My peace I give, not as the world giveth, give I unto you." And that some blessing would be in reality attached to the authoritative declaration, might be inferred from the promise, attached to the Levitical Benediction, which God vouchsafed should be accompanied by His own blessing. To the heart of faith, therefore, the Priestly pronunciation of blessing, may be productive of greater spiritual benefit than the most moving appeals of human eloquence as God is in secret, and His Angels that minister to us, and all His paths in the deep waters, so all His instruments of benefiting our souls seem to partake of this character of Reserve; ways that appear foolishness to the world, for its effects are out of sight, but seen and fully acknowledged by those who are brought to the sense of them, for " wisdom is justified of her own children."

The like may be shown in many other points, that "the weapons of our warfare being not carnal," partake of this secret character, in opposition to that system which we condemn. It is the custom of that system to recommend persons to seek those ministers which are supposed edifying; but the Church considers all edification to be of GOD, and by His own means. If they are found unworthy or inadequate, the world recommends us to attach ourselves to others; the Church, by her Ember Weeks, supplies a remedy, but entirely of a secret character. For as our LORD has said, when He beheld the people as sheep without a shepherd, "Pray ye the LORD of the harvest, that he may send more labourers into his harvest ;" therefore, it is clear that the remedy for the unworthiness or scantiness of ministers depends on the prayers of the people. Here again the Church supplies us with a quiet rule of Reserve: the opposite to that which this system extensively pursues.

There is another point which may be mentioned to show the way in the which the Church secretly realizes the doctrines of Scripture, which doctrines the world will not allow. The modern scheme is very careful to separate the cross of Christians from the Cross of CHRIST, which the Scriptures, we think, in mysterious and manifold ways, unite, in the same way that type and prophecy often combine allusions to CHRIST and to His members. Now consider the Friday fast with respect to this subject. The Church

has always set apart this day for meditation on CHRIST's death and passion. But how is it to be observed? first of all it is a matter of obedience; in the next place the Church requires fasting on this day, both of which are, in fact, the bearing of our own cross. The observance of this is, in the first place a matter of obedience, and to obey is to bear our Cross: in the next place, the Church requires fasting on this day, and to fast is of itself to bear our own Cross. To take, therefore, the simple matter of fact, in this case fasting and obedience is what would be called bearing our own cross: and the effect of this is to dispose the heart to prayer, and to heavenly affections, and a sense of God's mercy in CHRIST; thus, as Bishop Wilson observes," the mystery of the cross is learned under the cross." Nor can this day be rightly observed excepting in such a manner as leads to these affections. Something of the same kind may be said respecting the LORD's day, on which the Ancient Church used to observe the posture of standing in prayer, to express that we are risen together with CHRIST. To realize the Christian Sunday is a matter of faith, and requires a knowledge of the "power of the Resurrection:" to insist on the observance of the Jewish Sabbath is to insist on an external duty, and may be popularly expedient; it comes more among things of sight; the former is received by faith in the invisible sanctions of long Tradition; the latter insisted on by express legal sanction.

Again, the mode in which the Church teaches us to regard Holy Scripture is one of Reserve. Let us take, for instance, the use of Psalms in daily public worship; by this circumstance of thus using them, it is evident she considers them as a Christian manual of devotion. And yet modern systems, which disparage or separate from the Church, consider them as very unfit for such a purpose. The Church uses them entirely upon a principle of reserve for of course, for a Christian to be repeating expressions concerning war, "the shield, the sword, and the battle," or concerning legal sacrifices, "offering bullocks and goats," or of "the hill of Sion," and the mountains that surrounded Jerusalem; or of Sihon king of the Amorites, and Og the king of Bashan ; or of Edom and Babylon being laid even with the ground: all these things are of course (as Dr. Watts has stated them to be)

unfit words for a Christian, excepting upon this principle of reserve; according to which we believe that the inspiration of GoD is in the words, and reverence them as full of Divine meanings with respect to ourselves. Something after the same manner that we look upon a Church and altar as holy, though to bodily eyes they are nothing more than cold stones or bare wood. And after some faint imitation of this vast principle of reserve, which thus pervades the Church of God, it is supposed that even the visible shape and structure of sacred edifices was intended by our forefathers to represent sacred mysteries, and the higher doctrines of our faith. Indeed, the Lessons themselves which are read in Divine worship, are many of them not at all understood by some, by most very imperfectly. Hence this popular system will not allow this reading of Holy Scripture to be sufficient for maintaining their opinions, without also what they call the "preaching of the Word," by which it is implied, that the Scriptures themselves are not the Word in the sense in the which they use the term. Because they do not put forward prominently and explicitly on all occasions the doctrine they so exclusively regard.

