priest will agree with us in saying that their unanimous verdict 18 "that they hear exactly the same things in both places." This is the universal answer given to the remonstrances of the clergyman; so far, at least, as our experience goes, and we speak indifferently of the favourers of the Methodists, the Baptists, and Independents, to say nothing of several individuals who glory in being a creed unto themselves.

But, lest the kind of testimony should be thought exceptionable, we will give an extract from a little popular book that is before us:

"Now, Lucy, for the life of me I could not get Mrs. Morton's words (Mrs. M. is the wife of the clergyman) out of my head that night, as I lay alone, ill, and unable to sleep upon my bed. I had always imagined, as I have already told you,-whenever I had chanced to give it a thought,— that all would go well with me in another world, as I had been a tidy, thrifty woman, and had tried to earn an honest penny, and pay every one their own. You know I could have said this of myself, with truth, before we got into trouble; and since that, I had looked upon it, that I was more to be pitied than blamed. But now, when I began to think about loving and serving God, of which Mrs. Morton had been talking, that was quite another matter; and I could not help inwardly exclaiming, 'If I had loved Him, I should not have driven my poor husband to the ale-house, by my sinful temper; I should not have let my little George and Johnny die without once trying to teach them that there was a God.' Then all the Sundays which I had spent without going to church, and regardless of anything good; the Bible scarcely opened since I had left school, nay, I did not even at that time possess one; prayer totally neglected; all this stared me in the face, in a way which it had never done before, till a deep dread began to creep over me, for it seemed certain that if I was to die then, I should be lost for ever.

"How I longed for the hour when I knew Mrs. Morton would call again. And oh! how glad I felt when I saw her enter the room.

"After she had asked me how I was, she said, 'Did you think of my questions last night, Mrs. Atkins?'

"Indeed I did, ma'am, and I believe you are right, and that I have not loved God; but when I get up again, I will try to love Him, and to lead a better life.'

"And do you suppose that you will be able to do this? that you are able to save your own soul?' she asked, looking very grave. There is an account in the Bible, in the 16th chapter of the Acts, of one who inquired what he should do to be saved. The answer was, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." Now there can be no other answer returned to you, or to any other person upon earth, “For there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved."

"I do not understand what you mean by believing on Christ,' said I, for I knew nothing about the things of God.

"To believe on Christ,' replied Mrs. Morton, is "with the heart," to believe what you read in the Bible about Him; to take God in His wordat His word. He there tells us that we are fallen creatures, sinners by nature and practice, and, if we look into our own hearts, can we doubt this? He also tells us, "That Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners!" Surely, Mrs. Atkins, you have read in the Scriptures how Christ, being God, took on Him the form of man, and died upon the cross for our sakes. He did two things to procure our salvation. First, He obeyed all God's laws, in our place, instead of us; as we, being fallen and sinful, can

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not obey them. And, secondly, He paid the price of our redemption on the cross with His blood. When, therefore, any soul is brought to believe on Him, God will in mercy regard that soul as if it was good and holy, because Christ having obeyed the law of God in its place, His righteousness is imputed to it, as the guests were covered with the wedding-garment at the marriage-feast, mentioned in the 22nd chapter of Matthew; and he will, also, let that soul go free from all punishment, and take it to heaven at last, because Christ, in suffering death, bore the punishment of its sins. It is quite plain throughout the whole of Scripture, that man is saved by faith alone; that is to say, by Christ-by his righteousness and atonement. For faith is only the means through which man accepts the salvation which Christ offers, and which unites the believer to Him, as the branches are united to the vine.'

"As she spoke, I felt a wish to believe on Christ; but I did not know how to set about it, and told her so.

