for doing what all others are not only authorized, but expected to do, in similar circumstances.

It is far more to the purpose to call the attention of the public, and especially of the proprietors of these large transit boats, to the folly and sin of risking property and life for the mere accommodation of shortening a long voyage by to or three hours. The facility of taking short cuts, by going nearer shore than a sailing vessel would ever venture, has already made steam navigation more perilous than the old method. Several of the packets, as the " Pegasus," for example, have been lost, like ours, in calm seas. The very fineness of the weather constitutes the temptation to try the short, though dangerous, tracks: and the Captain is often urged to take the nearest possible route by the continued and childish inquiries of the passengers: "How long will it be before we get there?" The Scotch Company have already announced their resolution, that their Captains shall not, under any circumstances, go within the Fern Islands; and as the "Queen" is, I believe, the fourth packet lost in five years, in a somewhat similar manner, it is to be hoped that the Bristol Companies will at once give to the public some guarantee that their boats shall not, on any consideration, go within the islands of the Welsh coast.

The following additional suitable reflections are from the same pen. The whole of this event is providential; some circumstances connected with it were remarkably so. The two men belonging to the "Hope" had experienced great difficulty that morning in getting out from Milford; and yet were impelled, by an influence they could not understand, to persevere in the attempt. There was no urgent necessity about the delivery of their cargo: it was not perishable, like a cargo of fish, for instance. Their sails were of no use to them; they had to row with the large oars, or sweeps; and struck with the folly of being so determined to get out, even with so much labour, they frequently said one to another, "We had better turn back," and yet they kept rowing onward, they knew not why, until their hands were sore. When they got out, the folly of their perseverance appeared more and more evident; for the fog suddenly invested them, and they durst not go further. They then prepared to cast anchor, and wait all night, when they were suddenly alarmed lest they should be run down by our vessel. They were brought to this very spot by an irresistible, and to them unaccountable, impulse, and compelled to stay there till we came up. Ten minutes later in the time, or a few hundred yards distance from that spot, would have rendered them useless to us; and most, if not all, of us would have been left to perish. As a minister of religion, the people on whom, for about twenty years, I have been endeavouring to enforce the adoption of certain views of scriptural truth, may be anxious to know the feelings of my own mind on those subjects at the time when I expected, in a few minutes, to give account of my steward-ship. I heartily thank God that I have been favoured with this opportunity of bringing my religious principles to the test of death. I withdrew from the crowd: for the distinction between cabin and deck passengers was then disregarded, and all were gathered instinctively together

I hastily reviewed my private and ministerial life; but I found nothing there on which I could rest my hopes of acceptance. I set myself immediately to the process which I have a thousand times urged from the pulpit, and by the side of the dying bed,-a simple confession of sin, and a humble but confident reliance on the atonement of Christ. I felt that I was adopted into the family of God. My views of my own unworthiness were not diminished; but I knew that I was accepted through the Beloved. I had peace with God, and a humble, yet delightful, assurance that, should he call me hence, I should be for ever with him. The great doctrine of justification by faith is dearer to me than ever; it does not give way under us in the time of difficulty and danger; but sustains when all other hopes are fled. The only impressions on my mind are the following; and I pray to God to deepen them every day :-the absolute necessity of living in the constant exercise of saving faith; of cultivating that jealous watchfulness which will prevent us from grieving the Holy, the witnessing, Spirit, and preserve his testimony constantly clear and unclouded; and of preaching far and wide the sinner's only hope,-that "whosoever believeth on" Jesus Christ" shall not perish, but have everlasting life."

SANCTIFICATION THROUGH THE TRUTH.

