Although the Eis Baru has been incidentally mentioned, still as our pages have, on former occasions, been devoted to a consideration of the controversy, we must omit Mr. Bowles's observations upon this "vexata questio."

The first volume of the work before us is so interspersed with interesting matters, wherein, for a period, the chief object of the history takes no part, that, following his footsteps, we have fallen into the same desultory style. Since, however, the two volumes appeared at considerable intervals, we shall not hesitate to leave him, (as we find him, at the end of volume one, a prebendary of Winchester,) and defer, till our next number, the continuation of his eventful history, contained in volume two.

A few reflections here suggest themselves, in the indulgence of which we shall avail ourselves unsparingly of the historical documents. and remarks appended to the volume. In France, already has a motion been submitted to the deputies for the abolition of the Christian Sabbath! So true is it that republicanism, which in its very essence is hostile to the cultivation of the domestic virtues, is equally unfavourable to genuine piety and true religion. It behoves us to look to our own altars and hearths. That foul weather is approaching, and that, we fear, at no distant period, the faithful shepherds of the Christian flock will be called upon to take Morley's old cloak about them, and, like Ken, to suffer for righteousness' sake, must be obvious to the most careless observer of the "signs of the times." From the more ominous croak of Irish papists and incendiaries,-from the illsuppressed shout of the Socinians and infidels,-from the open and ribald attacks of enemies of all denominations,-it is but too clear that the portentous storm which has for many years lowered over the battlements of the Established Church is about to burst, and the most powerful efforts of her most powerful champions will scarcely suffice to arrest the threatened ruin. One periodical, with the picture of the spires and venerable abbey of Westminster as a frontispiece, cries, "Down with it! why cumbereth it the ground-for of what use is it?" Another fulminates its anathemas on the "omnivorant tithe-holders," forgetting, or perhaps (for ignorance is the characteristic of the tribe) not knowing, that the far greater number of omnivorant tithe-holders are to be found, with the lands once devoted to the poor, amongst the Bedfords and Devonshires, and other magnates of the movement party. Lord Mountcashel, like another Lord Pembroke, has already put himself in front, to raise orthodox "dulness" to the "vital" heat of his own evangelical barometer; and discovered, with holy horror, that the cathedrals of England are sinfully desecrated by the sublime strains of Handel!-his lordship doubtless conceiving, like another Prynne, that the choristers roar out a treble like a sort of hogs."

We have not, it is true, yet discovered that the Purists of the present day make wry mouths at "custards royal," as in the time of the pious, "God-seeking" Cromwell; but then, thank God, we have still a Church and a King; and although, in the conventicles, the same blasphemous phraseology, and familiar addresses to "the King of kings, and Lord of lords" is commonly used, still the Puritans, who have stolen into the sanctuary of our establishment, have not yet defiled our altars with such solemn mockeries.

But, in conclusion, hear Mr. Bowles :

In a great and opulent country, a correspondent station is assigned to the Primate of the Christian National Church. He exhibits, from illustrious eminence, to the highest and the lowest of the nation, a public example of Christian charity, as of cultivated amenity of manners: he exhibits, also, in front of a Christian community, piety without Puritanism-independence, without subservience to the proudest; employing wealth more as the munificent dispenser of charities (the patron of Christian benevolence as well as the pattern) than as the "rich man faring sumptuously." Such a character appears, in his place, the Christian associate, in a Christian kingdom, of a CHRISTIAN KING! For the same reason our spiritual peers, in limited numbers, appear mingling their mild dignity amid the nobility of the kingdom: yes, and hold their mitred heads amongst the proudest coronets in the seat of hereditary legislature, to teach even a Lord King to feel his superiors, in every thing but the accidental circumstance of patrician birth.

Whether the Episcopal Church of England,-one of whose most virtuous characters, among a thousand others in the same station, is the subject of this work, shall be doomed, amidst the conflicting tumults of the times, to be levelled or destroyed, or whether the spirit of sober, scriptural, apostolic truth, shall again be succeeded by illiterate and heartless puritanical fanaticism,-or whether the hallowed altar, rescued from superstitious pageantry, where the priest appears in the plain surplice, not the gorgeous cape, shall be profaned,-whether the roofs, resonant with daily praise, shall be silent,-whether the property that supports an order of the clergy in decent dignity, but not in splendour, called to officiate daily during their season of residence, shall be confiscated,—whether in the tempest which seems rolling near and more near,

"The spirit of the first-born Cain"

shall eventually prevail,-I have thought it my duty, regardless of the contumely of infidel demagogues or "puritanic lords," to deliver my own sentiments, as unreserved and as undisguised as I feel them, not as a Churchman, but as an ENGLISHMAN, who loves the institutions, the laws, and the religion of his country. Pp. 213–215.

