are yet very negligent in purifying their hearts, not considering that there is a moral as well as a natural communication between one and the other, and that they are concerned to be pure in heart and life, not only upon the common account, -in order to a happy state hereafter, but also in pursuance of their own particular way and end here.Lastly. Whereas another method of wisdom is prayer; I do not find, that the generality of students do at all apply themselves to this method. Pray indeed (it is to be hoped) they do for other things, which they think lie more out of their reach; but, as for learning and knowledge, they think they can compass this well enough by their own proper industry and the help of good books, without being beholden to the assistance of Heaven." * (even though it may be deemed a recondite one) for which he either feels an inward appetency, or which appears to be assigned to him as the allotment of an all-wise Providence. Besides, this diatribe is the best moderator of its own severity, mixed as it is with much that is true; for, only he who had himself made a complete circuit through the wide field of human knowledge could write thus learnedly, in his old age, against many sciences for which, it is very evident, he had no natural appetency, but all of which are in their several orders beneficial to mankind. Ex Neither let any young aspirant after literary fame be disheartened, under the apprehension that he is one of those "who are physically incapable of the degree of steady abstraction requisite for really embracing any science;" for this is a fear that has been felt in early life by some of the ablest (yet most diffident) men that ever lived. tremely rare indeed are the great men of universal genius; but it is satisfactory to know from Archbishop Whately, who is a most competent authority, that "of such as have in other respects tolerable abilities, probably not so many as one in ten are physically incapable" of excelling in any laudable pursuit to which they may apply their powers. Many young men are depressed in spirit, and mentally ruined, through the narrow perversity of some of those under whom it is their misfortune to be placed for the acquisition of knowledge. These shallow preceptors have one invariable standard for the admeasurement of all intellectual developements, both as to time, height, and quality; and the youth who does not come up, at the fixed time and manner, to the proposed height, is frowned upon and denounced as a blockhead. Still more unfortunate is the case, when any young person quietly sits down, without a redeeming struggle, under the belief of his own utter incompetency, as one unto every good work reprobate," forsaken of Life, with reference to the Study of Learning God, and disowned by man. But let him know that it is a peculiar gist By his contemporaries Norris was charged with Quakerism, for some mystic notions, which he propounded in his admirable Letter to Lady Masham, the hostess of Locke, and the accomplished daughter of the immortal Cudworth. But he is not to be reprehended for those extracts which I have given in the last paragraph, on the subject of prayer: the principle of this was conceded, and the practice of it adopted, even by some of the welleducated Deists of that and the preceding age; though they did not always strive to unite with it the other necessary adjunct,-purity of heart and life. Let, however, no youthful student be deterred from the best exertion of his mental powers, through a few of the sweeping and austere conclusions of this author. Many of the minor pursuits of the learned, which he tries to depreciate and minify, are exceedingly useful and very important; and it is a happy circumstance for all who are concerned in the world of letters, that there is such a diversified division of intellectual labour, -each well-qualified man addicting himself to that peculiar branch *"Reflections upon the Conduct of human and Knowledge." 64 of heaven, not possessed by every tutor, to distinguish and appreciate the extremely varied talents of pupils. The hardy primrose, snowdrop, crocus, daisy, and cowslip are among the precocious flowers which adorn the early peep of spring. But he is assuredly an ignorant and perverse man who, while admiring these, can hastily slight the shy violet, the long-hesitating rose, pink, or carnation, with the later-blowing lily, in the plainness of their embryo 46, Hoxton-square. THE POWER OF CONSCIENCE. Ir is always pleasing to a pious mind to observe the workings of divine grace in the soul, as it manifests itself in appropriate fruits; but seldom do we witness such a remarkable instance of its power on the conscience as in the following case, which lately came under my observation: About seventeen years ago a young man in this town was sent to get change at a neighbouring shop for a ten-pound note, when, by mistake, he was paid ten guineas, which he received, and said nothing on the subject. Of late he has been converted to God; and, having an uneasy conscience on account of this transaction, felt desirous of making restitution. But the person from whom he received the money being dead, he was unable for some time to obtain any information concerning the family. length he discovered where the son resided; and having ascertained that neither of the parents was living, during the last week he sent a person to inform him of the circumstance, and to pay to him the extra ten shillings which had been received, of his father at the time stated, with interest, if required; adding, that he could not be happy At until he had paid the sum. The He has since pre son has made restitution in several other cases of a like nature. This account, I trust, will be interesting to your readers, as presenting a striking instance of the power of the Holy Spirit in awakening the conscience, and thus producing the fruit of righteousness. Should it meet the eye of any who are similarly affected under the strivings of God's Spirit, I would say to them, "Go, and de likewise; and the blessing of God shall rest upon you." WILLIAM DAWSON. Sheffield, Nov. 16th, 1840. THE ten shillings referred to in this interesting note, has been paid to me on behalf of the Missions, and accounted for accordingly, B. CLOUGH. 