THAT man may be sanctified through the Truth, it must be received with reverence, for it is the Truth and word of God: with faith, for, if it is not unreservedly credited as divinely oracular, it will not have any efficacious and abiding influence: with preparation, for, as the Lord teaches us that seed cast among rocks and thorns, or on the way-side, must unavoidably be fruitless; so it is indubitable, that evangelical instructions, both meditative and oral, are in a great measure, or entirely, barren, because there is no previous cultivation of the soil, that the good seed may take root, and bear the "fruits of righteousness: with prayer for "wisdom from above," that "the Father of Lights, with whom is no variableness or shadow of turning," will dispense "every good and perfect gift;" so that the Truth may "make us wise unto salvation:" with diligence, that we may fulfil the Lord's injunction, and "take heed what we hear, and how we hear," and thus we may ever be prepared truly to answer to the Lord's impressive queries, "What is written in the law? How readest thou?" With love; for it is certain that no benefit can be derived from the Truth which is attended to only with aversion or indifference. There must be an unfeigned and a supreme attachment to the Truth, or it will not be incorporated with our judgment, affections, motives, conscience, pursuits, sympathies, and will; and unless the Truth be so inseparably intertwined with the whole man, its sanctifying power will not be enjoyed, and its holy effects will not

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be exemplified. But the Truth must also be reduced to practice, or its grand design will not be accomplished. Every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, and an evil tree bringeth forth corrupt fruit." This we are infallibly assured, that if men are not sanctified through the Truth, and do not exhibit the legitimate influence of it in their lives, it is because the Truth is not believed in its supreme authority, or it is not received according to its true attributes and requirements, or it is not applied as the only healthful and perfect remedy against all ungodliness, or its hallowed principles are commingled with deteriorating errors, which impede its operation, or by traditions, which make the Word of God of none effect."

All the benefit which is derived from the Truth consists in the application of it; therefore, it is right to ask our own hearts a few plain questions, before we dismiss the subject. The ever-living Intercessor has prayed for us, that we might be "sanctified through the Truth." Has the petition been answered in our experience? Can we be at peace, and indifferent whether the Lord's gracious interposition on our behalf has been successful or not? Are we willing not only to have the wrath of God abiding on us, on account of our unholiness, but also to be crushed for ever under the weight of the prayer of mercy-by our wilful ungodliness transformed into our additional irremediable curse? In other words, Do we study and understand the Truth? If not, it is certain that we are not purified by it. Do we believe and obey the truth? If not, its brilliancy does not irradiate our understandings, and its fire does not burn up the dross of corruption in our hearts. Do you preserve the truth unmixed with error? Are you substituting Baptismal Regeneration," for the Regeneration of the Spirit?" Are you elevating a priest on earth to the prerogative of the Godhead, by blasphemously looking to man for the forgiveness of sin? Are you substituting a vain form for the vital power of godliness? Are you burying the truth under a load of human traditions? If so, you have not yet rightly Christ." Have you been sanctified through the Truth? You are children of Error, or followers of Truth; and, remember, the Truth either hardens or softens the Truth either blinds or gives light: the Truth may be held in unrighteousness," or be rejected; and the Word of God, which shall judge us at the last great day, will then ratify and seal our eternal doom in darkness and pollution; or in this state of probation we must secure its plaudit, by being "sanctified through the truth."

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THE RULE OF FAITH AND THE SUBSTANCE

OF THE FAITH.

EXTRACTED FROM THE CHARGE OF THE BISHOP OF OHIO.*

To minds skilled in the old contests of the truth against the corruptions of Rome, it was not difficult to see where they (the tractarian writers) were making their main, though often masked, attack. To get away from the Church that palladium of her strength-the doctrine of justification by a righteousness external to us, and only in Christ-and to substitute the precise opposite-a justification by a righteousness in us, and not in Christ, implanted by sacraments and increased by good works-this was the first and main object. This gained, the citadel of protestant faith was gained; their cause was gained; the Church was unprotestantized.'

