66

But the class of the community which is most interested in the present unexampled events, is assuredly the Protestant Clergy, more particularly those of the Established Church. To their exertions, under God, are we indebted for the spiritual agitation which is now upon our land, and from their firmness and persevering efforts do we, under the same divine blessing, look for its successful termination. Their vocation is high and holy, their office magnified by success-but their station demands not only increased exertion, but peculiar circumspection-prudence, that will not give those advantages to be derived from over-anxiety and "zeal without knowledge"-animation, equally remote from the apathy of listlessness and the busy intermeddling of controversial fanaticism-a careful separation from and superiority to every thing of earth-a manifest seeking, not of " their's," but them"-an indifference to the senseless, but factious clamours that would impute to the honest zeal of the Protestant Clergy the seditious struggles that have disgraced our country, and which have derived their origin from very different sources. We have said, and we repeat it, that the Roman Catholic peasant will read the Bible, that he will listen to the instruction of the Protestant, that he will admit him cordially to his intercourse, except arts and pains be taken to make him regard the Protestant as an opposer and an enemy. We appeal to the experience of all who have laboured among the Irish, if this be not the case; and we beg to call the attention of our clerical readers to the extracts of a letter which we have quoted below a letter written by a faithful and honest minister of the Gospel, labouring in a part of Ireland where as yet no open manifestation of conversion has taken place.* And if such be the case, and generally the case, what is your duty? Is it to number your Roman Catholic parishioners like so many cattle, without an exertion to give them, spiritual for their temporal things? Is it to deem that all is done when the tithe-proctor or the process-server has paid his visit; and that provided your parishioners recognised, by tribute, the law-established Church, you have no responsibility resting on you as to the state of their immortal souls ? Such a feeling is delusive-is worse than delusive--it is sinful; it is a voluntary surrendering of the highest and noblest privilege of your profession

*

"I rejoice to say, that it is under the most cheering circumstances I now take up my pen to write to you at this truly interesting period of scriptural inquiry. Upon my entering upon this important post, found my Protestant parishioners in such a sickly state, as to spiritual life, that I could but occasionally visit my Roman Catholic parishioners; but now that the Lord has led and is leading many, by the powerful operation of his Holy Spirit, to the knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus, I have been encouraged to visit regularly and systematically the people from house to house, and the result of my experience now is, that it is guilty to pass them by. My addresses are well received, and they most thankfully kneel with me at the throne of Divine Grace. Applications have been made to me lately for more versions of the Rhemish Testament; many now will purchase who would not last year. Pray have the goodness to furnish me with forty copies of the Rhemish Testament, as I could have sold many within the last month. There is, blessed be God, a cry now in the hitherto barren and dry land for the living waters."

an abandonment of the parochial charge committed to you-a retiring from the missionary ranks in which your office has placed you. Not until every means of access has been tried and found ineffective-not until every avenue has been attempted and found closed-not until Providence seems to have barred the approach, should the faithful minister cease from his ministerial labours; and even then he should win his way by all the acts of kindliness and love; and we can venture to promise our clerical brethren, that the course which we have intimated-the course equally of duty, and privilege, and safety-will not be long run, before success, and of such a kind as will astonish and gratify, will in most cases follow. Our Dissenting brethren have no scruples on the subject; they never think of sacrificing, for a specious show of liberality or the prospect of treacherous ease, the power and the privilege of addressing their Roman Catholic neighbours and countrymen-they have avowed their line of duty to be their line of conduct; they have organized institutions, they have educated preachers, they have sent out missionaries-and we say from the bottom of our hearts, may God bless their labours! -but let not the Church be behind it has great advantages; it has a legitimate access to the people; it has much that can attract habits already formed, and modify those that are not confirmed; it has a liturgy and an episcopally-ordained ministry; and it has on its side the respect which the Irishman always pays involuntarily to the aristocracy. If against these advantages the dissimilarity of rank, and habit, and association, be marshalled, woe to the minister who will find them to be barriers in intercourse with his parishioners! woe to him who cannot lower himself to meet those whom he would raise to the high dignity of being children of God! woe to those who will not overleap the artificial boundaries which would prevent a messenger of God from speaking to dying men!

