) "For the tempers of men's minds differ more than the features and linea- ments of their bodies : and as all meats and medicines are not proper for all bodies, do neither is the same treatment and discipline proper for all souls. Some men never regard a secret reproof who yet are easily corrected, if chastised in public. Others again cannot bear a public disgrace, but grow either morose, or ioipudent and implacable upon it ; who perhaps would hare h t 5lt '•er failed on ereof to his en to double lit especially 5 clergyman lost godless ! enjoyment mselves like J Origin es ich he gives larly ages of that subject. ! duties of the jsary functions )n3, in visiting econciliations, )se over whom exhortations, ch. ght lo repress cases private requires this, beep, and not practice of to the dif- of souls, ling disci* 3d alike by es and linea- iroper for all all souls. ;e corrected, if , but grow would have 39 hearkened to a secret admonition, and repaid their monitor with their con- versiv i, as presuming him to hare accosted them out of mere pity and love. What our author • thus here at large discourses by way of rule and theory, he in another place suras more briefly in the example of the great Athana- sius, whose pattern he proposes to men's imitation, as a living image of this admirable prudence and dexterity in dealing with men according to thia great variety of tempers ; telling us that his design was always one and the same, but his methods various ; praising some, moderately correcting others, using the spur to some dull tempers, and the reins to others of a more hot and zealous spirit ; in his oonversation, master of the greatest simplicity, but in his government, master of the greatest artifice and variety of skill; wise in his discourses, but much wiser in his understanding, to adapt him- self acccording to the different capacities and tempers of men. Now the design of all this was not to give any latitude or license to sin, but by all prudent and honest arts to discourage and destroy it. It was not to teach tlie Clergy the base and servile arts of flattery and compliance ; to become timi'-servers and mon-pleasers, and sooth the powerful or the rich in their errors and vices ; but only to instruct them in the different methods of op- posing sin, and how by joining prudence to their zeal, they might make their own authority most venerable and most effectually promote the true ends of religion." Part of the rema?^^ here extracted will very well apply to the wisdom of t lie rnt which is to be exercised and the delicacy of hand nhicli is required in dealing with some usages of society and received practices of the world not, in them- selves, sinful or censurable, but apt to be so followed as to endanger spiritual religion. Much mischief may be done, in certain circles, to the cause of the Gospel, by a rude attack upon things in their own nature indifferent and an undiscrimi- nating condemnation of them, without plain warrant from the word of God. Note F. Page 22. It is said in the life of Hork*: i , whose loftiness of intellect, comprehensive grasp of mir ii« t nt of learning and exquisite command of language, were , ; -equalled by his humility and meekness of spirit, that, iu ^^r -..h' g, he studied " for apt illustrations to inform and ii.-r^J' hia unlearned hearers by fami- liar examples and then to make them better by convincing applications ; never laboring, by hard words and then by needless distinctions and subdis- tinctions, to amuse his hearers and get glory to himself: but glory only to God, Which intention, he would often say was as discernible in a preacher as an artificial from a natural beauty." * Gregory Nazianzen is the author from whon) Bingham is here quoting. 40 4 hi The extract which follows below, is from Hooker himself, and serves to shew that a state of things might he witnessed in the Church nearly three centuries ago, not unlike what is sometimes seen in our own day ; " There is crept into the minds of men at tins day a secret, pernicious and pestilent conceit tliat tbo greatest perfection of a Christian man doth consist in the discovery of other men's faults. When tlie world most abounded in just, righteous and perfect men, their chiefest study was the exercise of piety their scope was obedience, ours is skill, their endeavour was reformation of life, our virtue nothing but to hear gladly the reproof of vice, they, in the practice of religion, wearied chiefly tlieir knees and hands, we our ears and tongues. We are grown, as in many things else, so in this, to a kind of interaperancy which, oitly sermons excepted, hath almost brought all other tlutics of religion out of taste. At the least, they arc not in that ac- count and reputation which they should be. Now because men bring all reli- gion in a manner to the only hearing of sermons, if it chance that they who are thus conceited, [i. c. who have conceived this nuiion,] do embrace anv special opinion dilfercnt from other men, the sermons that relish not that opinion c:\nin no wise please their appr'i^e. Such, tliercfore, as preach unto them but hit not the string they look foi •' Jr^f^cted [regarded] as unpro- fitable A minister of the word shouL, '■ y, be able riglitly to divide the word. Which Apostolic canon many ti: icy do well observe, when, in opening the sentences of Holy Scripture, IL.