profession of faith in Christ, and of love towards one another, may repeatedly have the promises sealed to them."-" I shall suppose the communicant," remarks Mr. Milner, "to have renounced his own righteousness, to have come to Christ as his all, with a desire to glorify and enjoy him in this his appointed ordinance. None but such are welcome attendants at the altar: none bat such can have real communion with Christ: none but such receive benefit from this service +."-To these testimonies might be added citations from Archbishop Hort, Bishops Bull and Taylor, Hooker, (whom I have consulted), and doubtless many, many others, whose works I have not at hand. Let me close with the evidence of Bishop Beve ridge, who writes,-"But why, say some, should there be any exception? Did not Christ die for all mankind? And is not that death said to be a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world?' All this is true; but it does not from hence follow, that all men must be actually saved and absolved from their sins, by virtue of his death. No; 'tis only they, who apply to themselves the merits of his passion, by partaking duly of this holy Sacrament, which is the proper means by which these blessings are conveyed to us, whereby we are sealed to the day of redemption!"" The custom of administering the Eucharist to persons under sentence, of death was originally grounded, it is to be feared, on the prevalent error of the efficacy of the ordinance, under whatever circumstances it might be received. Alas! how often has the ceremony been resorted to as the last refuge of a guilty conscience; not merely by condemned criminals, but by individuals dying quietly in their beds, though stung with the recollection Familiar Catechism, § v. Sermon IX on 1 Cor. x. 16, 17. + Private Thoughts, Article x. of years wasted in folly! We may here recollect the deplorable end of King Charles the Second; who, after a life notoriously thoughtless and voluptuous, received the sacrament, and extreme unction, from the hands of a Popish priest. This ecclesiastic bad been instrumental in saving the king's life at the battle of Worcester; and it is recorded by one historian, that his majesty said of him, that he had saved him twice, first his body, and then his soul. With respect, however, to the custom alluded to, Despard and Bellingham (as, I believe, the papers informed the public) both commemorated the death of Christ a few hours before their execution. Yet not the smallest symptoms of penitence appeared in these men, even on the scaffold itself. They died, and made no sign." To these may be added many other appalling examples of criminals dying in hopeless obduracy; and some guilty of the gratuitous wickedness of plunging into eternity with expressions of fearless contempt. It deserves the very serious consideration of prison chaplains, whether the administration of the Eucharist, in cases of this sort (I mean to criminals, whose conduct, after condemnation, exhibits nothing like penitence or seriousness of any. kind) has not the dreadful effect of imparting fallacious hopes, and of allaying certain misgivings or alarms of conscience, which, if timely confessed to the minister, might haply end in repentance; for then the spiritual assistant would have something to work upon. There are, thank God, exceptions to be found, as in the behaviour of Langhorne, described in your Number for last June, where the Sacrament could be administered to the consolation both of the giver and recipient. As to poor Gamage, whose distressing story so much interested your readers, in the Number for February, it does not appear that he availed himself of a privilege which he too might justly have. claimed. The penitent Earl of Ro chester partook of the Communion with great joy and devotion, and with especial reference to the lively views of the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ, which he had derived from the 53d chapter of Isaiah. This nobleman's name is introduced here in connection with the circumstances of persons under sentence of death, because he regarded his own case as extremely similar, having nothing to offer to God, but a life consumed in vanity and disobedience; so that if salvation were granted him, he would be as a firebrand plucked out of the burning. Having offered these various facts and opinions, directly or indirectly, relative to a matter which has occasioned me considerable uneasiness, I trust, that, should any considerate and experienced clergyman among your correspondents be acting in his parish on a different system, he will communicate his reasons for so doing; and I shall be relieved by finding, that the mysteries of religion may be celebrated, without the violation of spiritual feeling, at the bed-sides of communicants, whose conversation and general character designate them (according to my present sentiments) as having neither part nor lot in this matter. It is surely a moral hardship on the ministers of the Established Church, that they have scarcely the shadow of pastoral authority, in respect to unworthy communicants. If they publicly refuse the elements to any individual, they expose themselves to an action in a court of law, for virtual defamation of character. A refusal to go to a private house to administer them, is, I believe, not cognizable in any court, either ecclesiastical or secular. With regard, however, to the public refusal, I need not say, that a clergyman who has gathered his views of the Christian character from the Scriptures, must see numbers approach the Lord's Table, whose general habits, he cannot but know, are formed after a scheme dissonant from the Gospel. There may be no positive profligacy, and no insulated act upon which he can rest a formal accusation; but there will be a tone of character, and a course of conduct, at enmity with pure religion. I do not plead, that in such a case a clergyman should have authority to excommunicate; but how is it that there is not vested in every spiritual society a power to separate the unworthy from the worthy? It is true, that according to the rubric prefixed to our own sacramental service, if any "be an open and