mind, properly to enjoy this advantage. It is, no doubt, a high privilege to be able at times to withdraw oneself from the cold and crushing distinctions of the world, and to range about in the free expanse of intellectual enjoyments. But I repeat, that a luxury of this nature can only safely be enjoyed by one who understands that he is, for a particular purpose, placing himself in an unreal position. An aristocracy of pure intellect a state, that is, in which persons took rank and precedence solely in proportion to the intellectual powers just as one of pure wealth, would, in point of fact, be a grievous tyranny. The only aristocracy which can permanently maintain itself is that of moral excellence-excellence not confined to one generation, but descending as a legacy from father to son. And this is, as near as may be, the state under which we live. High moral excellence will rarely fail in England of raising its possessor in the scale of society: joined with intellectual powers, it may ensure success. And when once this elevation has been made, it is the part both of generosity and of reason to presume that excellence will perpetuate itself. It may be, indeed, that we are disappointed, and that a son or grandson may arise who is careless of his ancestor's honour. But even then, what will be the consequence? He may live for a while on the wealth or reputation, as it may be, that has been bequeathed to him; but he will gradually fall, in himself or in his descendants, to his own proper level. Again, it is to be considered that reading may be only an unwarrantable diversion f.om our proper business; not only a waste of time and all our time will have to be accounted for-but an encroachment upon what is properly due to something else. So to many a person whose day is not his own, a love of reading may be an absolute snare. Or a person whose intellectual powers have been sharpened by reading, may be under temptation to exercise them on things that are too high for him; and to forget, that though the province of reason is indeed very extensive, there is also another faculty of mind, viz. faith, which has also its appropriate place. So may men be opposing God with his own gifts, and marring their own happiness. You may indeed perhaps have heard study pronounced to be an excellent discipline of the mind, and many valuable moral qualities attributed to the prosecution of it. This is quite true: the real scholar can scarcely fail to be a good man. But, then, reading is not study. Study requires faith and patience, and diligence and temperance, and increases all these virtues: reading, in the generality of persons, is merely the indulgence of a taste either natural or acquired. This distinction should be carefully noted; and I know of no better advice that I can give you, my friends, than to eschew the latter, and to acquire the former habit. It is difficult to put too high a value upon that power of self-control, by which a man can devote himself, without any prospect of immediate results, to a laborious course of study, and abstract himself from present enjoyments, from the mere love of truth. And hence the advantage of following up some particular branch of knowledge, by severe study, in preference to an idle and aimless habit of desultory reading: the one strengthens the mind, the other weakens it; the one tends to lay up stores of wellarranged knowledge, the other can only supply scraps of unharmonised information. The conclusion, then, towards which we are being drawn is this, that to acquire a habit of reading is, in itself and abstractedly, neither a good nor a bad thing: it may keep a man out of temptation, or it may bring him into temptation. And this will depend upon several circumstances; and first, upon the character of the books which he reads. But on this subject I need not further dwell; for this responsibility, I am glad to say, is fully recognised by your society, both in what are stated to be the objects of the association, and in the rules according to which they are selected. There remain certain dangers residing within a man, against which he must guard; and these, I would remark, are greatest in an adult who is educating himself. And for this reason: he is tempted to think that some injury has been done him in the neglect of his early education; and that, had he enjoyed equal advantages with others now his superiors, their relative positions might perhaps be different. This is a highly unfavourable state of mind to improvement of any kind. Patience and freedom from prejudice are essential to success in most occupations; but if a man seeks knowledge merely as an instrument for surpassing his neighbours, he is almost sure to be the worse for it. What I would say, then, shortly is this:Exercise your power and opportunities of reading, under a sense of responsibility. Avoid bad books and publications; not only because they may poison the mind-for from this danger persons of matured principles may possibly be exempt (I say may, though I believe very few are)-but because it is your duty to protest by every means against those abominable licentious publications which abound at the present day. It may seem, indeed, almost