^ draw all things favorably spoken unto one side, but whatsoever is reprehensive, severe and sharp, they have others on the contrary part, whom that must always concern ; by which their over-partial and un-indiffercnt proceeding, whilst tliey thus labour among the people to divide the word, they make the word a mean to divide and distract the people.' It appears that, in the i]i\y of Pascal among the French, a prevailing fault in the appreciation of sermons and the at- tention paid (o them, was, in a manner, the opposite of that which is indicated in the Charge as recpiiring to be corrected among ourselves. He seems to assume the hearing of Vespers to be simply a formal act and says that sermons were listened to, in the same manner : II y a beaucoup de gens qui entendent le sermon de la memo manicre qu'ils entendent vcpres. The supreme importance, according to the sentiment of the early fathers, of direct scriptural study, for the minister of preacher of his word, is stated by Bingham, as Christ and follows '• But it was not all sorts of studies that tliey equally recommended, but chiefly the study of the Holy Scriptures; as being the fountains of that learn- ing, which was most proper for their calling, and which upon all occasions, they were to make use of. For as St. Chrysostome observes, in the way of administering si)iritual jthysic to the souls of men, the word of GOD was instead of everything that was tised in the cure of bodily distempers. It was instrument and diet, and air ; it was instead of medicine, and fire, and .tilililidnal er himself, vitnessed in ke what is Bt, pernicious an man doth nost abounded he exercise of :ndeavour was 'proof of vice, md hands, wc so in this, to a )s^ brought all not in that ac- bring all reli- tliat they who ,0 embrace anv elish not that as preacli unto led] as un[»ro- glitiy to divide observe, when, ings favorably md sharp, they ivn ; by which y thus labour mean to divide le French, a iHcl tlie at- osite of that corrected of Vespers re listened manicre qu'ila raent of the minister of ingham, as nmended. but of that learn- all occasions, in the way of of GOD was i«trmper8. It and lire, and .hlililioiiiu 41 knife I if causticks or incisions were necessary, they were to be done by this ; and if this did not succeed, it would bo in vain to try other means. This was it that was to raise and comfort the dejected soul, and take down and assuage the swelling tumours, and presumptions of the confident. By this they were both to cut off what was superfluous, and supply what was wanting, and do everything that was necessary to be done, in the cure of souls. By this all heretics and aliens were to be convinced, and all the plots of Satan to be countermined ; and, therefore, it was necessary that the mi- nisters of GOD should be very diligent in studying the Scriptures, that the Word of Christ might dwell richly in them. This was necessary to qualify them especially for preaching; since, as St. Jerome rightly notes, the best commendation of a sermon was to have it seasoned well with Scripture rightly applied. Besides, the custom of expounding the Scripture occasion- ally, many times as it was read, required a man to be well acquainted with all the parts of it, and to understand both the phrase and sense, and doctrine, and mysteries of it, that he might bo ready upon all occasions to discourse pertinently and usefully upon them. And next to the Scriptures he employed his time upon the study of the best authors, whom by continual reading and frequent meditations he had so trea- sured up in the library of his heart, that he could repeat tho words upon any proper occasion, saying thus spoke Tertullian, thus Cyprian, so Lactantius, after this manner Hilary, Minutius Felix, so Victorians, these were the words of Arnobius, and the like. But among ecclesiastical writings, the canons of the Church were always reckoned of greatest use, as containing a summary account not only of the Church's discipline and doctrine, and government, but also rules of life and moral virtues. Upon which account, as some laws directed that the canons should be read over at every man's Ordination, so others required the Clergy afterward to make them part of their constant study together with the Holy Scripture. For the canons were then a sort of directions for the pastoral care, and they had this advantage of any private directions, that they were the public voice and rubrics of the Church, and so much the more carefully to be read upon that account." Note G. Page 2o. Among the many and marked improvements in every de- partment of ministerial duty, no less tlian of Church operations, which, hy the blessing of God shed down upon us, have dis- tinguished the Church of England in our own day, a sensible advance has been made, (altiiough a vast deal yet remains to be done,) towards the correction of the characteristic defi- ciency here noticed. The faulty elocution ot many among our Clergy, whether in reading or preaching, has long been a subject ot complaint. In the day of Bishop Bull, we. find that eminent prelate, (whom I here quote from memory of very long standing,) applying to the manner in which the prayers D 42 M were often said, as if he spoke fur the compilers of the Liturgy, the epigram of Martial : Qucm recitas mcus est, O Fidentinc, libellus Sed male cum recitas, iucipit esse tuus. * Fn the day of Addison, we find some severe strictures on the same subject in No. 147 of the Spectator^ and in No. 407, some equally strong remarks respecting the stiff, cold, and life- less delivery of sermons, — the remarks being extended, in their application, to the English bar and other public speakers of the country. These papers of the Spectator, (which are well worth read- ing,) are quoted, as are also some pertinent passages from the letter of Dean Swift to a young clergyman, in a book pub- lished in London in 1775, on the art of speaking. The book is, in some