assure them that their duties have been zealously and manfully discharged. Most important and judicious is the advice which the Bishop subjoins to his exposure of the dangers which environs them. "The complexion of the times has, in a few years, undergone a material change. The course of events has given a powerful impulse to the energies of the human mind. A mighty mass of intellect is working with incessant and increasing activity: and corresponding exertion is required on the part of the Clergy to give a proper direction to this general movement, and to controul its irregularities and excesses. "In the first place, you do not require to be told, that activity, earnestness, and zeal, in the complete and effective discharge of all your duties, can alone enable you to meet the exigencies of the occasion; to disconcert the projects of adversaries ever ready to take advantage of your negligence; or to retain the affections of serious men, who are likely to be alienated from the Church by remissness or indifference in the minister. "As little necessity is there to observe, that you are solemnly pledged to teach the word of God as it is revealed in the Scripture. If ever the imputation of preaching morality to the neglect of Gospel truth attached to any considerable proportion of the clergy, at the present day, I am firmly persuaded, there is no real foundation for the charge. At the same time it can never be superfluous to remind you, that you are false to your professional engagements, unless, in the course of your teaching, you thoroughly instruct your congregations in the whole circle of doctrines and duties, which are necessary to the attainment of salvation. The full and clear exposition of Christian truth will operate as the surest preservative against the sophistry of infidels, who would undermine the faith of your flocks, and the insidious practices of schismatics, who endeavour to shake their allegiance to the Church, and their attachment to their lawful pastor." P. 19. To a very few, as we would hope, of his clerical audience is his earnest exhortation to love and charity among themselves pecularly addressed. He deprecates, in the strongest terms, all mutual crimination and reproach. The daring and unfounded ac cusations so frequently brought against the generality of the clergy by the evangelical party, of indifference to the great and leading truths of the gospel, too far justify this caution. The best refutation of such a calumny is to be found in the lives and the the doctrines of the accused; enough has been already written by ablest pens to expose the fallacy of such an assertion; it remains therefore for the clergy, who are thus attacked, steadily to pursue the good path, nor to relax their exertions in the sacred cause, nor to weaken the efficacy of their labours by vexatious dispute dispute and useless recrimination: Magna est veritas et prævalebit. To the younger clergy, the Bishop has addressed himself in a strain of the most affectionate admonition and salutary instruc tion. If caution and timidity are the accompaniments of age, prejudiced declamation, and hasty decision, are the characteristics of youth; it is therefore essential to counteract that preeipitancy in determination, which, though formed without thought, is too often maintained against conviction, thus shackling the experience of maturer consideration by the folly and imprudence of youth. We could wish that the following words were engraven on the divinity schools of both our Universities. "On those abstruse and difficult points of theology, which are better suited to scholastic discussion than to the edification of ordinary congregations, I most earnestly exhort you to suspend your decision, till you have fully surveyed, and completely di gested, the system of Christian doctrine, and are enabled by repeated comparison to comprehend the relations and correspondencies of the several parts, and the connection and harmony of the whole. By attention to these suggestions you will arrive at maturity of judgment, with liberty of opinion and action unshackled by hasty declarations, or early prejudices; whilst on the other hand the peace of your conscience, the spiritual welfare of your flock, and the unity and tranquillity of the Church, may be endangered by imprudent precipitancy." P. 21. Not less admirable are the cautions of the Bishop against too anxious a desire of secular celebrity, and too great an appetency for the palm of popular preaching. His Lordship has been pleased to address this portion of his Charge to the younger part of his audience only, but, in our opinion, it is equally appli→ cable to those of a more advanced period of life: for it seldom happens, that vanity and folly decrease with increasing years. This being the case, it may perhaps be wise in their diocesan to warn them against the first assaults of vanity and self-approba tion, before they might grow too conceited to take advice, and too impotent to follow it. The next subject to which the Bishop calls the attention of his clergy, is to the establishment and support of national schools. Much has been already effected by this vast and powerful engine, but much still remains to be done, especially in the metropolis. Perpetual attempts are made from time to time by the patrons of infidel liberality to 'rekindle the flame of contention, which had been well nigh extinguished, and to oppose the broad basis, as it is termed, of religious indifference to the exclusive inculcation of the doctrines of our church. An attempt has been made to unite the interests of "schools for all," with those of the Bible Society, Society, which has for the present proved abortive; although declaration was made by the dissenting secretary of the latter that their views and interests were the same. We know not what effect the seductive name of the "British and Foreign School Society," with which it has been lately adorned, may have in producing the union, nor whether the Bible Society will choose to own itself the sponsor of this precious child of infidelity. All these circumstances, however, are of sufficient weight, to animate the zeal, and to encrease the activity of the clergy of the metropolis, by whose exertions, in conjunction with many excellent lay defenders of our establishment, the danger is to be diverted. The great instrument of education is at present in the hands of the church, every effort to wrest it from them has hitherto been in vain; if therefore, by their negligence or inadvertency, it should fall into the power of the enemy, to them only can be imputed the blame; for when once it is lost, let them remember that it never can be recovered. We trust that to every clergyman throughout the kingdom, who has neglected this means of diffusing religious instruction in any populous parish committed