ART. II.-Sermons preached in the Chapel of Lincoln's-Inn. By EDWARD MALTBY, D. D. F. R. S. F. S. A., Preacher to the Learned and Honourable Society of Lincoln's-Inn, now Bishop of Chichester. London Rivingtons. 8vo. Pp. 402. :

1831.

Or the encroachments which the Church, from time to time, has suffered from her secular ally, the interference of Prime Ministers in the appointment of Bishops has not been the least unconstitutional. In all matters, indeed, relating to the state, the minister of the crown

is the responsible adviser; but, as regards the Church, constitutionally speaking, he is an impertinent intruder. The encroachment has indeed. been submitted to without animadversion, because it has, of late years, been employed most beneficially for the Church. It is true that Tory ministers have selected for the office, men of Tory politics; but it is also true, that the individuals selected, have been men whose qualifications for the office were indisputable, whose pretensions were before the world, and whose claims, on the score of ability, learning, and piety, were of the highest order; and it is further to be considered, (we assign not the cause, but we affirm the fact,) that the vast majority of persons of this description were of Tory principles: indeed, we scarcely know of one eminent Clergyman who has embraced the views of the present government, of whom we should say, without even a knowledge of his politics, that he was the very person who ought to be selected for the awful office of a Father in the Church. We would not assume the individual labour of particularization: our readers will readily call to mind various names, copiously enwreathed with Whig laurels, but not particularly associated with spirituality, learning, scriptural belief, and aptitude for business, united, however adorned by any one of these qualifications singly. Tory patronage, then, was dictated by stress of conscience, by anxiety to advance the cause of religion, and by an ever wakeful sense of the presence of the public eye: it therefore conciliated the Church, and blinded her to the danger she might incur when less scrupulous hands should be armed with the unconstitutional precedent. Judging from the general conduct of the present ministry, the Church might deem herself fortunate if she escaped committal to the hands of some mitred Ganelon, wearing her garb that he might more effectually misguide her into the arms of the infidel. It was, therefore, matter of surprise to find the vacant chair even so respectably occupied as by Dr. Maltby, although we are very far from thinking the selection such as would have been made by a ministry under the sole influence of religion. The University calendars exhibit names far more illustriously wedded to theology and literature, far more practically connected with the labours of the ministerial office, than that of Maltby. To our readers it is unnecessary to suggest them. But Dr. Maltby would vote for the Reform Bill! Then he was abundantly qualified, and would have been, though he had been deficient in all St. Paul's requisites for a Christian Bishop. He would not give an unchristian vote upon "the bill!".

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One of the daily prints (which it is not worth remembering) calls the almost unanimous vote of the Bishops an unchristian opposition to the bill!" So the bill, we suppose, is nothing less than the Gospel. And this is the stuff which it is the fashion to call" knowledge!" for the dissemination of this, Mr. Hume would repeal all taxes on "knowledge!" "If the people had knowledge" (i. e. if they could all read nonsensical

But we were not, on first hearing the intelligence of Bishop Maltby's advance, particularly well satisfied with the appointment; and that, on more serious grounds. We were little acquainted with him as a theologian, though we knew him as an elegant scholar, and a respectable man; but our attention was caught by a review in the Christian Observer, of some sermon put forth by him some years ago. The criticism appears equitable, as it is abundantly verified by extracts; and it is certainly as temperate as could be expected, when we consider that the subject was a Clergyman,-a candidate for the highest office in the Church, and yet one, who, in two volumes of discourses, never explicitly recognised a vicarious atonement, talked of human merit, worthiness, and so forth, represented half the Scriptures as unnecessary, if not injurious, and gained the praise of a Socinian periodical, for repudiating doctrines which the advancing intelligence of mankind had left with contempt to the English Clergy, or any persons equally ignorant and illiberal!