It seemed, therefore, that the first thing, in setting up our defence was to secure the clear, well-defined understanding, and the decided holding and preaching of the doctrine of our Church, in her Articles and Homilies, on that subject. In aiming at that, by means of my last charge, there was little direct reference made to Tractarian publications. My next effort at the same object was the publication of of a volume, inscribed to my reverend brethren of Ohio, in which the system of divinity attempted to be established among us, under the name of "Catholic Verity," was compared with the doctrines of the Church of which its chief advocates are presbyters, and with those of the apostate Church against which she protests at every angle and bastion of her fortress. When that work appeared, many thought it had come too late; that the spirit of evil was laid, and the danger over. I believed, on the contrary, that it was then continually gaining strength, and would be gaining, till, with its parent popery, the Lord shall destroy it "with the brightness of his appearing," in the day when the cry shall be heard, "Babylon is fallen, is fallen!"

Since then, it has been continually enlarging its influence, multiplying disciples, infecting partially those whom it did not poison entirely, and enfeebling the hold of the truth upon those whom it did not wholly pervert. It is now fast preparing minds in which it has not yet effected a lodgment. Every new publication of its leading organs exhibits some new development of designs, of tendencies, of results. It displays a boldness in avowing its objects, and uncovering its principles and springs, which once would have been its

death.

The concentration of almost all questions of religious interest upon the great points involved in this system; the standing aside of almost all other forms of theological controversy till the issues of this be determined; the room devoted to the subject in the charges of bishops of the Church of England; the excitement of the public mind with

*This able Charge which was delivered in September last, has just reached this country. The bold, manly, and uncompromising resistance, which the Bishop has given to the tractarians, and the wisdom and acuteness with which he exposes the deceitful character and direful tendency of their writings, must be our apology, if any be necessary, for the length of our extract.

regard to it, as evinced in all the religious, and in so many of the merely literary or political publications of the day; yea, the whole aspect of the literature of the age, attests the truth of what the Lord's faithful watchman on the towers of the Church in India declares, that the controversy connected with the Tractarian movement is "the most momentous struggle in which our Church has been engaged since the period of the blessed Reformation." It is precisely and avowedly the same struggle as that of the Reformation. The object of the one side is boastfully published, to "unprotestantize" the Church-to get back what the Reformation drove away. The main difference of circumstance is, that the Reformers contended with Romanism in its dotage, with all its horrible corruption of morals around it, to shame it; with all Europe groaning under its oppression, and with all its poetic associations of antiquity drowned in the practical consciousness of its iniquity. The contest is now with Romanism revived in its early youthfulness. The great adversary of the Church would not lay aside an instrument so precisely to his mind, and for centuries so triumphant. He could transform the dry tree into the green as easily as his magicians did once change their dry rods into active serpents. The work has been done. The old root of Rome, dead at the top, has thrown up in the midst of us a youthful sapling, vigorous, aspiring, full of life, "heady, highminded." It is already a great tree. I believe most solemnly, that, under this new shape, we have a revival of anti-Christian heresy and opposition to the truth as it is in Jesus," which cannot be dreaded too seriously, or resisted too earnestly. There is no controversy of these times comparable with this. We have important controversies about the polity of the Church; this is about the very life of the Gospel. We have questions about the walls and courts of the temple, this is for the possession of the ark and the mercy-seat. We have differences of opinion about this or that particular doctrine, while essentially agreeing in the main system. Here we have a difference about the whole system of faith, from fundamental principle, to minutest inference. Should we yield the ground, nothing would be unchanged, either in its nature, its application, its relative position, or in the basis on which it would rest. Even the Atonement, though retained, would be put back from front to rear; from its bold exhibition, as a City of Refuge set on a hill, to that of its ancient type, the brazen serpent, after it had done its work, and was put out of sight as useless. Even the doctrine of the Trinity, though left as the Church of Rome has left it, untouched in substance, would be moved from its broad basis of proof in the Scriptures, and set upon the support of man's tradition.

In a word, the controversy is for Christianity. And with this most serious belief, dear brethren, I cannot but claim your attention while I endeavour, in this discourse, to protect my diocese from the evils with which our whole Church is threatened. I know you are already sensible that there is great evil in the system of divinity alluded to. I wish to make you sensible that it is nothing but evil. I know you think it ought to be feared and opposed. I wish to make you duly sensible with what solemnity, watchfulness, and prayerfulness, it should be feared, and with what uncompromising