members of the Established Church, as well as others, were not all at once able to emancipate themselves from the thraldom of former prejudices, but advanced only gradually with the times, will not be disputed. But I do contend, that her practice has in the main corresponded with the principle of respecting the rights of private judgment and free inquiry-the intent of any seeming restrictions has been purely defensive (whether they were calculated to effect the object in view, is another question)-she has been revered in foreign churches as a model of religious discipline and liberality, and looked up to as the bulwark of religious freedom. She has thus maintained her character and integrity under the temptation of power; while those who reviled her under the same trial of their integrity and wisdom, displayed to the world a signal failure-one of the most conspicuous exhibitions of intolerance, and folly, and cruelty, that ever marked the working of human depravity and delusion. The church does not deny the right of private judgment. She claims authority in matters of faith, but not infallibility. And with a plainness, which nothing but the most perverse misinterpretation can obscure, she limits her authority to those doctrines, and those doctrines only, which may be proved from Scripture. This is clearly put by the writer of a tract entitled, "The Church of England defended from the Attacks of Modern Dissenters," &c.* "The authority which we ascribe to the rulers of the church being no more than is derived to them from the commission of Christ, must be consistent with the liberty which he has left to the rest of his subjects. For in whatever instances he has given another power to preside over us, to direct or command us, in those, it must be owned, he has not left us free; and, consequently, whatever liberty they take from us, while they act within the limits of their commission, can be no part of that liberty which Christ has left us. Now, those limits would seem to be-1st, That no person can lawfully exercise his authority in obliging us to believe any doctrine which Christ has not obliged us to believe. 2dly, That no person can lawfully exercise his authority in obliging us to perform any action which Christ has forbidden. 3dly, That no person can lawfully exercise his authority in imposing on us any indifferent↑ action which Christ has not empowered him to impose.' These are the limits within which the authority of the Church of England is upheld, and they are limits which she imposes upon herself. With regard to the first two: Every precaution that is possible, in the laying down of her creeds and articles, has been taken to make her in perfect agreement with Scripture, both in the doctrines This little pamphlet, published in 1830, by Seeley, has never attracted the attention it deserves. It contains in a small compass a very able vindication of the Church. I shall be glad if this notice should introduce it to the friends of the church generally. The author is, I have reason to believe, a very talented layman in the medical profession, brought up in connection with dissent, consequently possessing many facilities for judging of its practical tendency and results. As the explanation of this assertion is not given, it is not fair to judge. But it surely is not meant that a Church may not require compliance in indifferent matters. -ED. she inculcates, and in the heresies she condemns, the very words of Scripture being used in every case that was possible. And, for fear that ignorance, or the spirit of insubordination, should reject her authority upon the plea, or even the suspicion, that she wished to propose anything for belief that was antiscriptural, one of her articles (the twentieth) states expressly that nothing contrary to the Holy Scripture is intended or required. It is not lawful for the church to ordain anything that is contrary to God's word written; neither may it so expound one place of Scripture that it be repugnant to another (a rule we earnestly recommend to our Dissenting brethren, whose whole system is built with this error). Wherefore, although the church be a witness and a keeper of Holy Writ, yet, as it ought not to decree anything against the same, so, besides the same, ought it not to enforce anything to be believed for necessity of salvation.' The sixth article is to the same effect: Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation; so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an article of faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.' The sixth article is to the same effect: Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation, so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an article of faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.' What possible excuse, then, can be imagined for the part the Dissenters are taking? She intends to enjoin nothing but what Scripture enjoins, and forbid nothing but what Scripture forbids; and if in any instance any one can shew that her commands are anti-scriptural, she tells him that in such instance she is not to be obeyed. What should we think of any member of the civil government, or any child under family law, who should do as our Dissenting brethren do to the church under which God has placed them? Surely her authority is entitled to as much consideration as that of the civil or the parental. The authority of civil governors and of parents has no higher sanction than the word of God, and the word of God also as plainly enjoins obedience to the church." These remarks appear to me well worthy of the deep consideration of those Dissenters who have lately displayed such inveterate and rancorous hostility against the Established Church, or who endeavour to represent her as wishing to curtail the right of private judgment, or to repress free inquiry. As a visible society, she claims authority to propose the terms of communion. It is essential to any society to do so. The principle, however modified or applied, is virtually recognized and acted upon in every Dissenting Society as well as in the Established Church. It regulates the appointment of a minister in Essex Street, not less than the admission of a candidate for orders at Lambeth. It is kept in view no less tenaciously at Highbury and Homerton, than at Oxford and Cambridge. The authority of the church is binding on its members, but no farther than as her decisions are consistent with Scripture. She invites men to search the Scriptures ;-to assert their supremacy over tradition was one grand point on which she separated from the Church of Rome. She does not, indeed, tell every man that he is to disregard altogether the authority of the church-that any man, however unsuitable his qualifications, or insufficient his opportunities and leisure, is to be sent to his bible, disregarding all 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.-Jan. 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. 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 one 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 111. Alas! my faint heart heedeth not The song of comfort more; My sweetest One I cannot find, The peacefulness of yore! |