matic, and formal, and intolerant procedure which such an arrangement requires, it seems to us to comport but very imperfectly, with those various shades of doctrine, practice, and discipline, which will inevitably prevail; which Christianity itself evidently admits among the most sincere of its professors, and which it were neither. wise nor benevolent to wish to coerce into an inmeaning and unnatural uniformity. Christianity, as a personal system, admits of these shades; and why should the policy of kings seek to abridge them? If the Head of the Church qualifies and thrusts forth labourers into his harvest, differing in inferior points, but all faithfully labouring for him, and upon his authority, where is the wisdom or justice of that policy which raises one class above all the rest, and by giving them a charter of worldly influence, and authority, virtually persecutes, and degrades, and rejects all the other classes of the Great Proprietor's labourers? Why should civil rulers at all interfere to elevate or depress any of his servants? Why should not the people be left to choose and to provide their own teachers, under the supreme guidance of the Head of the Church, who has promised to send them "pastors after his own "heart?" There is one supreme Curator of public instruction, from whom the teachers receive both the matter and the authority of their Mission; and to Him an unshackled and unbiassed appeal should be open to all parties, Why should it be said, the people are inadequate judges of what sort of instruction is best for them? They are surely as competent judges of the contents of the sacred volume, as either king, lords, or commons. And, after all, every truly Protestant principle requires what we are advocating, that the only standard of preaching should be the Bible, and that the ultimate judges of the agreement of preaching with that standard, should be the people instructed. For the preacher himself has not the shadow of authority, when he advances beyond the contents of the sacred volume. Why then, we ask in addition, should Jaboured arguments be conducted to prove the agreement of certain classes of teachers with a human standard adopted in any particular nation by the civil rulers, when those standards may be as various as the meridians of the places at which they prevail? All such standards appear to us futile and delusive, and calculated to operate in no way but as impediments to the progress of " the truth as it is in Jesus." Why should one set of teachers be allowed to arrogate to themselves the epithet authorized, when they have only been touched by human,-we wish not to offend, by episcopal hands? Why must the public veneration be attracted to them, and liberty of conscience be prostrated at their feet, when they have neither any moral or

any intellectual endowments which raise them above the ordinary level of educated men?

-We have been led into these reflections, by a sentiment which has some hold of the mind of Mr. Sumner, though evidently, it does not so completely possess his understanding as it does those of many of his brethren. We saw a bulky pamphlet some time ago, entitled, "The Claims of the Church of Eng"land to be considered the only authorized interpreter of Scrip“ture;" and this is the reiterated language of a vast majority of the clergy and of all the bishops; so that the pretension to infallibility seems to be the incurable taint which infects all endowed establishments, "

1 Mr. Sumner insinuates, in his preface, that the Articles and Formularies are effectual promoters of soundness and uniformity of doctrine; and he makes it an inference much to the credit of those Articles, that a recent secession of several high-Calvinistic ministers from the communion of the Church, arose from the utter incompatibility of high Calvinism with those Articles. He says,

I am well aware that I have been led to treat of some questions upon which it becomes us to inquire humbly, rather than to decide positively; neither is it probable that I should have ventured to enter upon them at all, had not my attention been forcibly directed, by ac cidental circumstances, towards that high tone of Calvinistic preaching which has recently ended in a partial secession from our Established Church, with whose tenets it was justly felt to be incompatible.' Preface, p. 4.

We really have seen no reason for ascribing the secession of those gentlemen to their high doctrinal views; for if they had entertained no other peculiarities of sentiment, they might, with a clear conscience, have retained their livings; for they certainly had as good ground to consider the Articles to be Calvinistic, as others have to consider them as being Arminian. But the tendency of Mr. Sumner's remark is completely counteracted by the fact, that a far greater number of high Calvinists, and men too of unblemished reputation, still continue to hold their benefices with a good conscience, without feeling the incompatibility of their doctrines with the Articles, Creeds, and, Formularies of the Church. We do not consider it as fair in argument, to make so strong an inference from so weak a case, iu favour of the fullfaced opposition of the Articles to Calvinism. Moreover, Mr. S. has made this an occasion not merely of displaying the authorities and examples' which, as he conceives, discountenance and condemn a high tone of Calvinistic preaching, the abuses of Calvinism, but Calvinism in toto, from beginning to end; and this in no measured phrase, but sometimes with a more sweeping

matic, and formal, and intolerant procedure which such an arrangement requires, it seems to us to comport but very imperfectly, with those various shades of doctrine, practice, and discipline, which will inevitably prevail; which Christianity itself evidently admits among the most sincere of its professors, and which it were neither. wise nor benevolent to wish to coerce into an unmeaning and unnatural uniformity. Christianity, as a personal system, admits of these shades; and why should the policy of kings seek to abridge them.If the Head of the Church qualifies and thrusts forth labourers into his harvest, differing in inferior points, but all faithfully labouring for him, and upon his authority, where is the wisdom or justice of that policy which raises one class above all the rest, and by giving them a charter of worldly influence and authority, virtually persecutes, and degrades, and rejects all the other classes of the Great Proprietor's labourers? Why should civil rulers at all interfere to elevate or depress any of his servants? Why should not the people be left to choose and to provide their own teachers, under the supreme guidance of the Head of the Church, who has promised to send them "pastors after his own "heart ?" There is one supreme Curator of public instruction, from whom the teachers receive both the matter and the authority of their Mission; and to Him an unshackled and unbiassed appeal should be open to all parties. Why should it be said, the people are inadequate judges of what sort of instruction is best for them? They are surely as competent judges of the contents of the sacred volume, as either king, lords, or commons. And, after all, every truly Protestant principle requires what we are advocating, that the only standard of preaching should be the Bible, and that the ultimate judges of the agreement of preaching with that standard, should be the people instructed. For the preacher himself has not the shadow of authority, when he advances beyond the contents of the sacred volume. Why then, we ask in addition, should Jaboured arguments be conducted to prove the agreement of certain classes of teachers with a human standard adopted in any particular nation by the civil rulers, when those standards may be as various as the meridians of the places at which they prevail? All such standards appear to us futile and delusive, and calculated to operate in no way but as impediments to the progress of " the truth as it is in Jesus." Why should one set of teachers be allowed to arrogate to themselves the epithet authorized, when they have only been touched by human,-we wish not to offend, by episcopal hands? Why must the public veneration be attracted to them, and liberty of conscience be prostrated at their feet, when they have neither any moral or

