esting a work for the benefit of their people in the locality. The Right Honourable Gentleman expressed his regret that the Government had no funds at their disposal which were applicable to the present object of the Address. He then kindly and generously presented the Rev. Mr. Browne with 57., as a token of the great interest he felt, as a private individual, in the success of his present praiseworthy and arduous undertaking.". Dublin Statesman, October 6, 1846.

MISCELLANEOUS.

LUTHER'S ANSWER ΤΟ SPOLATIN'S QUESTION, "WHAT IS THE

BEST METHOD OF STUDYING THE

SCRIPTURES?"-"It is most plain we cannot attain the understanding of Scripture either by study or by strength of intellect. Therefore your first duty must be to begin with prayer. Entreat the Lord to deign to grant you, in his rich mercy, rightly to understand his Word. There is no other interpreter of the Word of God but the author of that word himself; even as he has said, 'They shall all be taught of God.' Hope nothing from your study, or the strength of your intellect; but simply put your trust in God and in the influence of his Spirit. Believe one who has made trial of this method."-M. D'Aubigné's "History of the Reformation," vol. i., p. 320.

VERACITY OF ROMISH CONTROVERSIALISTS. From long and repeated experience, I am constrained to say, that, where the interests of their Church are concerned, the priesthood of Rome are so entirely the reverse of being scrupulous in regard to truth, that I have long made it a rule never to receive any startling assertion of theirs without previously testing it; and, certainly, wherever their assertion was of an extraordinary nature, I have, upon examination, invariably found them to be falsifying.*-Faber.

*Sundry curious instances of detected inaccuracy will be found to occur in the course of these letters. Others of them have already appeared in my Difficulties of Romanism.

CABINET.

“CHRIST hath merited righteousness for as many as are found in him. In him God findeth us, if we be faithful: for, by faith, we are incorporated into Christ. Then, although in ourselves we be altogether sinful and unrighteous yet, even the man, which is impious in himself, full of iniquity, full of sin; him being found in Christ through faith, and having his sin remitted through repentance; him God beholdeth with a gracious eye, putteth away his sin by not imputing it, taketh away the punishment due thereunto by pardoning it, and accepteth him in Christ Jesus AS PERFECTLY RIGHTEOUS AS IF HE HAD FULFILLED ALL THAT WAS COMMANDED HIM IN THE

LAW. Shall I say more perfectly righteous, than if himself had fulfilled the whole law? I must take heed what I say but the Apostle saith; God made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. SUCH WE ARE IN THE SIGHT OF GOD THE FATHER, AS IS THE VERY SON OF GOD HIMSELF. Let it be counted folly or frenzy or fury whatsoever, it is our comfort and our wisdom. We care for no knowledge in the world but this: that man hath sinned, and God hath suffered; that God hath made himself the Son of Man, and that MEN ARE MADE THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD."-Hooker, Disc. of Justific. § 6. Works, vol. iii., pp. 436, 437.

THE SINGING OF CHRIST AND HIS DISCIPLES.-MATT. Xxxvi. 30. WHY cease the angel choir

Around th' eternal throne ? Why silent every lyre,

And hushed is every tone? Wherefore stays your song divine, Why to earth your ears incline?

Hark! heard ye not the song,

Of earthly voices sweet;
With heart, and lip, and tongue,

In solemn cadence sweet?
But who is He that leads the band,
While all around in reverence stand?

'Tis He, the king of saints!
Maker of earth and sky;
Who for a time consents
To lay His glory by!

of Reading; Dr. Kalley, late of Madeira; and others, will address the Meeting.

On Thursday Evening, Novem

praise,

That His beloved Son doth raise.

NOTICES OF BOOKS. The Church and the Churches; or, the Church of God in Christ, and the Churches of Christ Militant here on Earth. By the Rev. HUGH M'NEILE, Honorary Canon of Chester, and Incumbent of St. Jude's, Liverpool. London: Hatchard and Son. 8vo., pp. 574. THIS is a very valuable and important work, especially at this critical junc

ture.

The view taken as to the duties of Christian Nations, Christian Statesmen, and Christian Freemen, in their individual and collective capacity, is alike sound and philosophical, constitutional, Christian, and scriptural. The from 500 to the end are pages of special interest and importance. The whole work we recommend to the perusal of our readers. It is an excellent volume for clerical libraries, and we should rejoice to see the time when works of this kind shall be read

with as much interest, as the trashy and injurious portions of the lighter literature of the day.

(D.V.) on behalf of the Association, by the Rev. Hugh Stowell, M. A., in Fitzroy Episcopal Chapel, Londonstreet, Tottenham-court-road. Divine service to commence at Seven o'clock. ENGLAND.-Islington.-A Meeting of the clergy and laity of Islington was held on Monday evening, the 19th instant, in the School-room, Church-street, the Rev. Daniel Wilson, the Vicar, in the chair. Amongst the clergy present were, Revds. Edward Hoare, J. B. Mackenzie, and C. F. Childe. The Rev. Chairman, having opened with prayer, pointed out the importance of the present crisis, and the duty of Protestants now to exert themselves in defence of their religion and their country. The Rev. C. F. Childe, J. Lord, Esq., Rev. J. B. Mackenzie, and Rev. E. Hoare, and others, addressed the Meeting, after which a Society was formed to be called the Islington Protestant Institute.- -Norwich Protestant Association. Mr. Lord delivered a lecture on Monday evening, 12th Oct., to the members and friends of the above

Society.

