stroying?-both our own souls and yours. But God forbid that we should either preach, or that you should receive, doctrines so contrary to his word, and so dangerous to our souls! God forbid, that, when we have his written word in our houses, in our hands-0, that we could also say in our hearts!-we should add one jot or tittle to it, or vary from it, or change it, in the slightest degree! Had Moses kept close to the directions which he received, he would have enjoyed the high honour of leading Israel into Canaan-he would have seen and enjoyed the long-promised possession; and if we and you will determinedly be ruled by God's written word, we shall all be received into the Canaan which is above. But if we vary from, or change the directions which are given us; if we add to them, or take from them, what will then be our lot? As an answer, hear once again the sentence which God passed upon Moses: "Because ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them." MEDITATION. How sweet to me the pensive hour, The friends my spirit loved below- Awake, my soul, and look beyond This earthly scene, which seems so fair- Should keep thy heart from rising there. That all our joys are set apart; Oh! God, my Father and my All, To thee I look, on thee I call, Oh! give me aid, and help me through. B. L. P. WHAT WAS THE ORIGINAL CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN GREAT BRITAIN? "WHAT was the original Christain Church in Great Britain?" First, we reply negatively, and say, certainly it was not your Church, the Church of Rome; and, secondly, we reply affirmatively, and declare it was the branch of the Apostolic and Catholic Church of Christ, which we designate by the title of the Church of England. Of this dear old Church we may say Still, both by priest and chief, Church, which Saint Paul did plant- The ancient faith of Great Britain was what we style the Protestant faith. The old religion was the Protestant religion. Rome introduced new inventions, and disturbed by them the ancient faith. She prevailed over this ancient and national faith through the influence of Queen Eanflida, who had been educated under the discipline of the Romish missionaries in Kent. Her husband Oswy, king of Bretwalda, consented to purchase domestic peace by giving in to the foreign party. The ancient usages of the British Church were rejected, and the Scoto-Irish missionaries withdrew in disgust to their brethren at Iona. All England, towards the close of the seventh century, received religious usages from Italy, but no further concession seems to have been intended. The Papal power was first developed in all its extent by the celebrated Hildebrand (Gregory VII.), made Pope in 1073. His conduct was marked by ambition, audacity, and pride. He excommunicated and deposed Henry IV. of Germany. He claimed, and in many instances exercised, temporal jurisdiction over the nations of the greater part of Europe. France and England, for the present, resisted these claims successfully; but in 1212, Pope Innocent III. obliged John, King of England, to declare himself a subject of the Roman see, and to pay tribute to it. "No part of the Church (says Mr. Palmer) smarted more severely under the Papal tyranny (for such it became) than the Church of England." In the year 1125, William of Corboil, Archbishop of Canterbury, received from the Pope (Honorius II.) the office of deputy legate, or vicar, in England and Scotland. "Thus was the independence of the English Church sacrificed by the folly of one French priest, and it caused a struggle of four hundred years, until, in the Reformation, its freedom was restored." THE CHURCH OF IRELAND, until about the middle of the twelfth century, maintained its character as an independent national Church, without acknowledging any authority, pre-eminence, or jurisdiction of the see of Rome. (See Bishop Mant's "Church of Ireland.") The independence of the WELSH CHURCH came to an end in 1115, by the submission of the Bishop of St. David's to the Archbishop of Canterbury. The British Churches were sometimes mulcted by the kings, at others by the popes. Before the smothered fire broke out in the barons' war, a society was formed, signing itself, "The company of those who had rather die than be confounded by the Romans." In order to resist corrupt encroachments, the clergy in different parts met together, and protested against the Pope's proceedings. "Roman pretensions (says Soames), when fully before the world, were never admitted by our ablest sovereigns." "The Government (says Southey in his Book of the Church'), though it permitted and even encouraged persecution, never deviated from that course of policy which Edward I. had begun, for limiting the Papal authority in England and checking its extortions. Full efficacy to what he intended was given by the statute of Præmunire, in Richard the Second's reign; which, though mainly designed to prevent the Pope from granting English benefices in reversion, struck at the root of his power, by making it highly penal