"What do we find in the Bible on this subject?' said Mrs. Morton, opening a beautiful new one she had brought with her, which she afterwards put into my hand as a present to me from Mr. Morton and herselfFor I remember there is a text which says, "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.' If I turn to the 6th chapter of St. John, Christ declares, at the 44th verse, "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him:" and again, in the 15th chapter of St. John, at the 5th verse, "Without me ye can do nothing." The first thing I learn, therefore, is this-that I am not able to believe on Christ in my own strength! Well, then, I must "Search the Scriptures" again, if I do not wish to suffer eternal death, and see how I am to be made able to believe on Him. I find many texts which teach me what to do. Among them, the following, in the 11th chapter of St. Luke, at the 9th and four following verses: "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If ye, then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?" Now, when the Holy Spirit enters into our hearts, He endues us with power and grace to believe on Christ; for Christ says, in the 16th chapter of St. John, at the 14th verse, when speaking of the Holy Spirit, "He shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you;" and when the Holy Spirit is given by God and received by man, then that great change is brought to pass, which is called in Scripture being "born again," without which, Christ tells us, we "cannot see the kingdom of God." From the time this change takes place in our hearts, and we believe on Christ, and are taught of the Spirit, it is said of us that we are "new creatures;" and the Scriptures add, that if any man be in Christ a new creature, "old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." "-Mary Atkins, pp. 52–59.

We have given this long extract as a fair specimen of the teaching of a large body of the Clergy. Some persons may think, perhaps, that it is not a fair specimen; because it seems to exclude the notion of baptismal regeneration. But, even assuming (a very liberal assumption!) that there is not a large body of the Clergy who venture to deny this fundamental doctrine, it appears from the subsequent part of the story, that the author admits the doctrine in question; and the delight and faith

of the mother in bringing an infant, that was born at a subsequent date in her history, to the "holy sacrament of Baptism," is largely dwelt on. At the same time, nothing is more manifest than that the address of the clergyman's wife to Mrs. Atkins proceeded on a practical denial of it; for she refers to the being "born again" as a sudden and instantaneous change to be sought by the penitent adult. And this we believe precisely to represent the anomalous condition of too many of our clergy. Their preaching and teaching do not correspond with their formal theological opinions. And the great crux is the doctrine of baptismal regeneration-which, while they admit it abstractedly in words, is so far from being, as it should be, the basis of all christian instruction, that it is never followed out to its legitimate consequences.

Thus, for example, a clergyman takes, perhaps, as his text, Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand," or those words of our Saviour, "Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish;" or, once more, those of St. Paul in reply to the jailor's inquiry, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved;" and though the Catechism teaches the Christian that this repentance and faith were necessary conditions of his baptism; and this of course does preclude the idea that they are to be renewed and perpetuated through life, but rather involves it-he yet hears himself exhorted to the performance of these duties as things to be begun de novo. If a man has neglected them, let him be put in mind of his neglect; but it cannot be right to address him as our Lord addressed the apostate Jews, or as His apostle replied to the inquiries of heathen men. The fact of a man being already under the vows of his baptism, and already having been made a "child of grace," must, whether for better or worse, at least materially affect his case in some way, and can never safely be put out of sight by the preacher. It cannot be right always to be telling whole congregations to be "coming to Christ," as though they had not been brought to Him in Holy Baptism, and had themselves ratified that act in Confirmation; and many of them even in the habit of approaching Him in the sacrament of His Body and Blood.

Now, in proof of this statement-that a very great inconsistency does prevail in the teaching of the clergy—it might be sufficient to refer promiscuously to the tales published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, the staple of which are the hasty repentances and uniformly happy deaths of men and women, whose lives differ from one another not usually in the heinousness, but only in the outward form of depravity. Or we might, with equal effect, appeal to any of the volumes of Sermons which are placed at the head of this article. It will be seen at once that the writers do not belong to the Low-Church school of divinity. They would call themselves, we presume,

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High Churchmen; and yet it would be impossible to extract from their sermons anything like a system of dogmatic theology. A truth is enunciated, as, for instance, baptismal regeneration, or judgment by works; and they seem afraid of their own positiveness, and haste to neutralize the truth enunciated by a copious use of certain set forms of speech which amount to a virtual denial of what was before stated. The process is performed without the consciousness of the individual: it is the natural result of an unsystematic education in theology; and we are quite sure that the evil will remain unremedied so long as we exclude dogmatism from our schools of divinity. Laxity in such matters we may be certain is no charity to the souls of men: moreover, it is unfaithfulness to God.

