and attainments of the present Archdeacon, we are happy to find that our expectations have not been disappointed.

Though the title-page informs us, that this is the primary visitation of the Archdeacon, yet he seems not to speak like a novice, in pointing to the nature and design of those annual assemblies of the Clergy at Archidiaconal visitations. As we conceive his observations on this head are just and matured, we lay them before our readers.

"It is among the most beneficial effects of meetings like the present, that a spirit of enquiry among the clergy is kept alive, and those principles of piety and devotion to the sacred cause, in which we are linked together in one bond of union, invigorated by stated communications. They habituate our minds to the contemplation of those objects which ought principally to occupy them; they impart a professional turn and tendency to our habits, views, and observations; and they are, if properly employed, admirably calculated to induce a serious and subdued survey of those events which more intimately concern that portion of the Church of Christ, in which our ministrations are exercised; they remind us of those high duties, for the zealous performance of which, we stand responsible to God, to our consciences, and to our country, and tend to prove, (to use the language of the venerable Hooker) that we have not loosely permitted things to pass away, as in a dream.'" P. 3.

Under these views, the Archdeacon proceeds to a selection of one of the most important subjects, which, especially in the present day, could be offered to the attention of his Clergy; namely, the nature and operations of Antinomianism, and its extended influence over some of the most extensive Christian communities. His general conceptions of Antinomianism he thus lays before us; and we present them to our readers, as they form the basis of his subsequent observations.

"By Antinomianism, I mean, such a perversion and corruption of Christian faith and doctrine as protects men in the violation of the duties expressly commanded in the Gospel; an evil of great extent, of wide application, and of very ancient standing in the Church, for it appeared as early as the age of the Apostles, and called forth all the energies of those holy men to the reprobation and controul of it. The principle besides has a very deep foundation in the fallen nature of man. Had the Almighty imposed no laws for our observance, or had he annexed no penalty for their violation, Christianity would have met with none of the opposition which it encountered in its earlier stages. The Apostles demanded OBEDIENCE as the result and test of the faith of Christ. hey scorned any compromise with the headstrong passions and degrading propensities of our corrupt nature. Sacrifice and self-denial

they

they pointed out as the badges of the cross of Christ. They faith. fully discharged the commission entrusted to them, and proclaimed that to purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works,' was the ultimate design of the appearance of the Son of God in the flesh; and the Church of England in strict conformity with the design of the Almighty, has laid this as the corner-stone of all her doctrines, her discipline, her ministrations, and her liturgical services.

"The history however of the Christian Church from the very earliest period, I repeat, evinces the existence of a spirit, whose efforts have been perpetually exerted, to sever the faith of the Gospel, from its morals; its duties, from its doctrines and observances; to dethrone religion from its governance over the passions, and to render it subservient to them; and all this, strange to say, under the pretext of more than ordinary zeal for the profession of Christianity." P. 4.

After this luminous statement of his general object, he enters upon a field of very extended observation; he considers, first, the operation of this destructive principle, as not only perverting the conduct of individuals, but as forming a grand component of many leading communities and theological systems. His view of various ingredients of Antinomianism, which pervade the general system of the Church of Rome, and most prominently exhibit themselves in the order of the Jesuits, deserves at the present moment peculiar attention. Concerning this celebrated order, he thus speaks.

"What a subsidiary force have their lessons afforded to the most unbridled excesses of the human passions!

"Their doctrines, or rather they might be termed their licences to sin, are taught not by obscure men among them, but by their greatest luminaries, by Escobar, by Mariana, Filliucius, and other of their distinguished Apostles; and they are such as go to annihilate conscience, and obliterate not only every moral obligation which the Gospel distinctly inculcates, but to discard even those poor remains of it, which God, in his mercy, left among the unenlightened Pagans! Nor was this sublimation, if I may so call it, of Antinomianism, confined to the corruption of individuals, who became the dupes and victims of their delusion and sophistry; it soon spread and penetrated to the foundations of civil life, on which the social and political union of men is superstructed:--the members of this society, insinuating themselves, through their spells and fascinations, from the consciences of individuals, into the councils of nations, the most lamentable effects were produced; wars excited, assassination encouraged, obedience to governors dispensed with, and all the ties which bind man to man utterly broken." P. 6.

These are observations of no ordinary importance; and if such

have no weight in exciting our admonitions on the readmission of this obnoxious society into a protestant country; if we allow communities and seminaries of this order to spring up in various quarters of the united kingdom, without controul, and acting upon the same principles, animated by the same spirit, and diffusing the same morals, to strike root among us, we must assert, that our infatuation is judicial, and that experience is lost upon us. We must erase from our recollection the continued line of conspiracies and treasons, which are coeval with their earliest origin, and continued down to the very date of their extinction. We must resist even present warning, in their recent expulsion from Russia, and in the protest even of the bigotted court of Portugal, against their revival. If these documents do not awaken us, the voice of history and of experience speaks not in intelligible language, or, like Cassandra of old,

resolvit

Ora Dei jussu non unquam credita Teucris.