The attendance was numer

ous, and the various and important points brought under their notice were listened to with much interest. Mr. Lord pointed out some of the various aggressions upon the Protestant Institutions of our country in Church and State, the recent instances of Romish superstition and intolerance, the way in which Popery was deavouring to counteract missionary labours of Protestants :-and urged the duty of opposing the contemplated endowment of the Romish priesthood, and exhorted each voter, at the approaching election, to stand firm to the Protestant cause.

en

DEAR SIR,-It has been suggested to me by a friend, that, in my fourth letter on "Tractarian Secession to Popery," I have misapprehended the import of the statement, contained in the Preface to Mr. Newman's work on Development, and first put forth by him some years ago anonymously.

His argument runs thus:

When Mr. Newman used the expression "I am not speaking my own words," he refers, not to any censures of Romish DOCTRINE which had once been propounded by him, but merely to a certain harshness of LANGUAGE in which his censures had been conveyed. This construction is established by the circumstance, that he withdraws his harsh LANGUAGE in consequence of a correspondent having objected to it under the appellations of name-calling and slang: while it is yet further apparent, from Mr. Newman's concluding remarks, that " admission of this kind involves no retractation of what he had written in defence of Anglican doctrine."

an

VOL. VII.

I. The argument is plausible, and would have had considerable weight, if the various passages, quoted by Mr. Newman himself from his own writings between the years 1833 and 1837, and then repudiated by him through the expression "I am not speaking my own words," had all been nothing more than mere instances of harsh LANGUAGE. But this is not the case. The repudiated passages are of a mixed nature. Some of them employ, what the delicacy of modern candour (so called) may deem harsh LANGUAGE; though, according to my old-fashioned perceptions, they do nothing more than call a spade a spade; but others, without any harshness of LANGUAGE, simply specify and then censure Romish DOCTRINES.

I subjoin instances of this latter form of censure.

1. In the year 1833, he pronounced Rome to be, doctrinally of course, a lost Church."

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2. In the same year, he spoke of Popery under the name of "the Papal Apostasy."

3. In the same year, he wrote: "If she has apostatized, it was at the time of the Council of Trent." This,. whether properly or improperly, sim

N

ply determines the epoch of the already declared Papal Apostasy.

4. In the same year, he additionally wrote: "Their Communion is infected with heresy: we are bound to flee it as a pestilence. They have established a lie in the place of God's truth; and, by their claim of immutability in DOCTRINE, cannot undo the sin they have committed."

5. In the year 1834, he wrote: “She virtually substitutes an external ritual for moral obedience; penance, for penitence; confession, for sorrow; profession, for faith; the lips, for the heart; such, at least, is her SYSTEM as understood by the many."

6. In the year 1837, he wrote: "The second and third Gregories appealed to the people against the Emperor, for a most unjustifiable object, and in, apparently, a most unjustifiable way. They became rebels, to

establish image-worship."

II. These several passages, quoted by Mr. Newman himself from his own writings, cannot be said to be characterized by any such harshness of LANGUAGE as his correspondent denominates slang and name-calling. They simply specify, and then censure Romish DOCTRINES: and, most obviously, censure cannot be conveyed in the tone of approbation. But they exhibit no name-calling: they are not to be placed in the same category with various rough epithets also repudiated by Mr. Newman; such as profane, impious, blasphemous, gross, monstrous, administering deceitful comfort; which, however true in themselves, as every consistent member of the English Church must believe them to be (for she herself stigmatizes the Popish sacrifices of masses as blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits), may possibly, in the judgment of his correspondent, be rated__as mere slang and name-calling. Yet all the passages given above, which purely censure DOCTRINE without any mixture of harsh LANGUAGE, Mr. Newman repudiates, just as much as any harshness of LANGUAGE which he may have employed in other passages and, indeed, the very form of his repudiation shows, that he is disowning censure of DOCTRINE as well as harshness of LANGUAGE.

"If you ask me," says he to his correspondent, "how an individual could venture, not simply to hold, but to publish, such VIEWS of a communion, so ancient, so wide-spreading, so fruitful in saints, I answer that I said to myself; I AM NOT SPEAKING MY OWN WORDS: I am but following almost a CONSENSUS of the divines of my Church. They have ever used the strongest language against Rome, even the most able and learned of them. I wish to throw myself into their SYSTEM. While I say what they say, I am safe. Such VIEWS, too, are necessary for our position."

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Should we ask why such VIEWS were necessary for the position of the party, the answer is promptly given by Mr. Newman: a hope of ing myself to persons I respect, and a wish to repel the charge of Romanism."

approv

1. Now what can such words, as CONSENSUS and SYSTEM and VIEWS, mean? Is it rationally possible, that they can be restricted to mere harshness of LANGUAGE? Was this the whole of the SYSTEM and VIEWS and CONSENSUS of such men as Isaac Barrow and Jeremy Taylor, to whom, I suppose, Mr. Newman must allude in the expression "even the most able and learned of them?" Yet, when he was, ostensibly, saying what they say, and throwing himself into their SYSTEM, and adopting their VIEWS, which SYSTEM and which VIEWS comprised a censure of Romish DOCTRINE as well as a severity of LANGUAGE which his correspondent classically denominates slang he was, by his own account, all the while, acting a purely simulative part; because, as he tells us, "such VIEWS," the VIEWS to wit of Barrow and Taylor, "were necessary for our position."

2. The VIEWS, then, of these great divines, were, by his own showing, put forth by him, not from any conviction of their truth, but merely because the propounding of them was necessary for the then position of himself and his party; the necessity consisting in a wish to approve himself to sound Anglicans and to repel the charge of Romanism, which, very truly, as events have since shewn,