involving a point of conscience, such breach amounts to positive schism. This applies to all those who refuse to distinguish between the Church of England, as apostolic in its constitution, in regard both to doctrine and discipline, and as receiving the sanction and support of the secular government. It forms, Dr. Middleton, maintains, a branch of that visible Church, from which he who wilfully departs on insufficient grounds, is to be considered as much in opposition to it, as a Jew or a Mohammedan. But the preacher shall speak for himself,

"Hence it is evident, that national Churches, legitimately constituted, are branches of the one true Church of Christ; and that to separate from the Church to which we properly belong, while its sacraments are duly administered, and while it engrafts not on the pure Word of God the traditions and corruptions of men, is to renounce the Church in its full and primitive acceptation. A Christian who should be converted to Judaism, or to the religion of Mohammed, so far as respects the question of separation, could only withdraw from his particular church: I do not say that he would not recede further from the truth, than does the professor of the worst perversion of Christianity; I contend only that the separation from the visible Church of Christ is, in either case, complete. This remark, however obvious, becomes important, when there exists a disposition to distinguish between the Church of Christ, and that which has the sanction of the civil government; when we hear men speaking of the established religion of their country, as if it were a political institution, and as if its doctrines and discipline were hunian inventions, deriving their validity from the legislature. With such prepossessions men introduce into the question of conformity doubts and difficulties, with which it has no concern. We desire, then, that the case may be distinctly stated, and as distinctly understood; we desire it to be recollected, what is the nature of the connection between the national religion and the national government, which is sometimes so grossly misapprehended. Is there, we may ask, a single dogma of our Church, we will not say originating in this connection, but which it at all modifies or affects? Is our liturgy framed with any reference to the system of civil government*? Or has any doctrine of the Gospel been rejected from the articles or formularies of our Church, as being deemed unfavourable to the views and interests of the secular power? We believe that nothing of this kind is seriously alleged; and that on strict inquiry, this suspected connection must be resolved into the encouragement and patronage which the state affords to a system of faith built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. To the ministers of this faith, it secures a maintenance not depending on popular

A cavil is sometimes directed against our praying for the royal family, the nobility, and the magistracy; but we may confidently refer the objector, among other passages, to 1 Tim. ii. 2. reminding him that this epistle was written when the world was under the dominion of Nero.

caprice, or popular indifference: it holds out inducements to an order of men to devote themselves wholly to sacred studies and duties. It gives dignity and lustre to a profession, from the contempt of which religion itself would suffer: it endeavours to promote an uniformity of doctrine and worship, with its consequences, peace and charity: while it tolerates the wildest dreams of phrenzy, it distinguishes with its favour the professors of tried and approved tenets; and, in some measure, it incorporates the laws of Christianity with the law of the land. In all this we perceive not any thing which can excite mistrust, unless in those, in whom piety is a weaker principle than political prejudice, and who are ready to withdraw their reverence from divine ordinances, when confirmed and aided by the authority of men." P. 23.

-The learned author then proceeds to examine into the cases in which Christian liberty may lawfully and consistently exercise itself; a perfect and entire conformity being scarcely to be considered as within the contemplation of the divine Founder of our religion.

"Some diversity was to be expected from the different conformation of the human mind in different individuals; from the more or less sanguine complexion of their tempers; from the varying circumstances of education and early habit; and even from the unequal means vouchsafed us of attaining to the true sense of Scripture."

In regard to faith, Dr. Middleton concludes, that there is little latitude given to Christian liberty; that there are some certain fundamental principles of Christianity so obvious, that he who believes them not, can scarcely be said to have any pretensions to that faith which is essential to the character of a Christian.

"That Christ is God of God, that his death was a vicarious satisfaction for the sins of mankind, and that he will finally judge the world at a general resurrection, must, I think, appear to every impartial reader of Scripture to be incontrovertible truths, and to be necessarily included in the belief, that Jesus is the Christ." 1 John v. 1.

He does not however mean to intimate that these truths are in reality so obvious to all, as to secure an uniformity of belief, for otherwise there would be no Socinians or Unitarians; but he has no hesitation in attributing their unbelief to certain abuses of Christian liberty in the interpretation of Scripture. In regard to the Unitarians particularly, whose improved Version appeared just about the time of the preaching and printing of this sermon, he very justly, in our estimation, describes their alleged improvements to consist in

"Disingenuous evasions, and suppressions; laborious perversions

of the most obvious construction; parallelisms destitute of all similitude; figurative solutions of literal assertions; metaphysical embarrassments of what is plain; and popular elucidations of what is mysterious."

He next proceeds to the subject of Enthusiasm, as an abuse of Christian liberty,-making every fair allowance for its connection with a deep solicitude for the salvation of men's souls, but very properly imputing to it the strange fancy that withdraws mechanics and peasants from their callings to become preachers of the Gospel, as though miraculously "endued with power from on high."

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As it is not possible for us to transcribe so much as we should wish to do of this excellent discourse, we shall proceed to such parts only as seem most essential.

"On the whole," he says, "it appears that the only latitude allowed to Christians in matters of faith is confined to points on which the Scripture is either silent, or which it has not revealed explicitly: of this kind are the manner in which the prescience of God may be reconciled with human free-will; the state of departed spirits between death and the resurrection; the kind of happiness reserved for the blessed; and whether the good shall be known to each other in a future existence. On all such questions every one is at liberty to use his judgment, provided he make not his own deductions the means of public discord." P. 29.