respects, rather an absurd production and much overdone in the directions laid down for giving every variety of efi3Ct and expression to the selections of which it is chiefly made up, in their several parts. But in the essay prefixed to the selections, a treatise of considerable length, the author comprehends the subject of pulpit elocution, upon which he expatiates at large, and, in some instances, as may be seen from two or three short extracts here subjoined, with a good deal of force and spirit : "Nor is it to be expected, that decorum of manner in preachina; should be car- ried to any preat perfecliou in England, while rewf/Z/ifir is thought to be preach- ins;. If the Greel< and Roman orators had read their sermons, the eSfect would have been, I suppose, pretty much the same as that which sermons pro- duce among us. The hearers might have, many of them, dropped asleep. shame to modern times ! A Pericles, or a Demosthenes, could shake all Greece, when they warned their countrymen against an invasion, or alarmed ivTi about the danger of their //6('r/ics.' "Whilst we can hardly keep our Lcarers awake, when we stand forth to warn them, in the name of God, against the consequences of vice, ruinous to individuals, ruinous to nations; the cause not only of the subversion of states and kingdoms, when luxury, and corruption spread their fatal contagion, and leave a people the unthink- ing prey of tyranny and oppression ; but of utter, iriv. -'evable destruction of the souls and bodies of half a species t from the presence u^ God, and from • Which may be found thus translated, in the Elegant Extracts : The verses, friend, which thou hast read, are mine : _ ; iiut as thou read'st them, they may pass for thine. t "Strait is the gate, and narrow the way, that leadcth to life, and few there are who find it." «*- he Liturgy, tures on the No. 407, Id, and life- ledj in their akers of the worth read- ies from the I book pub- The book and much ery variety it is chiefly prefixed to the author n which he lay be seen with a good ihould be car- lo be preach- the effect sermons pro- ed asleep, ould shake all , or alarmed lly keep our ame of God, IS to nations ; when luxury, lie untbink- destriiction of d, and from racts : thine, life, and few 43 the glory of his power, at that tremendous day, when Iho trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised, and when ITo siiall sit upon the throne of judg- ment, from whose face heaven and earth shall fly away. yt. Paul, could bo no mean orator, who confounded the Jews at Damascus, made aprinrp, before whom he stood to be judged, confess, that ho had almost persuaded iiim to become a convert to a religion everywhere spoken against; throw another into a fit of trembling as he sat upon his judgment-seat ; made a defence before the learned court of Areopagus, which gained him for a convert a member of the court itself] struck a whole people with such admi- ration, that tiiey took him for the god of eloquence ; and gained him a place in Lonsinu's list of /(;mousorfz/ors. Would the cold-served-up monotony of our English sermon-readert have produced such effects as these ? One of his extracts from Dean Swift's letter, is as follows: " I cannot but think, that what is read, differs as much from what is re- " peated ivilhout book, as a copy does from an original. At the same time I " am fully sensible, wliat an extreme difficulty it would be upon you to alter " this ; and that if you did, your sermons would be much less valuable than " otherwise, for want of time to improve and correct them, I would there- " fore gladly come to a compromise with you in this matter." He then goes on to advise, that he should write his sermons in a large fair hand, and read them over several times before delivering them, so as to bo able, with the help of an eye cast down now and then upon the paper, to pro- nounce them with ease and force." The following lines he quotes from Dr. Byram : In point of sermons, 'tis contest, Our English clergy make the best : But this appears, we must confess. Not from the pulpit, but tho presf. They manage, with disjointed skill, The matter well, the manner ill ; And, what seems paradox at first. They make tho best, and preach the worst. The subject is by no means without difficulty, because, in studying a good delivery, there may, through the miserable frailty of nature, be the danger, especially in the case of young ministers, of being tempted to cultivate a false and unwhole- some kind of popularity and of sacrificing to this object, the style and manner which approve themselves to a correct taste, a chastened judgment and a purified piety. Rant and rhap- sody, especially if with a seasoning of phrases ad captandum^ or anything which brings to mind the description " with what a zeal he labours to b? praised !"&c., are infinitely worse than dulness itself. 