notorious evil liver, or have done any wrong to his neighbours, by word or deed, so that the congregation be thereby offended," the minister may forbid him to communicate. Without staying to inquire whether this rubric will defend the minister from a law-suit (which may be much doubted), it is observable, that only criminals of scandalous life are to be the subjects of shame, and even then the congregation must formally express their offence. Yet the Church herself, in her exhortation to the Sacrament, says, "If any of you be a blasphemer of God, an hinderer or slanderer of his word, an adulterer, or be in malice or envy, or in any other grievous crime, repent you of your sins, or else come not to that holy table: lest, after the taking of that holy Sacrament, the devil enter into you, as he entered into Judas, and fill you full of all iniquities, and bring you to destruction both of body and soul." In this most awful denunciation, it is highly important to notice, that the Reformers rank blasphemers, and hinderers and slanderers of God's word, as among the worst of sinners, and place them much on the same level with Judas, or, at least, regard them as liable to the arch-traitor's doom. The question then is, what is a blasphemer of God, or a hinderer and slanderer of his word? If a blasphemer be a common swearer, or a person who uses the Divine Name irreverently in conversation-if a binderer of the Divine word be a man who neglects his own Bible, and laughs at people who daily study the Bible; or obstructs the diffusion of Bibles among mankind at large; or hates persons who live as the Bible requires them, and secretly grounds his hatred on the conduct which the Bible has produced; or discourages others from reading the Bible, and opposes the growth of Scriptural principles among his connections and dependants ;-if a slanderer of God's word, be a person who vilifies the prac tical effects of that word in the behaviour of believers, and brands sincerity with the title of hypocrisy; or ridicules under other names the fruits of the Spirit, when instrumentally produced by the word; or derides such preaching and private pastoral admonition as are essen tially scriptural; or depreciates and calumniates such books as bear the impress and sanction of the Bible: -if this comment on the above-cited passage in the Exhortation be correct, the next inquiry is, where is that assembly of communicants among whom no blasphemer, nor hinderer and slanderer of God's word, can be found! In urging this inquiry, I feel that the serious and exclusive views of the Lord's Supper, held by many devout ministers of the Church of England, are authenticated by her own formularies *; and, consequently, that her faithful servants do not exceed their commission, when they exercise a discretionary right in regard to the administration or non-administration to the sick. Here, at least, there is no admixture of spiritual and secular jurisprudence. There is another point, on this matter, which I have neglected to mention in its proper place. This, however, is so wisely treated by Bishop Burnett, (if you only apply what he says about a death-bed repentance, to the false hopes excited In Article xxix. and in the Homily on the Sacrament, the same views are expanded and confirmed. ↑ Pastoral Case, ch. viii. by a death-bed sacrament) that I ought to apologize for touching it; I mean, the ill effect of death-bed sacraments on survivors. I have heard an aged clergyman observe, that, in visiting the sick, the main advantage he looked for referred to the by-standers, whose day of grace was apparently not yet drawing to a close: whereas, if the dying party were ready for the final summons, he so far needed no human assistance; and if unready, the case indeed might not be hopeless, yet a pastor's attendance was all but unavailable: in either case, neverthe less, there were others standing around the bed, who might with greater likelihood hear what was said, to their eternal salvation. It is surely obvious, that the giving of the sacrament to men who have lived a worldly life, is something like assuring their companions that all will be well with them also when they come to die, for they too shall receive a full pardon, even on this side the grave: they may therefore delay repentance, eat, drink, and be merry; and when to-morrow they die, to-morrow they shall likewise have the usual security against the powers of death and hell.-Oh ye, who are ministers of Jesus Christ, and who have said to your people, "If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the sinner and the ungodly appear!" forget not the value of the souls for which He shed his most precious blood; and beware of awakening a fallacious confidence among the living by an incautious conduct towards the departing. Taking the subject upon a still different ground, let me finally observe, that, after all, no thinking person will, as I believe, assert the absolute necessity of the Eucharist to any man's safety. The Church calls the Sacraments "generally, necessary to salvation." One may therefore suppose circumstances, where neither of the seals of the covenant may be had; but it is impossible to suppose a case where (I refer exclusively to enlightened Countries) salvation is attainable without repentance, and faith, and love. And why should I not say to a dying reprobate, "You may yet be saved, if you repent and believe the Gospel; and if you do so repent and believe, the omission of the Sacrament shall be no bar to your en trance into Heaven? But while I cannot, with all my attention and longing for your salvation, see the least discernible symptom of your repentance and faith, I shall not bring to your death-bed the emblems of a Saviour, whom, even in this threatening hour, you continue to neglect." If this language be called cruel, what epithet would the objector use in describing the priest, who attended the dying agonies of King Charles the Second, and (as both thought) extracted the sting of death by administering a consecrated wafer!