However concerned, that opinions like these should ever have the opportunity of being promulgated, ex cathedrá, in a Church from which every private Clergyman is bound by his ordination vows to drive them, we were not surprised. Dr. Maltby was a Whig--a friend to "the bill" and a spice of Socinianism was but an inconsiderable alloy in qualities so precious; but at a subsequent occurrence we were surprised. A volume of sermons, inscribed with the name of this highly liberal prelate, has issued from the shelves of our publisher! "And is it so ?" we doubtingly exclaimed. "The honoured name of Rivington was ever a pledge of respectability, orthodoxy, and attachment to the Church; and is it possible that it can lend its venerable sanction to opinions and authors like these? If so, there is no security in a title-page, and no distance except that of a few doors between Rivington and Hunter." Eagerly then did we cut open the book; and most happy are we to say that it is free from all the gross implicit heresy quoted from the former volumes, by the Christian Observer; that it distinctly recognises the fundamental doctrines of Christianity, the divinity and atonement of the Son, and the absolute necessity of renewing grace-the work of the equally divine Spirit. That to these doctrines, however, are awarded the prominence which they possess in Scripture, and which, consequently, they ought to possess in any well conducted scheme of pulpit instruction, is what we would not say: but

abuse of the Bishops,)" they would not commit excesses," (e. g. burn episcopal palaces, &c. &c.) O tempora!

It is remarkable, that two out of the three individuals raised to the Episcopal Bench by the present ministry, have been publicly lauded by Socinian publishers: Dr. Maltby, by the Monthly Magazine; and Dr. Whately by the Unitarian. We have not heard what are Dr. Ponsonby's literary efforts in theology.

the book certainly clears our publishers from the charge of giving currency to heterodox opinions on the most important Christian subjects; and we may add, that it was probably the Bishop's idea, that in a congregation so highly educated as that which he was addressing, we might take these elementary parts of Christianity almost for granted; and "leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christianity," "go on unto perfection."

It is much rather, indeed, with a view to justify our publishers, than with any similar feelings towards Bishop Maltby, that we proceed to shew, by extracts from the present volume, that it compromises no portion of their just and high reputation. The idea that heresy had found shelter under "the Bible and Crown" would have the most injurious effects; as Churchmen of small leisure often purchase works for distribution with no other guarantee than the name of Rivington. But the Bishop is entitled to no vindication at our hands. The greater part of the passages quoted in the Christian Observer are indefensible; and if he has seen his error, and printed this volume as a retractation, we rejoice, and congratulate him; but more would be beyond the limits of critical or even moral justice. We are much inclined to hope that the objectionable phrases which have formerly exposed Dr. Maltby to Christian censure and Socinian praise, are only a rash and careless phraseology, highly culpable undoubtedly, but widely differing from wilful heresy. From expressions of this kind it will be seen that the present volume is not wholly free.

The doctrine of original sin,-that on which the whole dispensation of grace is erected, and which alone overthrows the entire Socinian theory, is plainly stated (with much propriety) in the "Introductory Sermon," as follows:

Inheriting, as we ALL do, the frailty of our common forefather, the higher classes of society are not, by nature, more exempt from transgression than the lower; the wealthy no more than the indigent; the learned than the unlearned. Education, indeed, will have given the one a more accurate understanding of his duty; his situation exempts him from the guilt to which poverty proves a temptation; and a just sense of the responsibility which he incurs to society, may preserve him from meaner habits and from grosser vices. Nevertheless, every one of us may, nay must, occasionally stumble; every one of us needs a warning against that "sin, which does too easily beset him." Can it be necessary for me to remind you that the pride of intellect, the love of power, a thirst after worldly honours and worldly enjoyments, an undue anxiety for heaped-up treasures, prove snares to the wise of this generation; to those who possess knowledge and talent, and who occupy, or desire to occupy, high stations? They are snares, into which the mighty and the wealthy fall as easily as the midnight plunderer will violate the prohibitions contained in the Decalogue, against the pursuit of such objects as pamper his appetite, gratify his lust, or satiate his vengeance.-Pp. 9, 10.

The following passages will leave no doubt of the Bishop's orthodoxy on the subject of Christ's divinity and atonement.