to procure from him any instrument in diminution of the authority of the Crown. The Popes could never obtain a repeal of this, which they called an execrable statute against the Church, and the head of the Church." After the barons of England had been defeated at Evesham, a party who held out at Ely, A.D. 1267, still endeavoured to stipulate for the terms which Grostête, the Bishop of Lincoln, had required in the council. They refused to allow the king a tax of three years' tenths on benefices for a crusade. “The war (they said) was begun through these unjust exactions. It is time to cease from them, and consult for the peace of the realm." When they were excommunicated by the Pope and outlawed by the King, and were summoned to return to their faith and allegiance, their answer was, "that they firmly held the same faith which they had learned from the holy bishops, St. Robert, St. Edmund, and St. Richard (Grostête, Edmund of Canterbury, and Richard of Chichester), and other Catholic men.' These brave men were soon defeated by Prince Edward. Though they were mistaken in taking up arms, it is impossible not to respect their high principles, and the cause for which they stood: and it is plain that, had there been wisdom in Henry III., or moderation in his son Edward, the deliverance of the Church, the old original Church of these realms, would have been accomplished two centuries earlier than the period of the Reformation. This, then, is the origin and progress of that branch of the one Holy Catholic Church of Christ planted in these realms. Of this Church, which St. Paul did plant-this Church of the British isles, we may well say― What, though in league with Rome And what, though fierce schismatics love And what, though hand be join'd in hand, "Down, down with Britain's ANCIENT Church- Still is God's promise sure- While thou remainest true to Him, He will be true to thee. Keep thou the faith to thee convey'd And God will keep his faithful Church Church of the living Lord! Bought with the blood of Christ! May the hand forget its cunning, Ere we the Church of Britain's isles The Church of God-forget! There are none of His people so despicable in the eye of man, but they are known and regarded by God: though they are clouded in the world, yet they are the stars of the world; and shall God number the inanimate stars in the heavens, and make no account of his living stars on the earth.-Charnock, Biography. WILLIAM BEVERIDGE, D.D. "Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him: for they shall eat the fruit of their doings."-Isaiah iii. 10. It is said of the righteous (Ps. cxii. 6), that they "shall be in everlasting remembrance." Sweet and comforting thought! -most encouraging and delightful idea! Even in this world these are constantly borne on the wings of praise from one person to another, from one generation to another. The grand, the enlivening, the ennobling consideration is, that it does not stop here. Such a remembrance is not one that can brook the confines of narrow mortality; for they that are worthy of it aspire to a long-loved home-there, there to be blessed with celestial happiness, that amazing boon! Previously the "ascending path" has been theirs, and this has ever been a great distinction. Christian annals furnish us with examples of many, many, the ornaments of their age and nation-many whom future times would have occasion to call blessed, for reasons the most pleasing for a truly religious man to contemplate. That celebrated prelate, whose efforts and whose anxieties we are about to dwell upon, affords much scope for pious regard; and accordingly it is that we propose to trace, and to estimate, some of the beautiful lineaments of the character of Bishop Beveridge. 66 He was born at Barrow, in Leicestershire, in the year 1638, and educated at St. John's College, Cambridge. In 1661 he was ordained, and soon after presented to the vicarage of Ealing, in Middlesex; which he resigned on being chosen rector of St. Peter's, Cornhill. He was greatly followed as a preacher, and was called 'the restorer and preserver of primitive piety. He was successively prebendary of St. Paul's, archdeacon of Colchester, and prebendary of Canterbury. In 1704, he was preferred to the see of St. Asaph, in which he behaved as an apostolical prelate. He died in 1707, and was buried in St. Paul's cathedral." There are many different ways and means by which persons who have reached the same eminent situation have arrived at that summit; but we would hope that with such persons as Bishop Beveridge-of such "apostolical" demeanour, and given to such "primitive piety," there was much of solid worth (so far as poor mortals may be said to have worth) to recommend and to forewarn him. We do not wish to advocate or pursue a system of unqualified eulogium; but, doubtless, there were many expressive lights in the "fair portrait" of Bishop Beveridge. At the commencement of the preface to the twentieth edi. tion of one of his works it is said-" After so great a name as |