ours was lately pleased to announce to us as in preparation. Such papers can only injure the works in which they appear, not those which they vituperate. The charges are constructed upon much the same principle as a charge against the Bible, that it says there is no God. E. B. asserts, for example, that the Christian Observer tells its readers to 66 go hunting about on Sundays, till they find a preacher suited to their itching ears." Does the Christian Remembrancer believe that any of its readers will credit this statement; and especially after the high eulogy in the preceding Number of the Christian Remembrancer, on the volume of the Christian-Observer Family Sermons? Good and evil are not surely so nearly allied. E. B. it appears had seen in our work a letter from a correspondent, on the question whether it is ever lawful to stray from the parish church, supposing the preacher unfaithful to his high trust, to another church, where the sermon exhibits sound doctrine. In our last Number appeared a reply to this paper, taking the opposite view to the first correspondent. We leave the respective arguments to be weighed and decided on by our readers, and have no fear that truth will suffer by examination. Yet the Christian Remembrancer allows its correspondent to assert that we have given the advice above mentioned. Our only answer is, that, be the advice bad or good, we did not give it. Another curious charge against us is, that, though we adhere to Episcopacy as a scriptural institution, we "receive those that rebel against it, as sharers of equal spiritual privileges in the covenanted mercies of God." Now, as the Christian Remembrancer has allow ed its correspondent to make this charge, it would do well, for the sake of its own character, and for the satisfaction of its own readers, to quote any passage in which the alleged statement occurs. We need not say that no such passsage is to CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 346.

be found; it is a pure fiction of E. B.'s. We never said a word about "rebelling against Episcopacy," or of Dissenters being, or not being," sharers of equal spiritual privileges in the covenanted mercies of God." We leave this matter to their and our Master and Judge. We should be sorry, however, with E. B., to place such men as Watts, and Doddridge, and Howe, and Owen, and Dwight, and nineteen twentieths of the Protestants of Scotland, America, and the Continent of Europe in really a worse condition than even Turks and heathens; or to denounce them as men utterly deprived of all the benefits of the covenant of Divine mercy of God in Christ, because they "rebel against Episcopacy."

Another vehement charge arises out of our having happened to state the law of the land and of the church, as expounded in the ecclesiastical courts, in the case of clergymen taking an occasional service in dioceses in which they are not regularly licensed. E. B. cannot say that we have mis-stated that law; for we gave it just as it was laid down by eminent counsel, and as it was ruled in the well known case of the present Bishop of Peterborough. That law is practically recognized every day throughout the country; but the Bishop of Ferns, with a view to put down such institutions as the Bible Society, and the Church Missionary and Jew-Conversion Societies, issued an arbitrary injunction to his clergy, utterly opposed both to law and long established usage; an injunction which no prelate, we presume, would have ventured to put forth in London, or any other place where its validity was likely to be fairly tried. We stated, what was important for our clerical readers to know, that the injunction was invalid; always, however, drawing the line between mere legal and voluntary obedience; and shewing that the greatest deference is due to the "godly monitions" of a prelate, even where he cannot enforce

4 K

them by law but if he threatens law, where the law, the practice, and the common sense of the case, are all against him, he cannot expect the same voluntary and cheerful obedience. An appeal to law is a tacit renunciation of the claim to spontaneous acquiescence; and if a prelate urge what is illegal, his clergy may properly place themselves under the law for their defence. The fault is not theirs they are driven to it by the hard necessities of the case; as was the clergyman whom the Bishop of Peterborough prosecuted on the very grounds urged by the Bishop of Ferns, and who very reluctantly was obliged to contest the point with his diocesan, and had the sentence of the court in his favour. There is no doubt that every regularly officiating minister should be licensed, and much evil has befallen the church for want of this regulation being better attended to; but who ever thought that a clergyman might not ask a friend from the next diocese, to read prayers or preach for him, as a mere occasional thing, or under extreme exigency? Hundreds of charity sermons are preached every year in London by clergymen who do not belong to the diocese; and the Bishop of Ferns himself, must have often officiated out of his own pale without offence or cen

sure.

Now because we stated this matter in a spirit of truth and moderation, and of reverence to episcopal authority, the Christian Remembrancer is pleased to allow his correspondent to say, that "the Christian Observer boldly recommends to the clergy resistance to, and defiance of, their bishop, and the self-assumption of powers never entrusted to them; and this simply because that bishop presumed to exercise his own judgment, and dared to dislike what St. Paul disliked before him." To every part of this statement we give a direct negative. First, we have never urged a spirit of "defiance" to constituted authorities, and least

of all to episcopal authority, even where it may have been injudiciously or illegally employed, and duty may require an authorised and temperate defence. 2dly, We never recommended to the clergy “an assumption of powers not entrusted to them;" but merely stated what powers are entrusted to them, by the law of the land, the Gospel of Christ, and common practice, and common sense. 3dly, We never recommended the slightest shadow of resistance to a bishop for " "presuming to exercise his own judgment," and "daring to dislike what St. Paul dared to dislike before him:" he has the fullest right to do the first, and is bound in conscience to do the second. It is only when a prelate, or any other person, wishes to make his conscience the measure of every other man's; and when, not content with "exercising his own judgment," he illegally threatens the penalties of law against those who legally and modestly exercise theirs, that the question arises as to what is the Scriptural measure of conscientious submission; and this measure we should be the last to abridge, especially in these days of unhallowed resistance even to lawful authority. We think it the duty of the clergy to pay much greater deference to their bishop, in virtue of his office, than is always the modern practice. We have indeed some very old-fashioned notions on this subject, which we fear are not at all to the taste of these liberal times.