If, too, we had access to our respected Prelates, we would with firmness, but with unaffected humility, tell them what we consider to be the line of duty to which their exalted station calls them; we would tell them what the Church over which they preside expects-we repeat it with humility, expects, from them.

The present circumstances of Ireland are unexampled; and those who watch the course of Providence may, under its guidance, turn it to the glory of God, the honour of the Church, and the permanent blessing of the country. You have the movement of the machine which has mainly given the impulse, and you may direct, but you cannot stop it; and the crowd which, under your auspices, would press to the parish church, may either return more violently to their former errors, or join those dissenting bodies whose energy is more active, and whose scruples would be less than your's. "The people have learned," says an intelligent correspondent," the people have learned that the priest is not infallible, and that he may be resisted with success. *They have seen, too, the not very

The writer is speaking of the conduct of the Roman Catholic Clergy in one

decorous instances of clerical contention, and the partisans of each reverend combatant taking a different side, building rival parish chapels, and exhibiting in miniature all the arts that marked the Papal Schism of Avignon. Not a part of Ireland but has now received largely of the book of life, and within the last few months above seventy auxiliary Bible Societies have been established in the darkest and most bigoted parts of the country. Whatever opinion you may have formed of the plan and proceedings of that society, you must feel that it has been the favoured instrument of awakening the Irish public; and at such a time as the present, when the whole population is speaking and thinking about the Bible, and when instruction of various kinds is penetrating the mass, iet not any difference of opinion on minor matters interfere with the progress of the great work, but give the weight of your honored names, and the influence of your high sanction to the cause of reformation. Let the trumpet of evangelical religion be sounded clearly in every diocese, not merely in the spirit of invitation, but of aggression.Such is the spirit of Christianity. Let the faithful minister of the Gospel proclaim its principles under your sanction,* in the Church and the School-house,-yea, the Town-hall, and the street, and the highway and field, if the Roman Catholic will not go to the Church; and let no conventional discipline, which after all is discretionary, impede the progress of usefulness. IT IS A GREAT CRISIS, and demands the energy of a Luther, the zeal of a Cranmer, and the prudence of a Ridley; not the nice or fastidious distinction of a canonist or a metaphysician! We speak it with unfeigned humility, but we speak it as not unobservant EXAMINERS, and we speak it because we know what the people expect, of what the Clergy are capable, and because we look with hope, and, under God, with confidence, to the glorious struggle which awaits Protestantism, and more especially that portion of it to which we belong—the Church of Ireland!

particular place, where they for a long time refused confession and absolution to those who voted with the landlords, and against the priests. Christmas, however, came on, and the dues of the rejected penitents were not forthcoming, and the priest and the people at length came to a compromise, which not only proved the priest's infirmity of purpose, but unmasked most visibly his motive. * A proposal for a Church Missionary Society for Ireland was inserted in our publication some time since, and attracted much attention—our suggestion is not so comprehensive. There may be obstacles in the way; but we know not any so powerful as to prevent a Bishop from either licensing special individuals, under his own sanction, ordained by himself, and in his own diocese, to itinerate, subject to the Prelate's direction or appointing a certain number of his own clergy to such a task. The very preparation for such a work would be valuable; it would infuse a spirit of energy and activity into every part of the Establishment ;-it would meet the Priest in his least defensible quarter; and it would assist our Dissenters' zeal, where it would be useful, and prevent that zeal injuring the Establishment, where it might be prejudicial.

90

RELIGIOUS COMMUNICATIONS.

AMERICAN CONSECRATION SERMON.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE CHRISTIAN EXAMINER.

SIR-I am aware that extracts from other contemporary publications do not frequently find a place in your pages; but as you have sometimes been induced to admit them, I take the liberty of sending you some extracts from a Sermon delivered during the last year by the Protestant Bishop of Virginia, on the occasion of consecrating the churches of Lynchburgh and Charlottesville. As the publication from which 1 have made the extracts has, I believe, no circulation in this country, the Sermon will, at least, have the claim of novelty but independent of that, it is interesting, as exhibiting the high ground taken by our Episcopalian brethren, in defence of their form of Church government, and as containing an animated and scriptural defence of our mode of public worship.

I am, Sir, &c.

Extracts from a Sermon delivered by the Right Rev. Richard Channing Moore. "In all places where I record my name, I will come unto thee, and I will

bless thee."-Exodus xx. 24.

