meet him, as the Gibeonites did Joshua, and resolve rather to be his servants, than to stand out against him. This is certain, God is coming against his enemies, his attendants Angels, and his weapons fire. And if his patience and forbearance make him yet keep a great way off, that he may give us time to make our peace, O let the long-suffering of God draw us to repentance, lest we treasure up more wrath against ourselves! ' Consider the great aggravation of that spiritual Jezebel's sin: 'I gave her space to repent of her fornications, and she repented not.' Consider, that the long-suffering of God is salvation; and therefore let us make this use of it. Labour to be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.'

His Lordship was especially characterised by exemplary moderation, and extensive benevolence. He lived in most troublous times, and was called upon to act a public part at a period when violence and intolerance prevailed amongst all parties; but no charge of this nature attaches itself to Bishop Reynolds. No instance has been recorded in which he treated any of his clergy with harshness or oppression on the contrary, Mr. Calamy speaks of him with great respect; and it is elsewhere observed, that he carried the wounds of the church in his heart and bowels to the grave with him.' He endeavoured as far as possible to retain those who had any scruples in communion with the church; and in some instances, connived at parishes, which were in want of ministers, calling in the help of non-conformists, who enjoyed the liberty of their ministry amongst them for many years.

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His extensive benevolence was evinced in various ways. pears in the list of benefactors to Merton College, Oxford, of which

he was sometime Fellow, and largely contributed also to the poor widows and children of deceased clergymen; he exerted himself earnestly in raising subscriptions for the rebuilding of St. Paul's Cathedral and was very charitable to the poor of his diocese. In the great plague in 1666, in addition to his private benefactions, he lent the city of Norwich £200. to disburse on their account to the visited and indigent poor; and at an assembly held August 14, 1667, out of his great respect and kindness to the city, he freely remitted one hundred pounds of that sum; and by his will, gave the other hundred pounds to the city; £20. of which was to buy books for the city library, and the other £80. towards the relief of poor persons in the city, in their urgent necessities; whereupon it was agreed, August 29, 1676, by Edward Reynolds, D.D. archdeacon of Norfolk, his son, and one of his executors, that the mayor and aldermen should buy houses or land with it, the clear annual profit of which was to be put to the city hanaper, to be employed accordingly. His conscientious regard for the parochial clergy is no less proof of his real charity to future ages, than the former was to the age he lived in; for he settled no less than £268. per annum on several ministers that served the cures of livings belonging to his see.'

Were all advanced to high situations in our church to imitate the example of Dr. Reynolds, many of the evils now loudly complained of would cease; and the dangers now so generally apprehended' would at once disappear. Let us pray that God may raise up many amongst us who may, like this his departed servant, be examples to believers in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.

THESE are days of acknowledged dissension and division. The cry of discord has been sounded in the church, and has been attended with painful consequences. The so-called Irving heresy, the Bible Society question, and other extraneous matters, have occupied pulpits, excited meetings, and furnished themes for domestic disquisition, and personal meditation-to the frequent hindrance of good feeling and Christian charity. Peace may, and no doubt will, be restored to the main body; but, among detached circles, and by individual members, the result of all this will be long and painfully felt. I have a case in point; one whom I well know, the friend of an excellent minister, was appointed, without personal intimation, on the Committee of a Society, with the principles of which he was wholly and decidedly at variance. But his spiritual guide had recommended it from the pulpit, and relying on his co-operation, had himself proposed his name on the occasion for which he was unanimously elected. What was he to do? Not wishing of course to run counter to his pastor's opinions, and, yet firmly persuaded in his own mind, my friend was for some time undecided what course to pursue; at length, after receiving two circular invitations to attend, which he had not answered, he not only tendered his resignation to the Committee, but stated his reasons for so doing. This was the first difference between the minister and the hearer, and the result has been most undesirable. Not the interchange of a single offensive word has ensued, nor the expression of a single wounded feeling, but there has been an evident loosening of a strong tie, a cooling of a warm affection, and the consequent gradual display of that long train of symptoms indicative of waning love,

which for a season blights the peace even of a Christian heart. The minister's footsteps, so familiar, so welcome, no longer cross the threshhold, his presence no longer enlivens the hearth; his counsels, sympathy, and prayers, which on all occasions were eagerly sought, and willingly given, no longer profit, support, and cheer-and the bond of Christian charity seems breaking for a thing of nought. Oh! how sad! Must we not say, an enemy hath done this. However, I would not despair. Better times I trust await us; times when, however assailed by persecution from without, the church of the Redeemer will be embodied in one close, impenetrable phalanx within, united in one cause, and one only. We have foes enough to encounter along the narrow pathway that leadeth unto life; foes that meet us at every turn;—surely our brethren should not hinder us in the road. Journeying to the same place, children of the same Father, servants of the same Lord, taught by the same Spirit, and contending with the same adversaries; let us pray for peace in our earthly Zion! Let all who love her, endeavour to imbibe the Spirit of him, the favoured disciple, who,. even when his failing limbs refused to bear him, was carried into the assembly of saints, and breathed forth the affecting exhortation, "Little children, love one another." If by example as well as word, our ministers now, would reiterate this through our congregations, and they, universally, would not only hear but follow, might we not anticipate gracious results? Yea, assuredly, we may trust that our Lord will bless us; and cause those contests to cease, which have shaken us to the centre, and given occasion for the enemy to blaspheme.