We should not have spent so many lines upon an anonymous assailant in another journal if it had not been with a view to shew moderate men of every name in the church, and especially those who are currently called by the title of "orthodox," how grievously party spirit is often allowed to usurp the place of truth, while some wellmeaning persons unthinkingly cheer on such unscrupulous abettors. If we wanted a proof of this, we need turn only to the very next leaf of

the Christian Remembrancer; where, after all this shew of passive obedience to episcopal authority, because it happened to be in the case of a bishop who opposes the abovementioned societies, and used means not authorised by law, to effect his object, we meet with a most unjustifiable "defiance" to another prelate, the Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, merely because he did "presume to exercise his own judgment," not constraining his clergy to follow his example, but leaving them to the most free volition, and without the slightest imputation of injustice, unkindness, or partiality, being capable of being urged against him. He saw fit, it seems, in "the exercise of his own judgment," and according to the dictates of Christian love, enlightened wisdom, and true episcopal zeal in the service of his Divine Master, to attend a Bible Society at Coventry. For thus using his liberty, forcing no other man to do as he did, he is attacked in a manner the most undutiful, uncanonical, disrespectful, and uncalled for, in a letter published in the common newspapers, by the vicar of Trinity parish and his curate. Now what is due to the Bishop of Ferns as a bishop, is due to the Bishop of Lichfield as a bishop. Mr. Hook and his curate do bid "defiance" to their bishop; they threaten him, that if he presumes to preside at the Bible Society at Coventry, they will "render him obnoxious to the censures of their parishioners;" they assume the most lordly tone in remonstrating with him for supporting the Coventry Bible Society," in opposition to our wishes, and in spite of our wellknown principles;" and they pray to God to "send him a wise decision upon the subject." And this obtrusive and supercilious epistle from two private clergymen to their diocesan, the Christian Remembrancer inserts "for the consideration of every true churchman." Why, every true churchman who reads it, whatever may be his opinion of the Bible

Society, must say that it is most indecorous and offensive. But what says party spirit? One bishop, with a view to put down Bible Societies and the like, may go beyond law, and issue an injunction so oppressive that a clergyman who was dying could not get a friend from the next parish, if it happened to be beyond the Ferns pale, to read prayers and preach for him; and yet it was "defiance" to episcopacy to urge the meekest remonstrance: while another prelate, who happens to favour the Bible Society, may not take his morning ride to his own cathedral city, and sit in the chair of a charitable institution, without being assailed, not merely in a private letter, but in the newspapers, to the great joy of infidels and radicals throughout the country. And this is love of the church, and reverence for episcopal authority!

It is this hollow species of love for the church that we are anxious should be rightly appreciated by the public. Writers who love episcopacy in the mere spirit of party, would cease to be episcopal if party went another way. The Bishop of Ferns has but to join the Bible Society, to render "defiance" to all he says and does, as proper as is now passive obedience. The true churchman is the churchman who would cleave to the church if in a minority, and no longer connected with patronage and power. The men who toast most loudly Church and King, and denounce Missionary and Bible Societies, are not always the best Episcopalians. However, we do not mean to apply this remark to our contemporary the Christian Remembrancer, who is, we are sure, well affected to the church, though we think not on the best principles. We only ask him how he reconciles E. B. with Mr. Hook? or whether, after the fair opening he gave for a calm discussion of the points at issue between the Christian Observer and himself, in his candid and handsome

review of our Family Sermons, he has done well to check temperate argument by the insertion of E. B.'s party-spirited farrago.

WRITTEN AND EXTEMPORE SERMONS.

Tothe Editorofthe Christian Observer.

A RUNNING discussion respecting the merits of written and extempore sermons has proceeded from time to time in your numerous volumes, which, if condensed, would give no inadequate view of the reasons urged on both sides of this litigated question. Successive correspondents may occasionally add a stone to the heap byan apt illustration, authority, or argument, for which purpose I send you the following remarks and quotations.

A writer in your volume for 1828, p. 601, who, with much fairness, rested his arguments on the practice of the church, and on facts, drew out some important observations taken from Bishop Burnet by VINDEX, in 1829, p. 164. In confirmation of what Vindex maintains, I beg to offer a few more extracts; and am persuaded your readers will gladly peruse the testimonies of Hooker and Hall, and of Bingham, upon a subject on which they are so eminently qualified to speak.