44 Note II. Page 25. That a diy and merely ethical tone of preaching had taken considerable root in our own Communion, and did extensively prevail about half a century ago, as well as previously to that time, (although 1 believe that the Church of England has never been without a large leaven of sound and faithful la- bourers in the ministry,*) may appear, among multiplied other evidences, from ttoo which I proceed here to adduce. In 1793 the Reverend Robert Gray published a volume of Discourses, in London, " illustrative of the Evidence, In- fluence and Doctrines of Christianity." He felt it necessary, in a long preface, to disarm reigning prejudices and to combat objections which were to be anticipated because these discourses were something more than moral essavs. Two or three extracts may be given from this preface : " It deservaa seriously to be considered, whetlicr the cry for practical Dis- courses, and the objections raised against what are improperly called myste- rious subjects, may not, if carried too far, tend to exclude all points of doc- trine from our enquiry, and to reduce Christianity to a system of ethics. It is certainly incumbent on the ministers of the Gospel to inculcate, and insist on the truth of these doctrines, that are evidently delivered as the Re- velations of God, however suju-rior tlity may be to the limited c()nce])tion3, and narrow experience of mankind ; and not to slirink from the communica- tion of them, because tlic popular irish necmn iiiclincil to irnicv their discut^sion, aiitl to rcroinmnvl.thdt muttem of fai'.h s/nnild riimaia unitiscussnl, trhiL' the moral ecccllenaicx (./ rhrUlMnilij arc induntriuudy dhploiied. A silence on the doctrines of Revelation can be vindicated only on a supposition, that jmints of faith are indifferent, and that the external decorum of a good life is the chief object of attention : a not ion frequently propagated under tlie popular sentiments, and loose opitiions, of the day. th dr thi $: Christ did not so proceed, nor did his apostles veil over the doctrines of christiauitii for fear of giving offence to obstinate or conceited men ; leaving the jirinciples of faith, they sought to go unto perfection. Let falseiiood shrink from enquiry, and superstition abate, and recede from its claims; but let Christianity, which at first, presented " stumbling blocks to the Jews, " and to the Greeks foolishness,'' still continue to despise the supercilious pride of human wisdom, and " to bring into captivity every thought in sub- " joctiou to Christ." • I do not believe that the ministry of the Church was ever, as a whole, in such a state as would correspond to the picture given in ScotVs force of truth. 45 had taken xlensively isly to tliat igland lias i'aithfiil la- plied other ;e. I volume of dcnce, In- riBcessary, I to combat 3 discourses :ee extracts practical Dis- called myste- )oints of doc- f ethics. nciilcate, and ircd as the Re- conceptions, comnuinica- ir (lisctmsion, I, irhili' the lencc on the that i)oint3 oo(! life is the the popular doctrines of uen : leaving t falsehood claims; but to the Jews, supercilious uglit in sub- s a whole, in jrce of truth. Exactly ten years after the publication of Gray's sermons, the first Protestant Bishop of Quebec printed a Charge ad- dressed to his Clergy, in which the following passages occur : " Wo all know the progress tliat in the times whicli followed the Reforma- tion was made by tliosc principles and that mode of thinliing, and acting, whicli was denominated Puritanical : wo know the excess to which these things were pushed, and the consequences by which they were followed. We yet see those jirinciples, aliro and active, in some parts of the world : and have opportunities of observing them at no great distance from us. Tiie dis- gust wliich they occasioned, in the minds of many, and the alienation from true piety, which followed tliat disgust, need not be pointed out to your re- collection. All that I am now concerned to remark to you, is, the ett'ect that tho observation of tliat disgust produced, upon some, among those of our Clergy who adliercd to a system which tliey conceived to be at once more suited to the Word, and Will of God, and to the present, and future happi- ness of iiis creatures. Desirous of receding, as far as they conveniently could, from the repulsive doctrinc.=?, and the rigid discipline of the Puritans, they overlooked, or over- leaped the line marked out by prudence, and propriety. They nislied to the contrary extreme. Doctrinal preaching fell almost into disu.se with them : and learned and logical, and purely argumentative, moral disquisitions, ge- nerally succeeded. A corresponding error took place in manners. Lest they should be thought to affect the violence and rant of the Con- venticle, they have sunk into a cold, and dry, and lifeless, mode of preach- ing ; neitlier calculated to excite attention, nor to impress conviction on the heart. Tlicir discourses too, correct in language, clear in arrangement, con- clusive in argument, have yet been but too often little more than ingenious essays upon the nature of f/y/uc, and tlie true character o{ murals; over- looking in a great measure, tlie nature of Religion, and the peculiar and cha- racteristic Doctrines of Clirixtiunilij. Tliese, my Ijrelhren, are general observations. It is my earnest hope that tiiey are not, and never will be, justly applicable to us. Uninfluenced by any exterior circumstances, you will, I trust, feel it to be your duty to preach the entire Gospel of Jesus (Jhrist: to withhold from tlie people nothing that caa augment their knowledge, or increase their faith ; that can contribute to tlieir edilicatioii, or totlieir instruction in righteousness. Our Blessed Saviour did not come into the world as a mere lecturer in morals, lie did indeed teach a more pure and perfect morality, than the world had iiitlierto known : He made men better acquainted with the nature and attributes of the Supremo Ueing : He brought life and immortality to light : — these were great and glorious discoveiies :— but this was not the whole, nor the principal of the advantages derived from His appearing in the flesh. Man was a fallen, a sinful, a <'od of Christ ; and sanctify IS by trials, to characteristic cnce towards litent, the joy ruble : this is great bulk of which they the fondness ambitious i used in a ^Iit to have pressionSy the words etymolo-