Though little latitude be allowed as to doctrine, it is not exactly so with regard to "the government and discipline by which Christian societies are to be regulated and restrained.' Here the right reverend Author properly takes occasion to show, how carefully the Gospel seems to have provided for the maintenance of peace and order in the Church, to the positive exclusion of all fanatical notions of independency and anarchy; and on what good grounds the system of our own establishment of three orders, bishops, presbyters, and deacons, is held to be founded on the authority of the apostles,-beyond this he could not go. Where there is no positive command, we can only judge for ourselves what form of ecclesiastical polity appears to have had the preference in the days of the apostles; and so far the case seems to be determined for us by the joint authority of Church and State: though we need not deny, that under other forms, and in other countries, the great ends of order and piety have been accomplished.

Rites stand upon a more uncertain ground than the form of government; "decency and order," appearing to be, as the Bishop observes, the only standards. Here then, he says, though

the case has been otherwise, and particularly so, at certain periods of our history.

"It might have been hoped the Church of England would have had no cavils to encounter; her ceremonies are few, but significant; she is not either attractive by her pomp, or offensive by her negligence; she is equally averse from papal pageantry and Calvinistic gloom; she seeks not to dazzle the imagination, while she is careful not to repulse the feelings; she recognises the power of association over the human mind, at the same time she remembers the propensity of the mind to acquiesce in mere external impressions, when the appeal is made to the senses rather than to the heart." P. 31.

Our author by no means evades the increase of obligation, whereby the Clergy are bound to be more than commonly circumspect in the conduct of their lives and the allotment of their time.

"A clergyman," he rightly says, " is not to be satisfied with a mere abstinence from acts of immorality; he must be distinguished by his pursuits, his studies, his sentiments, his habits, and his amusements. As to doctrine, he must be extremely careful in avoiding the extremes to which some have been carried by fanaticism, not to fall into that state of heedless indifference, or apparent apathy, concerning any of the higher doctrines of religion, as should lead any to question his sincerity, or the earnestness of his devotion to the cause of religion; nor should he be wanting in that necessary zeal, which may prove to his auditors, and observers, that he is as deeply interested as others in the success of his ministry. If, in the present divided state of religious opinion, it shall appear to those who are entrusted to our charge that other teachers are more deeply interested in their salvation, we must not expect that they will uniformly examine the soundness of the doctrines propounded to them, or the pretensions of the proposer; we must not wonder if ignorance prevail against learning, if fanaticism triumph over truth and soberness, or the want of regular appointment be overlooked, in the confident asseverations of a call from God."

We have now done with this excellent discourse; and trust we shall incur no man's blame, for having endeavoured to revive the remembrance of it. In estimating the talents, virtues, and abilities of such a man as Bishop Middleton, we ought to know what he was as a parish priest-in a lower sphere of exertion: if any portion of the life of a minister of the Word may bear such a comparison. This discourse alone were sufficient to prove his qualification for a high station in the Church, as a person intimately acquainted with its interests and concerns, internally and externally.

It is time that we should proceed to the Bishop's Charges

and Discourses, which are all of them most able, and interesting; but we feel somewhat anticipated in this branch of our review by the labours and attentions of others. It was not to be expected that such a loss should be passed over in silence, or that an eager desire should not have been manifested to record his truly apostolic exertions in behalf of the Church in regions so remote. We have already seen many notices, and extracts from his works; and feel some difficulty therefore in making such a selection, as may be new to the public. Any selection, after all, must necessarily be imperfect, as there is not a word in all his publications that can fairly be said to be superfluous. They are perfect matters of history, as descriptive of the first labours, and first reception of an English Bishop, within the boundaries of our eastern dominions,-and of the state of religion at that particular period in those distant settlements.

The first sermon preached at St. John's Cathedral in Calcutta, on the 13th of April, 1815, happened to be upon an occasion relating rather more to Europe than to Asia, it being the day of General Thanksgiving for the peace on the final abdication of Buonaparte. If we make no extracts from this sermon, it is only because we would preserve room for others of more local application; but it would be wrong to omit saying, that the view taken in it of the disposing Providence of God as applicable to the extraordinary elevation, power, and successes of Napoleon, and of the state and circumstances of Europe, where all these events were allowed to take place, is exceedingly good, and contains a great deal in it of true Christian philosophy, brought home, in the conclusion of the discourse, to the breasts of his Asiatic auditors,-to the descendants of Shem, the father of the nations of Asia, providentially so incorporated with the descendants of Japheth, the ancestor of the Europeans, as to amount to a confirmation of the prediction of Noah, that" God should enlarge Japheth, and that he should dwell in the tents of Shem." The application is ingenious, and well introduced in a discourse delivered on the banks of the Ganges, to commemorate the deliverance of Europe from a revolutionary yoke.

In the second eastern Discourse, preached at Columbo, in the island of Ceylon, and dedicated to the governor, Sir Robert Brownrigg, there is an admirable account given of revealed history, not only as indispensable to the happiness and satisfaction of man in this otherwise perplexed scene of things; but as carrying with it, in the wonderful connection of all its parts, irresistible evidence of its own truth and authenticity, and consequently of its divinity. Even from this topic we must however

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