superfluous, among a body of persons who make fellowship with the Church of Christ the test of membership, to name such a caution; but my own observation has caused me to know, that these publications, from curiosity or other inconsiderate motives, are found where we should be very little likely to expect. It is a habit, indeed, which cannot be too strongly condemned. He that toucheth pitch will be defiled thereby; and a profane idea which has been conveyed to the mind in this manner, will sometimes visit it at the most solemn seasons. Or, granting that a man escape danger in his own person, he will yet be responsible for others of his household who may not be so secure against it, and he will have to answer for the general influence of his example. ways which led down in all directions to the Weald below. I stood for a few minutes to watch them returning to their different, and most of them distant homes. I stood in the churchyard by the sun-dial, in an open space between two vast yew-trees, said to be fifteen hundred years old, and said so probably with truth. Before me was a landscape of orchards, hop-gardens, and fields of various cultivation in the foreground; further on, and for many But, to return.-Avoid also frivolous, or miles, was an immense prospect of country, even miscellaneous reading, which has a ten- || sometimes rising and sometimes falling in all dency to dissipate and unnerve, instead of sorts of beautiful but not bold irregularities, bracing the powers of the mind. The noblest till at last in the extreme distance it might study in which we can engage is the know- be seen to terminate here and there in the sea. ledge of God and His works, and of our own So distant, however, were those points, that duties. Pursue this knowledge as that which it was always a matter of interest with the is most worthy of man; pursue it patiently church-goers on a fine day, to stand in groups and humbly, in dependence on those human in the churchyard, both before and after seraids which God has set in His Church and on vices, to make trial who could see the ships, the wisdom of the ancients; in dependence, and who could not; and he was a rare man, also, upon illumination from above. Other and not at once believed, who said he could branches of knowledge are also, according to count them. your opportunities, to be pursued. In all, let truth be the object that you seek for, not the confirmation of some favourite theory,-truth which shall influence your own heart and conduct. Strive to be better, as well as wiser; and, first of all, learn to know yourselves. THOMAS AUSTEN. THE first curacy I had was in an exceedingly As I was walking slowly down the rectory garden, and thinking, not without some pleasant excitement, how entirely alone I was, how all were strangers about me, and how many miles off were even my nearest friends, I came all on a sudden upon the old clerk, who was standing on the gravel, or rather sand-walk, to catch me as I went into the house. " 'I must trouble you with a little more work still," said he, "before Sunday is over. Thomas Austen is very bad, sir, and has been so a long while; but he don't think that he shall live out the night; and he bid me say, he had a great mind to see you, sir, if you would please to come when service was over." Hearing this I became my own messenger, and went to the poor old man immediately. There was time for no inquiries before I went, or at least I did not stay to make any; so I had every thing to learn when I got there. A good cottage-door was opened to me by a woman, who turned out to be his daughter, and she at once led me up into a bed-room and left me there alone with her father. I saw at once that he was a very old man, and manifestly dying of nothing but old age; he afterwards told me that he was nearly 90. "I have asked you to come so soon, sir," said he, after one or two words of introduction, "because I don't believe I have many hours to live, and I could not be easy to die without seeing you." I replied, that I was glad indeed to come to him, and that one so aged as he was should have such a desire to see a minister that was so newly come. "Why, I will explain that to you," said the old man, "if I can. You do not know, perhaps, what a neglected place our parish has been. I do not know how many years ago it is since we had a clergyman living among us. Then, sir, I was always a very shy man, and loath to speak but when I must. And I don't mean to say that I always thought enough about another world to seek such sort of discourse with a minister. But, sir, when one comes to be as weak and old as I am now, it drives one to it; and I, for one, would not go into the next world, if I could help it, without having the best advice I could get, to be as sure as I could that I was going the right way." "Was there any thing particular, then, that || you wished to say to me?" said I. "Yes, sir, there is," said he, "if I can but find strength and words to say what I wish. I will tell you a little about myself first of all, that you may know and judge all the better. I have lived in this dark place all my life, sir; getting on, you see, now fast for an hundred years. I was