the decisions and all the teachings of the church; and that he is to form for himself a system of religion. No-she directs him to the leading summary of doctrine and discipline, prepared by the heads of that church-she directs him for such further aid as he may require to the public, or private instruction of an order of men, called and set apart according to the apostolic model, and the practice of the church in every age. And, finally, she refers him to Holy Scripture as the only test of these doctrines, and these teachers which are to have authority, only as they agree with Holy Writ. Every man is free to make such inquiry, and to exercise his judgment. If she does not teach what Scripture teaches, she claims no obedience. All the limitation she places on this privilege is, that our liberty should not be used as a cloak of maliciousness. But the right of private judgment and free inquiry is to be exercised, as every other Christian right-at the peril of the individual. He is responsible to God and man for the abuse of it. It is not to be made a pretext for creating divisions in the church in every frivolous difficulty, and still less from any unhallowed passion. Such an exercise of the right of private judgment is, we contend, schismatic and sinful. This is the ground on which I meet the question asked by the Dissenter -why is he to be branded with the title of schismatic because he chooses to exercise his undoubted right of private judgment, and to separate from the Established Church? To this I answer, that whether he is branded as a schismatic, must depend upon the ostensible ground on which he separates. The church, as a visible society, does no more in laying down the terms of communion, than she is warranted in by the practice of Dissenters themselves. In denominating him who rashly separates and divides the church schismatic, the members of the church are not destitute of the sanction of primitive and scriptural authorities. As far as regards the separatist himself, it is a matter between him and his God; and whether he will hereafter be considered in the light of a schismatic, must depend upon a judgment less fallible than ours, and which will not, whatever the world may decide, award him an unjust portion. But whether he is to be "branded as a schismatic, or, in other words, whether the church shall pronounce him such, and the public confirm her verdict, will generally depend, and ought to depend upon the weight of his alleged reasons for separation. But it is time I should close this paper; and I shall, in conclusion, again avail myself of the admirable little tract which I before quoted "We know that the principles which the Dissenters are ever advocating, (setting the spiritual against the literal, the substance against the form, the invisible against the visible) are such that, if fully carried out, no church, as a visible subordinated society, could exist. The service of God and all religious duty being, from the nature of man (conditioned in a body under the laws of sense and of time,) necessarily connected with form and mode, the progress of a church's corruption must be always to lose the spirit out of the form (by which alone, as its proper vehicle, it can be expressed); then, the spirit being gone, Satan's next temptation is, that it should give up the form, as its retention would savour of blasphemy and hypocrisy. Here the principles of Dissenters, with regard to this Christian nation, come in to help Satan. They, because their baptized countrymen are sinking into formality, or in proportion as they do sink, preach to them schism as the corrective, they induce them to look upon all their present church obligations as empty formalities; to consider themselves unregenerate; and then, having put them into the condition of heathens again, they, by stimulating what little religious feeling is left in them, form them into new churches, upon still less secure and substantial principles; principles which, being for the most part negative and metaphysical, will hold them together only so long as they have in an established church principles that are positive and embodied to oppose. The principles of Dissent, therefore, are principles upon which every social institution may be attacked and pulled down, but none built up. As they are inconsistent with any authority in the church, so they are detrimental to all order and Christian obligation in the State; for they will as easily break up the relations between subject and king, servant and master, child and parent, as between pastor and flock, church and state. In fine, they are principles by which the devil has succeeded in detaching a great body of God's own people, to work for his ends, unknowingly, in the ranks of the Democrat, the Unitarian, and the Infidel." M. PERHAPS one of the most beautiful arrangements introduced by the Ferrars into the establishment at Gidding was that of Night Watchings, by which an uninterrupted course of Psalmody was kept up during the twenty four hours, so that no portion of the day or night passed in which some member of the family was not employed in what has been so well styled the most pleasant part of duty and devotion. The enthusiasm with which the Ferrars regarded the Psalms has been felt by the most learned and gifted men in all ages. Bishop Horne has gracefully observed that "they are the epitome of the bible adapted to the purposes of devotion, and that for this purpose they are adorned with figures and set off with the graces of poetry, and poetry itself designed yet further to be recommended by the charms of music, thus consecrated to the service of God; that so delight may prepare the way for improvement, and pleasure become the handmaid of wisdom, while every turbulent passion is charmed by sacred melody, and the evil spirit is still dispossessed by the harp of the son of Jesse." These were the words of one who always uttered the thoughts of a Christian with the lips of a poet. In all the changing scenes of our life the gentle spirit of the Psalms walks by our side, rejoicing with us in our joy, and VOL. III.-Jun. 1833. weeping with us in our sorrow. We flee in fear from the terrible and denouncing prophets-but we throw ourselves in brotherly confidence upon the neck of David. one Italy is rich in devotional poetry, and I may enter more fully into the subject at a future period; at present I am desirous to confine myself to the introduction of a few specimens of the Italian Psalms of Saverio Mattei. It will therefore, for this purpose, be sufficient to observe that he was of the most distinguished scholars who adorned Italy in the eighteenth century, and that he was the chosen friend of Cesarotti and Metastasio. In another paper I may give some further information respecting him. The works of Mattei were published at Naples, in eleven volumes, in 1780; and that portion which comprises the dissertations upon Hebrew poetry will well repay the trouble of perusal. The Abbate Cesarotti, writing from Padua in 1778, says, in allusion to the Treatise upon Sacred Poetry, "that he does not remember to have seen so much erudition united to such vigour of reasoning, or so much originality of thought combined with such accuracy of investigation. Everything," he continues, "is solid, luminous, and delightful." "The following Psalm, the 77th," Mattei remarks, "may be considered as a brief poem, complete in itself; it contains the history of all the most beautiful and wonderful miracles wrought by the Deity in favour of the Israelites, from the time of their departure from Egypt until the reign of David." I ought to observe, before I offer my translation, that Mattei's knowledge of Hebrew frequently led him to adopt some new interpretation of various passages, and I have preserved some of these alterations in the following version. I. WHEN the clouds do gather round me To God I flee-my spirit weepeth; II. If in the hushed dark I kneel, Am suppliant in the hour of pain, With outstretched hands-my lowly prayer III. Alas! my faint heart heedeth not The song of comfort more; My sweetest One I cannot find, The peacefulness of yore! IV. Yea, I have lost my dearest joy, V. Ah, no! the light hath not departed VI. With lonely watchings on my bed To me no gentle slumber cometh, My thoughts are dark-I dare not speak! VII. And where art thou, my gentle lyre, With thy soft and soothing tone? If I had thee in my morning, My heart would not be all alone. VIII. At length the shadows pass away IX. It cannot be that Sion's Lord My prayers, my weepings, hath forgotHis first and his most tender love The Blessed One remembereth not! X. Lord! shall thy mercy-lighted face XI. No, no, my spirit, kneel and pray, XII. Lord! my memory recalleth And the fights thine arm won. This is one of those psalms which may be properly called beautiful without, and glorious within, "like apples of gold in pictures, or network in cases of silver." My next specimen is from the 143rd psalm All' alma afflitta e timida Tu sol che ne' pericoli Stendo le mani, e pregoti Terren, che piaggia aspetta. |