to his care, the following sentence will speak in the language of just reproach— "Every populous village, unprovided with a national school must be considered as a strong hold abandoned to the occupation of the enemy." The Bishop, however, has reminded us that even after the universal establishment of these schools, there is the most urgent call for vigilance and labour. We consider it as a providential circumstance that these institutions require the same care and attention in maintaining their vigour and utility, which was necessary at their first establishment. The constant attention of the clergyman is required not only to prevent any part of the system itself from falling into decadence, but to correct the abuses, and to controul the irregularities which are ever attendant on so complicated a machine; and above all, perpetually to recall them to their first principles-the promulgation of Christianity in the doctrine and discipline of the Established Church. All these circumstances will have an admirable tendency to unite the clergyman with the interests, the feelings, and what is of most consequence, with the rising youth of his parish, to teach them early to look upon the minister of the establishment as their guardian, protector, and friend. We have thought it incumbent upon us, for the reasons which we have stated, to present our readers with a full analysis of this most important Charge; and happy shall we be, if, from the account which we have afforded them, they shall be induced to give the whole of it that long and serious attention to which it is so uniformly entitled. Thronghout Throughout the whole there is manifested a vigour of intellect, a clearness of perception, and an accuracy of judgment, qualities which are rarely found united in the same mind. Every sentence is the result of profound and active thought, and cannot fail of producing a corresponding effect upon the mind of the reader, in providing him with materials for thinking. But what, in our mind, ccnstitutes its grand and leading feature, is the pious, enlarged, and dispassionate survey which it affords of the signs of the times. Every event which has distinguished the past, every cause which may operate upon the future, appears to have passed through the calm and disciplined mind of its learned author. Exalted by scholarship and piety to a sort of moral eminence, he surveys all the events passing below him in one luminous and comprehensive view, untainted by the prejudice of party, and undisturbed by the clamour of faction. The principles which he lays down are too simple to be misunderstood, and too powerful to be controverted or denied; nor are they the speculations of idle theory, but the foundations of permanent and decisive action. In very few instances has his Lordship entered into the minutia of detail, and in this point he has shewn much discrimination, as the Clergy of London are generally too well informed upon all these affairs to stand in need of the instructions of their Diocesan; it is to his declarations on the great public principles of ecclesiastical polity that they look with anxiety for countenance, and eagerness for information. The language is uniformly elegant and vigorous, devoid of all affectation either of ornament or of simplicity. The construction of the sentences is clear and unembarrassed; and the words and expressions are so happily chosen, that none could be altered or omitted without manifest injury. There is an energy and a warmth of feeling throughout, which is never betrayed into rant or inflation, but rises perpetually with the subject into a strain of manly and dignified eloquence. What however we most admire, is the glow of genuine and unaffected piety, which pervades and consecrates the whole, and appears to reflect, as from a mirror, the mild and Christian temper of its author. We have thus discharged our duty to our readers, and no less to the laity than to the Clergy, in commending this Charge to their serious attention, as we are persuaded that no one will rise from it without feeling the wiser and the better for its study. We stand in no sort of alarm from the imputation of flattery in these expressions of our approbation. It is a solid fabric; and will bear a far greater weight of honour than it is in our power to heap upon it. ART. II. Prósodia Graca, sive Metrorum Græcorum Expositio; necnon Dissertatio, Anglice Scripta, de usu digamma Homeri Carminibus, et regulis hexametri ejusdem præcipuis : cui adjicitur Liber primus Iliadis cum Notis. Studio Georgii Dunbar, F. R. S. E. et in Academia Edinensi Litt. Gr Prof. MR. Professor Dunbar of the University of Edinburgh, and the Reverend Mr. Russel of the University of Glasgow, are together by the ears. Τίς δ' ἄρ σφῶε θεῶν ἔριδι ξυνέηκε μάχεσθαι; Mr. Russel it seems is a wicked wag; and has published a book, in which he compares the University of Edinburgh to an indifferent water-mill, to which Scotch people resort to have their Greek and Mathematics ground, "however distant the mill may be, however scanty the water, and however indifferent the whole apparatus of grinding." Mr. Russel, it seems, did not call to mind the treatment which the Knight of La Mancha met with when he attacked a similar establishment: for he, like the hero of Cervantes, has roused the fury of the millers, one of whom steps boldly forward in the person of Mr. Dunbar, and proceeds to dust his adversary's jacket. And we must do him the justice to say, that if hard words would break bones, Mr. Russel's osteology would be cruelly deranged. Professors, it appears, are privileged to be more abusive than simple individuals; and accordingly Professor Dunbar flings the dirt about him with an energy worthy of a better cause. The unfortunate joke about the mill has procured for its author the appellation of " a Tatler and a Buffoon," "this Mau," and "the Reverend Gentleman." His work is "false, meagre, prejudiced, unjust; a daring insult to truth; full of malicious insinuations and groundless assertions;" himself" contemptible and ridiculous-with a degree of effrontery or stupidity hardly to be conceived, &c." "Whence are these tears?" Why, the Professor suspects that Mr. Russel is desirous of exalting the University of Glasgow at the expence of that of Edinburgh: and accordingly he takes great pains to shew that the latter is the favourite abode of Apollo and the Muses rather than the former. It is amusing to see two Gentlemen, north of the Tweed, quarrelling about Latin and Greek, and disputing whether the smallest number of solecisms and false quantities be committed at Edinburgh or Glasgow. The question, we conceive, lies between " tweedledum" and "tweedledee," and there let it rest. But as the Professor assures us that the Greek class at Edinburgh, has read, during VOL. III. JANUARY, 1815. с the |