But moreover, with respect to the doctrine of the Atonement, it is contained throughout the whole of the Liturgy, after this manner of sacred reserve: inasmuch as the whole tone, spirit, and character of it, and especially the Litany, is expressive of this doctrine; and in fact conveys it, teaches it, infuses a right sense of it, more vitally and truly than any set speeches could do, in the same way that it is taught by all our LORD's words and actions. So that they of her sons whose spirit is in unison with her prayers, rightly receive this great cardinal truth: they whose spirit is not thus in accordance with her cannot receive it rightly.

4. The Church realizes the Kingdom in secret.

Now to realize all these mysterious blessings contained in the Church were, indeed, to understand the meaning of the term by which it is designated in Scripture as "the kingdom of Heaven" upon earth. It is all founded on that vast principle in Religion, that "he who will do the will, shall know of the doctrine."

They are all things that depend on the state of the heart: they cannot be otherwise than real and substantial gifts, as they have reference entirely to God's unseen presence, and only thus attained by secret faith and obedience. Now, some persons will allow that the case is perfectly true respecting our LORD's conduct in the flesh, that He observed this reserve (as shown in Tract 80. part i.) but they would confine it to that alone. They may be asked then, whether the cause of the Church in all these respects is not perfectly analogous to it? Our LORD is present in His Church according to His promise, and in all these things as of old, "He doth not strive, nor cry, nor lift up His voice in the streets."

We have in these points endeavoured to show more especially that the Church holds, after a living and substantial manner, those great truths of our LORD's Divinity and Atonement: she holds in secret what others require to be publicly pronounced aloud. But as the Church is more especially the dispensation of the SPIRIT, So it may be shown that she realizes, in the same kind of retiring modesty, all those influences of the SPIRIT connected with duty and dependence on the part of man, which it is thought so necessary publicly to profess. It is very evident how this is implied in the principle of the Church sacramentally conveying grace not to all indiscriminately, but to those who duly watch and wait for those gifts. It might be shown in like manner, how each article in the third part of the Creed, respecting the dispensation of the SPIRIT, is found fulfilled in the Church after a living manner, and not in human plans of religion. "The Holy Catholic Church" is realized throughout it, all our principles and practices being thence derived, and holding us in union with her. "The Communion of Saints" is maintained by unity of worship, by similarity of devotional forms, by one Baptism, and also by her Saints' days; whereby various Churches throughout the world, by commemorating the same Saints, on the same days, preserve a communion of spirit with the living, and also with the dead, whom they commemorate. "The Forgiveness of sins," is taught by her Sacraments, and Absolution. "The Resurrection of the body," by the doctrine of the Eucharist, as always considered to have some mysterious connection with the resurrection of our bodies: by the reverential regard with which she looks on Churchyards:

66

a

and the whole tone of her Liturgy and prayers, looks forward to life everlasting after death." So fully do her Services contain every doctrine and every principle which has a reference to the HOLY SPIRIT and as far as her sons, by faith and obedience, realize the same, they obtain the blessings of the SPIRIT; though the world knows not of it. And if the Church is reproached for not exhibiting these sacred truths more publicly, that reproach she shares with her Divine Founder and Master, to whom it was said, "If thou doest these things, show thyself to the world."

There are many points in which the sacred economy of the Church, being directed to the eye of GOD, and not to man, as one of reserve, is free from the temptations to which human systems are liable. It has no temptation to put forth principles of expediency rather than of truth, as that of Regeneration after Baptism it is in a great degree independent of numbers;-are there few or many that hold them, it matters not: it is free from the temptation to party spirit; it needs no words, no professions, to collect others around in sympathy; to make "broad phylacteries," wearing without that which should be within external ordinances serve the purpose of external bonds of union, and it thus secretly enters into the Communion of Saints. And, again, the House of God is, we know, "the House of Prayer," for the purposes of worship, but those whose religion mainly consists in popular appeals, are used to say, that the sight of a thinly-attended Church is perfectly deadening to them: and judging from their own feelings, they think it very desirable, that a Church should never be open, but when fully frequented: they need, moreover, external sympathies more for worship: but not so those who are used to realize, or endeavour to realize, in a Church, God's presence where Angels are intermingled as their associates in worship. And it is remarkable, that the two systems, that of this sacred reserve, and that of popular expediency, cannot exist together, without one derogating from the other in the same way that what is carnal, sensible, visible, has a tendency to stifle that which is spiritual and invisible. Where preaching (or rather eloquence of speech) is too highly estimated, prayer and the sacraments must necessarily lose their value: spirits excited, and moved be