1. A Letter to the Right Rev. Father in God, Richard, Lord Bishop of Oxford, on the Tendency to Romanism imputed to Doctrines held of old, as now, in the English Church. With an Appendix, &c. By the Rev. E. B. Pusey, D. D., &c. 8vo. pp. 239, xxiv. London. 1839. 2. A Letter to the Rev. E. B. Pusey, D.D., on certain Defects, Doctrinal and Practical, in a popular System of Theology; and on the Tracts for the Times, so far as opposed to them. By Thomas Pell Platt, Esq., formerly Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. 8vo. pp. 96. London. 1840. 3. A Letter to the Right Rev. Father in God, Richard, Lord Bishop of Oxford, containing Strictures upon certain Parts of Dr. Pusey's Letter to His Lordship. By a Clergyman of the Diocess, and a resident Member of the University. 8vo. pp. 114. Oxford. 1840. 4. Three Sermons, preached before the University of Oxford in the Course of the past and present Year. By Philip Nicholas Shuttleworth, D. D., Warden of New-College, Oxford, and Rector of Foxley, Wilts. 18mo. pp. 130. London. 1840. (Concluded from page 51.) DR. PUSEY'S accusations against the Methodists are both more numerous and, if possible, of a graver character than those of Mr. Platt; so that to meet them fully would require a whole Number of this Magazine, rather than a single article. We must therefore restrain ourselves to a brief examination of the grounds on which they rest. The first mistake into which our learned opponent falls, respects the doctrine held among us concerning justifying faith. He supposes that our view is borrowed from Luther, and is, therefore, identical with that which was condemned at the Council of Trent; (Sess. vi., Can. 14;) namely, that " no one is justified, unless he believes that he is justified; and by this faith alone, absolution and justification are perfected." After quoting this Canon, the Doctor adds, This is "just the Wesleyan doctrine." * We need not stop here to inquire whether the Wesleyan doctrine is borrowed from Luther, nor whether Luther's opinions are fairly stated by the Council; but it is somewhat strange that Dr. Pusey should cite no original authority for his statement of Luther's views, and no authority at all for his precise af * Letter, p. 72, note. 66 firmation regarding ourselves. We cannot suppose that he was unable to do this, and we therefore strongly suspect that he thought it prudent not to do it; and, in this instance, practised a little of that discriminating reserve" for which his friends and fellow-labourers have become so celebrated. Certainly, so far as we are concerned, a reference to the authorities would have done him great disservice. Suppose, for instance, he had looked into the Catechisms of the body, where he, as a Divine, would reasonably expect to find the greatest care and exactness employed in drawing up definitions, he would have read as follows : "Q. What is faith in Jesus Christ? "A. Faith in Christ is a saving grace, whereby we receive and rest upon him alone for salvation, as he is offered to us in the Gospel. "Q. Is it by faith in Christ that we are justified? "A. Yes; 'Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.' (Rom. v. 1.) "* Here, it is plain, there is not a word which would bring us under the Tridentine anathema. But we should not always escape so easily, as will be evident before long. Cat. ii., p. 18. Our full standards of doctrine, it is well known, are Mr. Wesley's "Notes upon the New Testament," and certain" Sermons," which, from the circumstance of their having been originally published in four small duodecimos, are still distinguished as "the four volumes of sermons," though seldom found in that shape at present. Among these sermons is one entitled, "Justification by Faith," to which we think Dr. Pusey ought to have referred, before he so confidently stated what our doctrine was. "Faith, in general," says Mr. Wesley in that sermon, "is a divine, supernatural eλeyxos, evidence or conviction,' of things not seen, not discoverable by our bodily senses, as being either past, future, or spiritual. Justifying faith implies, not only a divine evidence or conviction that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself,' but a sure trust and confidence that Christ died for my sins, that he loved me, and gave himself for me." The same definition he repeats in the sermon "On the Scripture Way of Salvation;" and adds, "It is by this faith that we receive Christ; that we receive him in all his offices, as our Prophet, Priest, and King. It is by this that he is made of God unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption." As a second branch or act of this faith he specifies the "reliance" on Christ which the Catechism mentions in connexion with "receiving him." The "Notes on the New Testament" speak the same language: Faith, in the general and full sense, is a divine, supernatural sight of God, chiefly in respect of his mercy in Christ." (1 Tim. vi. 11.) "It is the divine, supernatural evidence exhibited to, the conviction hereby produced in, a believer, of things not seen, whether past, future, or spiritual; particularly of God and the things of God. It justifies only as it refers to and depends on Christ." (Heb. xi. 1.) Our formularies of worship are in perfect harmony with these views. The Hymn-Book (which is the only one that has a strictly Wesleyan origin) abounds with passages de scriptive of the act of justifying faith; but it contains nothing that answers to what Dr. Pusey calls just the Wesleyan doctrine." Quotation would be an endless task: but let the reader turn to two noble hymns, in which this subject is specifically treated; the one expressing the confidence