always a bit of a scholar, and now I cannot tell how many years ago, but a great many, I took to keeping a school. And I have had a great many trials more, I am sure, than you would expect." "Let me hear about them, if you can," said I, "for I cannot think what you mean." a deal better for him than all these many strangers could do. No doubt I made but a poor matter of it, but yet a great many of my neighbours would listen to me, and kept to their church, and left off their bad ways. But though I did this, sir, it was a great trouble to me very often. I knew I was not the man for such work-I was not fit for it. What could I do? I was sure those people were wrong, and I was sure, too, sir, that what I said was right; nevertheless, when a man has to be doing what he is not fit for, it must make one uncomfortable; and what I wanted to ask you before I die is, whether I may believe I am as right, sir, as a poor creature like me may hope to be. I never talked with a minister before about these things; only when I heard you were come to live among us, and felt that I was so near my end, I could not be easy till I had seen you.' This led the old man to tell me, in the simplest and in the clearest manner, his faith, his manner of life, and his hopes. There was nothing extraordinary about any of these, only they were such as became a sincerely Christian man, and shewed one who had lived in great earnest, thoroughly believing what he thought true, and who had lived, and meant to die as he believed. I told him I could wish to make no change in his state of mind, but would pray God to keep him in it to his end. This I did; and when I arose from my knees, and sat down again, the old man looked at me kindly, and said, "I mean this," said Austen. "I was baptised at church, as you may suppose, sir, and I was always brought up to the Church, and I always found that I was never so happy as when I lived accordingly. But I had little enough knowledge, I am very sure of that. Well, sir, for many years past, from time to time, there have come into this place all sorts of preachers-Ranters, and Baptists, and more than I care to think of now. And you are to "You can little think, sir, what a thing it know, sir, that, little as I was fit for it, they is for me to look back upon those days I have would be continually coming to me, to dispute been talking about; and I can but think it and to be angry with me because I would not would be too great happiness for this world, go along with them; and they told my neigh- to live one's days where one had a minister bours to have nothing to do with me. One of to ask advice of at all times, as well as a them would say, 'What a wicked man you church to go to. I keep thinking what happy must be, Thomas, to fight against the truth, days mine would have been through all those and to be a hinderer of the Gospel, and to help years, if I had had such a blessing; and it to keep your neighbours, and all those poor || pleasures me, as I lie here, to go them over children, in such darkness!' Another would again, fancying that it was so, and what they say that I was certainly in league with Satan, would then be. And then, I think that, perand must come to a bad end, and so on. But, haps, so it will be with young people now; sir, I never would give in to them. I used to and this makes me consider whether they will say, true enough, this is a dark place, and I care about it or not, and whether they will am but an ignorant man, and it is a sad pity be many of them as happy as I am certain I that our Church here should be left as it is; should be if I were young again, and were one but, for all that, these new people can't be of them. I wish they could all know what I right, I know enough to be sure of that. I have gone through, and I think many a man told them I could not read the Bible and and woman too would then stick as fast to Prayer-book, and not be sure they were all their church and minister as, please God, I wrong, and were going a bad way about mend- feel no doubt that I should always do now, ing matters. Many of my neighbours had a let me live ever so long." good opinion of me, sir, and said they were sure that I led a good life, and ought to know best. But all I could tell them was, that though I could not speak much to them, or explain things, yet I felt in my heart that if a man did but stick to the Catechism, he would find that which would comfort him, and do || After this, I bid the old man good night, telling him that I should be away for a few days, but would come and see him again as soon as ever I returned. I went to Lambeth next day, and before the following Sunday returned in priest's orders; but meanwhile Thomas Austen had gone to his rest. THE CATHOLICITY OF THE CHURCH We are particularly anxious to lay down this principle clearly at the outset; because, if the being of apostolic origin be the test of catholicity, we shall then have little difficulty in illustrating, by reference to historical facts, the catholicity of the reformed Church of England. The subject naturally divides itself into two parts. We are, first, to shew that the reformed Church of England is of apostolic origin as regards its