The Archdeacon then proceeds to consider the same principle, which it is his great object to trace, as communicating its contagion to the system and doctrines of Calvin. Here he certainly proceeds with much judgement: be extracts from the writings of Calvin himself, and from the celebrated Lambeth articles, the most authentic documents which could be produced, those Predestinarian positions, and their corollaries, which certainly take accountability from man, and must render him indifferent to the moral complexion of his actions. It will be seen from them, how absolutely they exclude any abatement or modification, and upon what an imaginary and fictitious plan the doctrine of MoDERATE CALVINISM rests. These positions, all inseparably connected, and must be accepted or rejected in toto. So that whoever considers them, will not think the portrait of Calvinism, drawn by the most distinguished divine and philosopher of his age, the late Archdeacon Balguy, overcharged or unfounded.

"Whoever," says this incomparable writer," attends to the various modes of faith which subsisted in the times of confusion, will scarce find one sect which was not deeply tinctured with the religion of Calvin, a religion which rests on this execrable foundation, that God is a tyrant." Rev. Dr. T. Balguy's Sermon on the Restoration. P. 59.

With this energetic declaration, we find our author in perfect unison in the following remarks: and he is farther aided by the high and living authority of his Diocesan, to whom he pays his tribute of gratitude, in common with every orthodox minister of our apostolic Church. We own, however friendly we are to prudence, to temper, and to moderation, we are still of opinion, that

there

there may be a time when decision, and courage, and a frank declaration of opinion in the rulers of the Church, in their different addresses to their Clergy, are called for by the extent and incumbency of the mischief, by which all that is valuable is menaced.

The Archdeacon then proceeds to consider those principles, as calculated, under the management of fanatical teachers, to produce an obduracy in crime highly detrimental to social order, and calculated to defeat and counteract the inflictions of public justice. This we conceive it important to exhibit in his own words.

"When those who suffer death by the sword of justice for the most atrocious offences, are taught to consider themselves, not as objects of the mercy, but the peculiar claimants, on the favor of God, as vessels of election; when they are trained to exhibit in their last moments, not humble contrition, but triumphant exultation, as if their very crimes rendered them more fit recipients, of what is termed, free grace, surely the great ends of the Christian Revelation are traversed, and the surrounding multitudes who witness these awful scenes, leave them rather encouraged to crimes, than deterred from them; rather fortified by presumption, than controlled by the apprehension of future consequences! Their consciences will be, must be steeled against this most salutary suggestion, the basis of all Religion, how can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God!'

"Here I trust I shall not be misunderstood; God forbid that any minister of the Gospel should desire to withhold from these poor agonized victims of crime, the consolation which the unfathomable recesses of the mercy of God, through the blood of his blessed Son, hold forth even to the latest penitence and contrition; or so to exhibit the terrors of the Lord as to induce despair; but it is essential, that the expectation held forth, should not be of a nature to destroy the difference between guilt and innocence; or to create a delusive hope of unwarrantable amnesty, in virtue of the destructive doctrine of an eternal decree!" P. 10.

Our author then proceeds to take a survey of the wide spread of that indifference to the genuine doctrines of our establishment, which, contemplates the multiplication of sects, and the clashing variety of opinions, as a consummation to be wished for, rather than as an evil to be remedied or controuled. The Archdeacon has made so little progress in modern philosophy, that he considers this heterogeneous mass as deeply charged with materials destructive of those morals and of that order, by which society is held together. He draws his objections to this fond and favourite scheme of equalizing all religions, both from Scriptural and Apostolical injunctions, and from the past experience of its deleterious effects.

He

He then is naturally enough carried on, in the course of his observation, to consider how far the Bible Society is likely to increase that spirit of religious division and anarchy, from which so many numerous mischiefs are foreboded. And we think ourselves warranted in asserting, that in the course of a long and continued controversy, sustained by the ablest hands, in few instances, have either the censures of those who inculpate such of the Clergy as may decline to co-operate with it, been more ably repelled, or the dangers to be apprehended from its progress and operation, more powerfully demonstrated than by our author. These two objects are pursued at considerable length, both in the body of the Charge, and in the copious and very important notes contained in the Appendix. Of the Archdeacon's able defence of those, who, with him, stand aloof from this Society, we highly approve.

When the Archdeacon, passing from the defensive to the offensive, marshals his objections to the principles and practices of this Society, we meet with much shrewdness and justice of observation. The inconsistency and breach of engagement, in which many worthy and well-meaning ministers of the Established Church have unawares implicated themselves, by appearing in the ranks, and, still more, in gouάx of this Society, is urged with so much real energy, that we cannot forbear to call the attention of our readers to the passage.

"As Churchmen we are called upon, in the exercise of our ministrations, to pray to Almighty God against the prevalence of ⚫ all false doctrine, heresy, and schism;' and shall we then be reproached for not passing from the house of prayer to the tavern or assembly room, to enter into union with those whom we cannot meet in the Church, and who are the direct propounders and supporters of these? Can we thus address the Supreme Being in the morning, and in the afternoon unite ourselves in bonds of fellowship with the embodied professors of every species and character of dissent; of all that we consider to be false doctrine, heresy, and schism,' without even distinction of degrees in error? Can we be sincere in both instances? Must we not be guilty of impious mockery in one? We may leave the Prayer Book behind us, but the Prayer is recorded." P. 75.

A consideration of the principles and extent of this Society, and the organized machinery by which its operations are conducted, leads the Archdeacon to a consideration of the features of the prevalent sectarianism connected with it, and of which it is a most powerful instrument. In viewing the expanded space which it occupies, and the narrow limits into which true practical religion is contracted, we cannot but partake with him of the serious impressions which this view excites. The citaz