which a penitent desires to exercise; (No. 127, "Wherewith, O God, shall I draw near;") and the other, the joyful trust of a newly-pardoned sinner; (No. 190, Jesus, thy blood and righteousness;") and see if he can discover any traces of the opinion in question. This discrepancy, then, between the view held by us, and that condemned by the Council of Trent, in Can. 13, 14, Sess. 6, may have been one good reason why Dr. Pusey should cite no authorities. But there is another reason. Though we do not hold the absurd notion, that a belief that we are pardoned is of the essence of justifying faith, we do hold that trust and confidence in the mercy of God through Christ, a reception of, and reliance upon Christ, such as we have spoken of above; we do hold, we say, that such a faith as this brings to every penitent sinner who exercises it a joyful consciousness of pardoning mercy. And if Dr. Pusey had gone a little further back, in his reference to the Council of Trent, he would have seen that this notion is as formally condemned by that Assembly, as that which he has most particu larly ascribed to us. "Whosoever shall affirm, that men are justified solely by the imputation of the righteousness of Christ, or the remission of sin,......or that the grace by which we are justified is only the favour of God, let him be accursed." "Whosoever shall affirm, that justifying faith is nothing else than confidence in the divine mercy, by which sins are forgiven for Christ's sake, or that it is this confidence only by which we are justified, let him be accursed."* Under these anathemas we are well content to lie, because they fall as directly upon the established Church as upon our * Bess. vi., Can. 11, 12. In attributed to us; and, secondly, it would have been discovered that the distinction, which he has attempted to set up between the Wesleyan doctrine and that of the Church of England, is utterly unfounded. He could not quote Mr. Wesley's sermon "On Justification by Faith," for instance, without encountering these awkward expressions: "I cannot describe the nature of this faith better than in the words of our own Church; and then follow two beautiful passages from the Homilies, which Dr. Pusey and his friends have subscribed, indeed, as containing a godly, wholesome, and necessary doctrine; but which, in their teaching, are either practically set aside, or directly contradicted. selves. Her long-neglected testimony to these very points, as brought out and enforced by the Wesleys, was the instrument of producing that blessed revival of religion, of which we are the first- fruits. And from her testimony we have never yet departed; as any one who will be at the pains to compare the Articles and Homilies on this subject, with our current theological literature, and with the sermons constantly delivered by our Ministers, may readily ascertain. truth, the only fragment of a foundation for the charge which Dr. Pusey has brought against us is, the fact that in Mr. Wesley's earlier writings, he sometimes quotes a passage from the Homilies which describes the habitual faith of a justified man, as though it had been a description of the act by which a man is justified and adopted. But he soon discovered that the use of the words of the Homily in this sense, laid him open to misconstruction, and subsequently limited himself in the employment of them to the sense intended by the writer. After the year 1747, at latest, he restricted himself within these limits; and though the definition of faith as "a sure trust and confidence in God that, by the merits of Christ, our sins be forgiven, and we reconciled to the favour of God," is still found repeatedly occurring in his writings, (for who would part with a form of words so sound?) it is always, as we before stated, applied words, 'in blessing visible elements' he to the faith of a Christian, rather than to that of a penitent sinner. The only passage in his Sermons into which this beautiful definition of Christian faith had been introduced, so as to give a colourable pretext to the charge of Dr. Pusey, was altered by himself at the last review, and the quotation expunged, lest it should give occasion to any to think that we must believe that we are pardoned, in order to be so. We need add no more on this head; but we think the full reason why Dr. Pusey would not quote Methodist authorities is now developed. First, they would have shown that we do not hold the view which he has Another of the heavy charges brought against us by Dr. Pusey is, that of lowering the doctrine of the eucharist. On this point he speaks thus: "The doctrine of apostolical succession, and that of the sacraments, viewed in the abstract, would to most, probably, not seem, at first sight, to be so connected together, that a false view of the one would involve error upon the other; much less that the denial of one should entail a fundamental change in the other. Yet so it has been. It seems as though people had been deterred by an instinctive dread from taking upon themselves the office of administering the holy eucharist, with the full consciousness of its mysteriousness. It is too awful for man to undertake unbidden; he cannot invest himself with the belief that, in Hooker's has the power to make them invisible grace,' any more than he can give himself the commission so to do; man's belief in this awful privilege, so surpassing human thought, must come from above; he can only believe it, when he has been solemnly invested with it. Accordingly, where people have acted without this commission, there they have unconsciously lowered the doctrine. In the thoughts of many Wesleyans, at least, means of grace' will signify, not the holy eucharist, but their own peculiar discipline, their 'class-meetings' or their love-feasts.' They have often lost even the abstract belief, that the holy communion is any way more solemn, or attended with more mysterious blessing. With a ministry not of the sons of Levi,' 6 |