No Christian will object to the directions given by the writer in 1828 for successful preaching; the only questions appear to be, First, Whether preaching extempore is necessary for the success of any man's ministry Secondly, Whether it has been the usual practice in the old, and we may add the golden times of Christianity. The following passages seem to negative the supposition.

M. E. W.

Hooker says, book v. sect. 21,"First, therefore, because whatsoever is spoken concerning the

efficacy or necessity of God's word, the same they [the separatists] tie and restrain only unto sermons; howbeit, not sermons read neither (for such they also abhor in the church), but sermons without book; sermons which spend their life in their birth, and may have public audience but once." "Sometime they trouble themselves with fretting at the ignorance of such as withstand them in their opinion; sometime they fall upon their poor brethren, which can but read, and against them they are bitterly eloquent." "Let them shape us out a good preacher by what pattern soever it pleaseth them best; let them exclude and inclose whom they will with their definitions, we are not desirous to enter into any contention with them about this, or to abate the conceit they have of their own ways; so that when once we are agreed what sermons shall currently pass for good, we may at the length understand from them what that is in a good sermon which doth make it the word of life unto such as hear. If substance of matter, evidence of things, strength and validity of arguments and proofs, or if any other virtue else which words and sentences may contain, of all this, what is there in the best sermons being uttered, which they lose being read?"

In the " Specialities in the Life of Joseph Hall, Bishop of Norwich," that revered prelate remarks:

"I held close to my Waltham, where, in a constant course, I preached a long time (as I had done also at Halsted before), thrice in the week; yet never durst I climb into the pulpit, to preach any sermon, whereof I had not before, in my poor and plain fashion, penned every word in the same order wherein I hoped to deliver it, although in the expression I listed not to be a slave to syllables."

Bingham, in his Antiquities of the Christian Church (book xiv.), says,—

"But of all these we must observe another distinction, that,

though many of them were studied and elaborate discourses, penned and composed beforehand, yet some were also extempore, spoken without any previous composition, and taken from their mouths by the ταχυγραφοι, or men who understood the art of writing short-hand in the church. Origen was the first that began this way of preaching in the church. But Eusebius says, he did it not till he was above sixty years old; at which age, having got a confirmed habit of preaching by continual use and exercise, he suffered the raxvypapo, or notaries, to take down his sermons which he made to the people, which he would never allow before."

"Next to the matter and style of their sermons, the question may be asked concerning the length of them. Ferrarius and some others are very positive, that they were generally an hour long but Ferrarius is at a loss to tell by what instrument they measured their hour; for he will not venture to affirm, that they preached as the old Greek and Roman orators declaimed, by an hour-glass; which yet he might have said with as much truth, as that all their sermons were an hour long, from no better proof, than their mentioning sometimes the hour of preaching, which signifies no more than the time in general; as, the hour of temptation,' and 'the hour cometh,' and my hour is not yet come,' are often used in Scripture. It is a more just and pertinent observation of Bishop Wettenhal's, that their sermons were often very short. There are many in St. Austin's 10th tome, which a man may pronounce distinctly, and deliver decently, in eight minutes, and some almost in half the time; and such are many of those of Leo, Chrysologus, Maximus, Cæsarius Arelatensis, and other Latin fathers. Some of St. Austin's are much longer, and so are the greater part of Chrysostom's, Nazianzen's, Nyssen's and Basil's; but scarce any of them

would last an hour, and many not half the time: and when it is considered, that they had many times two or three sermons at once, as I have shewed it was very much in Chrysostom's church, it would be absurd to think that each of them was an hour long, when the whole service lasted not above two hours in the whole; as Chrysostom often declares in his sermons, making that an argument to the people, why they should cheerfully attend Divine service, since of seven days in the week God had only reserved one to himself, and on that day exacted no more than two hours, like the widow's two mites, to be spent in this service.

"It may be inquired farther, whether all preachers were obliged to deliver their own compositions, or were at liberty to use the compositions of others? To this, it has been already answered in some measure, that the homilies of famous preachers, such as Chrysostom, and Ephrem Cyrus, were often read instead of other sermons from the pulpit, in many churches. And Mabillon says those of Cæsarius Arelatensis were read in the French churches; where also deacons were authorised by the Council of Vaison in cases of necessity, when the preaching presbyter was disabled, to read the homilies of the ancient fathers in country churches. Neither was this only the practice of deacons, but bishops sometimes also did the same. For Gennadius says, Cyril of Alexandria composed many homilies, which the Grecian bishops committed to memory, in order to preach them. He says the same of Salvian, the eloquent presbyter of Marseilles, that he wrote many homilies for bishops, ⚫ homilias episcopis factas multas;' which Ferrarius and Dr. Cave understand, not of homilies made before bishops, but for their use; whence he is also styled by Gennadius in the same place, 'episcoporum magister,' the teacher or master of bishops, because they preached the eloquent homilies