existence as a society; and, secondly, that its doctrines are of apostolic origin. BEFORE We attempt to illustrate the catholicity of the reformed Church of England, it is necessary that we first lay down clearly what is meant by the term "catholicity. The word catholic, from whence catholicity is derived, is commonly said to mean universal; but this explanation must be understood with some limitation. For if by "universal" we mean that which extends over the whole world, it is manifest that there never yet was First, then, as regards its existence as a a time when this term could be applied, in a society. It is hardly necessary to insist upon strictly literal sense, to the Church of Christ. the importance of this principle; for it is obThat blessed time, doubtless, will arrive, when vious even to a child, that a Church which "the earth shall be full of the knowledge of did not begin from the apostles, and in them the Lord as the waters cover the sea "" (Is. from Christ, cannot be of divine original. xi. 9); but it has not arrived yet. There are In tracing the history of the Church from still heathen nations to be converted to Chris-Christ to our own time, we shall avoid, as tianity. The true meaning of the word will much as possible, all matters of controversial become at once apparent from attending to discussion -not stopping to inquire what the history of its introduction into the creed. || might, or what might not, have been otherThe 8th article of the Apostles' Creed was at wise; but shall confine ourselves to a simple the first expressed thus," I believe.... the detail of historical facts. holy Church;" but when heretics had made divisions, and still applied the term Church to themselves, it was enlarged by the addition of the word catholic. The occasion of this addi-a tion evidently points out its meaning, viz. that it was intended to declare that the holy Church" in the creed did not mean any separate congregation, but the universal Church, comprehending all true members of the Church, wheresoever they might be living. Afterwards, when the Nicene Creed was framed, in the year 325, the holy Church was yet more accurately and fully described to be " one catholic and apostolic Church." The holy fathers acknowledged no Church to be catholic which was not of apostolical original "Let the heretics," says Tertullian, "set forth the origin of their Churches; let them turn over the order of their bishops, so descending by succession from the beginning, that he who was the first bishop had one of the apostles, or of the apostolical men who was in full communion with the apostles, for his author and predecessor. For in this manner the apostolical Churches bring down their registers as the Church of Smyrna had Polycarp placed over them by John; as the Church of Rome had Clement ordained by Peter; as the other Churches also set forth those who were made bishops over them by the apostles." The word catholic, in this article of the Nicene Creed, is therefore clearly intended to express the union of all the apostolical Churches in one catholic and apostolic Church. And the test of catholicity, according to Tertullian, is the being of apostolic origin. Tertul. Her. Prog. c. 32, Perceval. It is a fact, then, recorded by St. Matthew, that Jesus Christ did not enter upon his public ministry until after he had received public open calling and appointment to that office, given him in a visible and audible manner, by a voice from heaven. St. Paul, referring to this event, says, "This honour no man taketh unto himself but he that is called of God, as was Aaron; so also Christ glorified not himself to be made an highpriest, but he that said unto him, Thou art my Son.". It is a fact that Jesus Christ frequently, in the course of his ministry, refers to this Divine appointment; and particularly when he gave his final commission to his apostles, "As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you." And from these words, it is clear that the commission which he gave them was of the same nature with that which he derived from God the Father; that is to say, it was a commission which they were not only to exercise themselves, but which they were moreover to transmit to their successors; and that the manner of its transmission was to be in some outward visible manner; for it was in an audible visible manner that Christ received it from God the Father, and it was in an audible and visible manner that he transmitted it to his apostles. We will not now enter into the peculiar powers which this commission conveyed; suffice it to say, that it was a commission by which Christ's authority to act in his name transmitted from the apostles to their successors, and was to continue in force to the end of the world, according to Christ's own promise, when he said to them, "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." was We are now to trace the manner in which Christ's authority, thus transmitted to the apostles, has been by them transmitted through succeeding generations. The Bible will of course carry us but a little way; but yet it affords us sufficient light to shew how Christ's authority was at first transmitted in the Church. First, we