-But I shall now refinquish the whole inquiry; repeating a wish, that some of my elder and more experienced brethren would indulge myself and your other professional readers with their mature sentiments on a subject of eternal importance. PAROCHUS. To the Editor of the Christian Observer. I SHOULD be obliged to some of your correspondents, who are well versed in ecclesiastical matters, if they would favour me with a solution of the following difficulty:-In the primary charge of the present Lord Bishop of Ely, I find the following observations, p. 16: "Excellent as our Liturgy is, we are by no means prepared to assert that it may not still be capable of improvement: but however this may be, no private individual is authorised to make the least alteration in it. One person may perhaps think that some particular prayer had better be omitted: another, that some lessons might be substituted with advantage in the place of those which are now directed to be CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 145. read; but this would be productive, of the utmost confusion, and entirely destroy that uniformity which it is so important to preserve in the public service of our church. I am persuaded that no clergyman, who seriously reflects upon the solemn declaration of conformity to the Liturgy which he has been required to make, will ever think himself at liberty to depart from it in the smallest particular." Now, sir, my difficulty arises from that part of the above passage which is in Italics, and which relates to the changing of the lessons; for, in the edition of the Homilies printed at the Clarendon Press at Oxford in the year 1810, there is prefixed to "the second part," "an admonition to all ministers ecclesiastical," in which I read the following direction: "And where it may so chance, some one or other chapter of the Old Testament, to fall in order to be read upon the Sundays or holydays, which were better to be changed with some other of the New Testament of more edification, it shall be well done, to spend your time to consider well of such chapters before hand, whereby your prudence and diligence in your office may appear; so that your people may have cause to glorify God for you, and be the readier to embrace your labours, to your better commendation, to the discharge of your consciences, and their own." There certainly then appears to be a great difference between this admonition of the book of Homilies, and that of the Bishop of Ely's Charge, upon the subject of changing the lessons of our church. service. The bishop's words seem to imply that no such discretionary power belongs to a clergyman, and that a man would be highly culpable who should attempt to make any such change. The words of the preface to the second part of the Homilies seem not only to inform us that we have such a power but even to urge us to avail ourselves of it for the better edification of our flocks.-If any of your intelligent correspondents will have the gård C ness to explain this matter to me, they will confer a favour upon A COUNTRY CURATE. To the Editor of the Christian Observer. a I TAKE the liberty of sending you few passages from a small German volume, not, I believe, very common, containing a series of short extracts from various works of the venerable Reformer, Martin Luther. They ap pear to me to breathe so much unaffected simplicity, and to unite so much strength of expression with such justness of sentiment, that I can not but hope they may be the means, under God's blessing, of awakening in many of your readers an anxiety to advance in that deeply prac tical piety of heart, from which alone such passages as those I now enclose to you, could have pro ceeded. Know, that the Holy Scriptures is a book which makes the wisdom of all other books folly, as none teaches us eternal life but this alone. You must then, in the first place, despair of your own reason and understanding, and, falling on your knees, must pray to God, with true humility and earnestness, that he will bestow on you, for the sake of his beloved Son, his Holy Spirit, to enlighten you, guide you, and give you understanding-In the next place, you must read, with diligent remarks and reflections on what the Holy Ghost intends in the Scriptures. And you must beware of being wearied, or thinking that, after once or twice, you have read, heard, and said enough, and understood every thing to the bottom; for no divine ever did that, but they are like the untimely fruit, which falls offere it is half ripe. In the third place, trials are the true process which must teach you, not only to know and understand, but also to experience, how right, how true, how sweet, how lively, how powerful, how consolatory the Word of God is; wisdom above all wisdom! This is his name whereby he shall be called, The Lord our Righteousness. -Jer. xxiii. 6. The natural man, since in all his works by which he would please God, he is uncertain and full of doubt, can have no right heart to turn to God, and call upon him; but shrinks back and flies from him, and must at last fall into hatred of God, and despair: for when he comes to the real combat and must stand be fore the Judge, he feels and sees, that with all his life and works, he can in no way whatever stand before the anger of God; but, notwithstanding all, must sink at once into the gulf. Now we must all be placed in such a necessity; and in order to overcome, we must have another foundation than our own righteousness, or that of the law, even this eternal righteousness of Christ, who now sits at the right hand of the Father, whom the devil can never overthrow, and the justice of God can say nothing against. Me, indeed, with all my life and works, the devil can overthrow, by bringing before me the Divine law and wrath, which carry every thing away before them, as the wind drives away the feather: but when, iạstead of me and my works, I point him to the right hand of the Father, where my Lord Christ sitteth, Him he is forced to leave, as he can neither condemn nor overthrow him. My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.-1 John iii. 18. The Apostle is here speaking against false brethren and hypocritical Christians, who have the Gospel on their lip and on their tongue, but are satisfied with the scum of it only, |