any intellectual endowments which raise them above the ordinary level of educated men ?

We have been led into these reflections, by a sentiment which has some hold of the mind of Mr. Sumner, though evidently, it does not so completely possess his understanding as it does those of many of his brethren. We saw a bulky pamphlet some time ago, entitled, "The Claims of the Church of Eng"tand to be considered the only authorized interpreter of Scrip

ture;" and this is the reiterated language of a vast majority of the clergy and of all the bishops; so that the pretension to infallibility seems to be the incurable taint which infects all endowed establishments, "

-1 Mr. Sumner insinuates, in his preface, that the Articles and Formularies are effectual promoters of soundness and uniformity of doctrine; and he makes it an inference much to the credit of those Articles, that a recent secession of several high-Calvinistic ministers from the communion of the Church, arose from the utter incompatibility of high Calvinism with those Articles. He says,

I am well aware that I have been led to treat of some questions upon which it becomes us to inquire humbly, rather than to decide positively; neither is it probable that I should have ventured to enter upon them at all, had not my attention been forcibly directed, by ac cidental circumstances, towards that high tone of Calvinistic preaching which has recently ended in a partial secession from our Established Church, with whose tenets it was justly felt to be incompatible.' Preface, p. 4.

We really have seen no reason for ascribing the secession of those gentlemen to their high doctrinal views; for if they had entertained no other peculiarities of sentiment, they might, with a clear conscience, have retained their livings; for they certainly had as good ground to consider the Articles to be Calvinistic, as others have to consider them as being Arminian. But the tendency of Mr. Sumner's remark is completely counteracted by the fact, that a far greater number of high Calvinists, and men too of unblemished reputation, still continue to hold their benefices with a good conscience, without feeling the incompatibility of their doctrines with the Articles, Creeds, and Formularies of the Church. We do not consider it as fair in argument, to make so strong an inference from so weak a case, iu favour of the fullfaced opposition of the Articles to Calvinism. Moreover, Mr. S. has made this an occasion not merely of displaying the authorities and examples' which, as he conceives, discountenance and condemn a high tone of Calvinistic preaching, the abuses of Calvinism, but Calvinism in toto, from beginning to end; and this in no measured phrase, but sometimes with a more sweeping

breadth of epithet than was consistent with his professions of · complete freedom from all party designs.'

Before we enter our protest against the doctrines and reasonings of this volume, as an accurate display of apostolical preaching, we think it but right to express our approbation of several redeeming qualities which appear throughout its disquisitions. In the first place; It displays considerable earnestness and weight of argument in urging the importance of ministerial proprieties of character, and the necessity of attention to the spiritual state of the individuals that compose the flock. On these points the Author has many interesting remarks. The leading principles which he lays down, have our warmest approbation. There is indeed room to wish that he had gone further in exhibiting what may strictly be denominated the importance of the preacher's office, the final consequence to the believer, and the unbeliever. His pages would have been much more impressive, if he had poured over them a few of those weighty and touching considerations which impressed the great Apostle's mind when he said, "To the one 66 we are a savour of death unto death, and to the other the savour of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things?"* Through this deficiency, we are compelled to say, his treatise, in spite of its correctness and its piety, is cold, and wanting in pathos. Secondly; We have observed throughout the volume, an evident wish to draw the line between real personal religiou, and a mere submission to the forms and ceremonies of the Church. The Author is aware there is a great distinction; he feels it; but at the same time his fear of diminishing or weakening the public belief in the mysterious virtue resident in the rites and ceremonies, exposes him in several places to considerable embarrassment, from which he escapes with unusual agility and generalship. Yet we venerate the piety which dictated the following remarks,

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However absurd the reliance on any virtue of the opus operatum may be, it is not sufficient to depend on such absurdity as preserving men from adopting it. The confidence in the rite of circumcision and other externals among the Jews of old, the abuse of baptism itself by some mistaken Christians in the 4th and 5th centuries, and of that ceremony, together with extreme unction, in the Romish Church, and the unwarrantable notions which (it is to be feared) are too often associated with the Lord's Supper still, are lamentable evidence of the facility with which mankind run away from realities to ceremonies, and content themselves with the shadow for the spiritual substance.' p. 161.

We may further remark, that this volume is for the most part a commendable exception to the general spirit in which many Refutations of Calvinism are written. It does allow that a Calvinist may be a faithful and useful minister

* II Cor. ii. 6.