We know that it is pleaded, on the contrary side, that Scripture qualifies all its statements in the same way; and appeal will be made to the seemingly contradictory statements of St. Paul and St. James, and to other similar instances, to show that even there doctrines are set one "over against the other," as it were. Granted: but there is this important distinction to be observed. Opposing statements are frequently to be found in Scripture: but there is remarkable a total absence of all attempt at qualification or reconciliation. Each writer delivers the truth which he is commissioned to tell with entire apparent disregard of consequences. Thus it is affirmed that we are saved indifferently by "hope," by "grace," by "baptism;" our salvation is spoken of in one place as future, in another as past: Christ tells us in one passage that He is one with the Father; in another, that He receives commandment from Him. These are only instances of a general and acknowledged feature in the statements of Holy Writ, which has been satisfactorily commented on by many writers, and finds its solution in the extreme depth and fulness of the Divine Mind. But this, so far from being analogous with, is entirely opposed to, the system of compromise and qualification, against which we are contending. The voice of Scripture is uniformly bold and positive: the teaching of too many at the present time is a merely coupling together of contradictory propositions, which leave the mind of "the unlearned" in a most perplexing maze. Take the doctrine of the Holy Eucharist, for example. Our Lord says, plainly, and without qualification, "This is My body;""ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood." But is there one clergyman in five hundred, we ask, who ventures to repeat the statement and leave it? We are confident there is not. It is sure to be followed by some salvo which takes away all meaning from the words; as, e. g. "figuratively," or "in a sacramental way." The Catechism, as matter of course, receives the same treatment. "The Sacraments" (the Church teaches) "are generally necessary to salvation ;" i. e. no person can be saved without them

which is a mere repetition of our Lord's own words. "Impossible!" shout forth a hundred priests: "See how many, then, will be condemned:" "generally" cannot mean "for all persons:" it must mean "usually;" and so, in spite of the logical and grammatical meaning of the words, and in spite of all that the author of the expression can say to the contrary, we have a person of no less presumed orthodoxy than the Dean of Edinburgh, in his Explanation of the Church Catechism, positively misrepresenting the doctrine of the Church which he undertakes to expound. How the doctrines of the Church fare with less-instructed theologians, is easy to surmise. Baptismal regeneration is asserted; and then follow summonses to be converted, such as Scripture addresses to the unregenerate: the worshipper goes to feed on the body and blood of his Lord, and is told that It is not there; till at length the christian sacraments become no better than the "beggarly elements" of the Jews; the substance is equally unsubstantial with the shadow; and the mind of the inquirer after truth is mocked by words having no meaning. "The Romanist knows what he believes; the Churchman does not," is become a proverb with those who are least disposed to look favourably on anything that has the taint of popery upon it. Hence the downfal of those among us who have lapsed.

The man who is without a creed is, in fact, a latent heretic: he is holding all heresies in solution; and it needs but the accidental drop of some moral acid to precipitate any given form of heresy. The Churchman who is unguarded by a positive theology forms a family connexion with dissenters, takes up with a popular non-conforming preacher, encounters a clever controversialist, and he renounces the catholic faith without scruple or consideration. Now, we ask, Can it be that the flock should become the prey of the wolf, and the shepherd be guiltless in the sight of God? Where are the fences to protect the fold? Where is the faithful voice of warning? It is with shame that we ask the questions, for we know that they cannot be answered. Due provision has not been made for the instruction of our people in a settled form of faith: the clergy themselves do not know what they are to teach; the result is that they teach diverse doctrines, and the people naturally think themselves at liberty to choose what they will believe and what they will reject.

It may be that, in venturing these remarks, we shall be charged with making persons dissatisfied with the Church as it is. The charge is unjust our remarks really only go to render the clergy dissatisfied with themselves, and with the means employed for their education. Here we do desire to produce dissatisfaction in the minds of our brethren; and to convince them that there is need of a more systematic method of learning and teaching than what has been in use of late years. Nor do we conceal