L.

WE feel little inclined, we trust, to borrow our policy from the popular cry of the day; nor would we stoop, for a moment, to advocate Reforms in the Church on the ground of the outcry now raised against every one of the ancient institutions of the country. But, apart from all these considerations, there are good and sufficient reasons, apparent to every one whose mind is open to conviction, which urge upon us the propriety of a speedy revision of many parts of our ecclesiastical establishment, for reasons wholly unconnected with the present excited state of public feeling; but which, at the same time, are not lessened, but rather increased in their urgency, by that popular excitation which threatens the existence of every thing which Englishmen have been accustomed to hold dear.

The considerations to which we have adverted, are those which many sincere friends of the church have been, for more than twenty years past, zealously urging upon the attention of her natural guardians. And, if we have at last to lament the rude handling which, in these days of sweeping Reforms, she may receive, our chiefest censure ought to fall upon the men who might, especially within the last ten years, have quietly and easily adapted her to the altered circumstances of the times, but who, from mere indolence and carelessness as to the real object and utility of a church establishment, have left her, with all her breaches unrepaired, and all her weak points unguarded, to the attacks of those whose hatred of her is unceasing, and whose aptitude in the work of demolition is their leading characteristic.

NOVEMBER 1832.

We join with the most zealous enemies of the church in finding fault with her present state and predicament. But then we differ wholly from them, both as to the nature of the charge they bring against the church, and also as to the remedy they propose. They say that the Establishment is far too extensive; and they propose to reduce, or wholly to pull it down. We say, on the other hand, that it is, by a great deal, too confined, and that the only way effectually to preserve it, is to extend its limits and its operations.

The grand error, we must again insist, of which the Established Church has been guilty, has been this, that she has taken no steps to extend herself over those new tracts and masses of population which the changes of the last century have brought into active existence; and that consequently, in the densely-peopled manufacturing districts, and in the suburbs of London, there have sprung up vast bodies of people who know nothing of her ministrations, who have never received any benefit at her hands, and who, consequently, feel no attachment to her cause.

This, whatever may be advanced on other hands, we hold to be her main defect and fault; and this, every one can perceive, is the source of all those dangers which now gather around her. What have been the most alarming symptoms apparent within the last few months? The refusal to pay church rates in Birmingham, and in some other places in the manufacturing districts of Yorkshire. And what can be more apparent than the cause? Birmingham, with above 100,000 inhabitants, has been suffered to remain a single rectory;

when at least twenty parish priests, -not ministers of chapels of ease, but parish priests,-should have been established within its boundaries. But nothing of this kind is done; a single solitary rector is left among a hundred thousand people, not one tenth of whom can even know his person, and not a twentieth of whoin know anything of his ministry, and then, when the natural consequence follows, when these thousands who are really strangers to their Rector, treat him as a stranger to them; and resist every proposition of paying rates, which, in such circumstances very naturally seem resemble tribute paid to some distant and foreign power,-when these very natural consequences result, a senseless surprise is expressed!

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And a shout of triumph is also raised, on a part of the enemies of the church, at what they deem a disposition on the part of the people, to break their allegiance to the entire ecclesiastical establishment. But there is as little ground for this exultation, as there is for the surprise last spoken of. Let such persons point our attention, if they can, to a case in which a parish of moderate limit and population, and supplied with a resident parish priest of good character, has ever shewn any desire to rid themselves of him as an incumbrance, or to refuse the usual payments necessary for the maintenance of the ministers of religion. We have never yet heard of such an occurrence, and we must therefore wholly deny that the people have shewn any disposition to throw off their allegiance to the church. The simple truth is, that where the church has left her duty unfulfilled, and the people unsupplied with the ordinances of religion, there a clamour has easily been raised, but the real cause of that clamour is, the deficiency of the church, in respect of supplying

the wants of the people; and the way to remove it is, obviously, to repair this failing, by multiplying her ministers, and increasing her ministrations.

But we must now come at once to the points which obviously stand in front of the question of Church Reform; and these concern, First, the ENDOWMENTS, and Secondly, the RITUAL and DISCIPLINE of the establishment.

The first point, then, that would present itself, in a revision of the endowments of the church, would certainly be, a reasonable reduction of some of the richer sees and other benefices.

We take this idea in no way from the cry now raised by the radical press. We know that cry to be absurd, and the statements by which it is accompanied to be false and exaggerated. We argue, therefore, from quite opposite data, and we arrive also at a totally different conclusion.

It is not from motives of mere envy or cupidity that we would touch the least portion of the church's revenues. But we wish for her extension; we want new sees and new parishes erected, where large masses of population have arisen up, without any corresponding enlargement of the church's boundaries; and it seems obviously just and proper, before the state is called upon to provide fresh funds for these purposes,— to see whether the church does not in herself possess the means of meeting these new calls upon her funds, and upon her exertions,

It was stated a short time since, by Mr. Baring, in the House of Commons, we know not with what correctness, that within a few years the see of London would become, by the termination of certain leases, worth nearly £100,000 per annum, We suppose that the most decided enemy to encroachments on the church would not wish that this should continue the permanent