read that the apostles appointed deacons to assist in the daily ministration; next, we read that they ordained elders in every city to minister to the congregation. St. Paul tells us that he ordained Titus, and left him in Crete for a different purpose still, viz. that he should ordain elders; and to Timothy he gives this charge, Lay hands suddenly on no man." 66 Thus are the three orders of ministers which have been in the Church ever since clearly to be distinguished in Scripture. In the book of Revelation, we read of the seven angels of the seven Churches of Asia; by which expression, angels, all commentators understand the bishops of the Church of Asia. Thus, then, before we are obliged to take leave of Scripture, we see the Church in its infancy, consisting of a baptised people, with deacons to assist-with elders, or presbyters, or priests, to minister to the several congregations, and to dispense the holy eucharist; and likewise with a third order of ministers, whose special office it was to ordain ministers, and to preserve Christ's authority in the Church by transmitting it to their successors; and so to perpetuate the corporation which Christ had chartered-to keep alive that body of which Christ is the head, and whose members must languish and die, except they can maintain a connexion with the Head. Leaving, then, the Scripture, we now trace the Church in its increasing dimensions through the succeeding centuries. The first witness to the mode in which Christ's authority was transmitted to succeeding generations is St. Clement, who lived in the first century, and of whom it is affirmed that his name is written in the book of life. St. Clement, in his first epistle to the Corinthians, writing concerning the schism which was then risen up amongst them, says, "That the apostles, foreknowing that there would be contests concerning the episcopal office, did themselves appoint the persons; and that they afterwards established an order how, when those whom they had ordained should die, other fit and approved men should succeed them in their ministry;" and, again, "that they who were entrusted with this work by God in Christ, did constitute these officers." But this matter depends not upon the testimony of Clement, or of an host of other fathers who might be produced in evidence. It is such a public matter of fact, that we might as well go about to prove that there were kings in England, as that the ministers of the Church of Christ were, from the beginning, ordained to succeed one another, and that they did so succeed. But that we may not appear to evade the question, we must beg to refer our readers to a little work lately published by the Hon. and Rev. Mr. Perceval, on the "Apostolical Succession of the Church,” in which a number of authorities are quoted. The authorities there cited are from every part of the world - Europe, Asia, and Africa (the only quarters of the world then known); from France, Italy, Cappadocia, Egypt, and Carthage. They are selected, not merely from the order of bishops, but also from presbyters, catechists, and one (viz. Tertullian) who is generally supposed to have been a layman: they are witnesses, not of dubious character nor unknown persons, but the companions of the apostles-themselves martyrs and confessors to the Christian faith; not men living in a corrupt age, or corrupted by the supposed evil effect of a civil establishment, but living in the purest ages of the Church under the storms of persecution, and who had all passed off the stage before the Church received what is called an establishment. Such is the character of that cloud of witnesses, who, having no interests to serve but the truth of the Gospel, bear their united testimony to the fact, that the Church, as it is called in Scripture-the holy Church, as it is described in the earliest form of the Apostles' Creed-the holy Catholic Church, as it was afterwards more particularly described in the same creed-the one catholic and apostolic Church, as it is yet more accurately defined in the Nicene Creed,-was from the beginning under the charge of bishops. It is very remarkable that there is no doctrine or tenet of the Christian religion in which all Christians in general have, for the space of 1500 years, so unanimously agreed as in this of episcopacy. In all ages and times down from the apostles, and in all places through Europe, Asia, and Africa, wheresoever there were Christians there were also bishops; and even where Christians differed in other points of doctrine or custom, and made schisms and divisions in the Church, yet did they all remain unanimous in thisin retaining their bishops. Accordingly, a list' of bishops might easily be given, from the apostles to the present primate of all England; so that we might with almost as much reason deny the fact that we are by natural birth descended from Noah, as that the bishops of the English Church before the Reformation were, by ordination, descended from the apostles. Pass we on, then, now at once to the period of the Reformation in England, at which time there were bishops. 1 Such a list will be found in the Appendix to Mr. Pal mer's Compendious Ecclesiastical History (Burns). |