6

"The Church of God, thus solemnly declared in the text to form the place in which Jehovah will meet his people, the Almighty has mercifully provided with ordinances, and with ministers to serve at her sacred altars. The Divine Being, who is emphatically styled by the Apostle a God of order, hath established his Church upon principles clearly defined. The towers of Zion,' and thebulwarks' thereof, are not subject to the capricious views of man; but are as unchangeable as God himself. The Redeemer instituted a ministry which will continue while Jehovah has a Church upon earth, or there remains a soul to be saved; for, to use his own words to his disciples, 'as my Father hath sent me, even so I send you.' And when he had said this he breathed on them, and said, Receive ye the Holy Ghost; Go ye, therefore, unto all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost-teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.'

"The authority thus communicated is clearly and fully expressed. The Father sent the Lord Jesus Christ to depute others: and that he did depute others, the above quotation proves beyond all controversy. Had not this promise of Christ been fulfilled, the succession in the ministry would have been broken; the assurance of his being with his disciples to the end of the world would have failed in its completion, and of course there would not at this moment be a priest upon earth. In this positive declaration, however, as in every other which proceeded from the Redeemer's lips, not one tittle hath failed heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words (saith the Lord Jesus) shall not pass away.'

"The priests of the altar, the ministers of the Gospel, who have been called and influenced by the Holy Spirit, and who have received their anthority from

a legitimate source, are entrusted with a commission of the first and most leading importance.

"Their warrant, however insignificant that warrant may be in the eyes of the world, is such as can be derived from no human source. As ambassadors from the court of heaven, to treat of peace with rebellious man, their commission is from above, spiritual and divine. Now, then, we are ambassadors for Christ; as though God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ's stead— be ye reconciled to God.' It is their duty to expose to the view of mortals the depravity of their nature that enmity against God which marks the carnal mind-and to lead the sinner from every false refuge to the blood of atonement as the only rock of safety. It is their duty to testify to the Jew, and also to the Greek, repentance toward God, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.' It is their duty to proclaim the glad tidings of salvation-to make the offer of pardon to every intelligent creature, and to assure the chief of sinners that, provided he will fly to the banner of the cross and solicit the forgiveness of offended heaven, he will receive a free and abundant pardon; for this is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.' 'Say unto them, as I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked-but that the wicked turn from their way and live: turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye die, oh! house of Israel ?'

"In inculcating these benevolent principles, the ministers of religion may expect the blessing of heaven upon their labours. The word of God will be made quick and powerful in its operation upon the minds of those who listen to its declarations-and What shall I do to be saved?' will be their fervent and earnest inquiry.

*

*

*

"Should the heart of the offender be penetrated with the love of God to sinful man--should conviction in all its power press upon his conscience-should he seek for pardon, and be determined to amend his life-he will find to his comfort that the promise contained in the text is still in operation—that the Lord is in his holy temple, to impart the forgiveness for which he intercedes, and that ❝ in all places where Jehovah records his name, he is in the midst of his people, to bless them.' He will learn in the sanctuary that the Lord healeth those who are broken in heart, and giveth medicine to heal their sickness.' Under these assurances, the heavy-laden sinner will find rest. "Of Sion it shall be said, that this and that man was born in her: the Lord shall count, when he writeth up the people, that this man was born there.' "It is a pleasing feature in the character of the Church of which we are members, that the Scriptures form an important part of all her services. Those who neglect the sacred volume at home will here find a lamp to their feet, and a light to their paths.' The uninformed, who cannot read, will here be instructed in the declarations of mercy it contains, and be made acquainted with its important acquisitions. The regular attendant upon our services will reap the advantages every Sabbath of hearing two chapters from the Old, and as many from the New Testament, independently of the Epistle and Gospel, and seven or eight of the Psalms of David. The moral law contained in the Ten Commandments--a law engraven upon stone, as a testimony of its perpetual obliga tion—a law given for the rule and direction of the life and conduct of every man is here also proclaimed, so that whoever aberrates from the path of duty must do so with his eyes open-and wilfully prefer the darkness to light.

6

"It is enjoined upon us by the Redeemer to search the Scriptures.'. This being the case, every considerate person must acknowledge, that there is no