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Review. Thoughts, &c.

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to reform the state, instead of being buried and lost in its manifold corruptions.

The history of this Church, as given by our author, with no such intent, justifies this cheering anticipation. The iron hand and bloody sword of persecution have been in vain employed to put down evangelical piety. Once indeed, though not destroyed, it seemed to have been utterly cast out of the pale of the establishment: but presently, there were perceived even in the state church, the stirrings of the unconquerable and conquering word. Worldly men have indeed been too generally appointed to her sees and parishes. Even idlecess, dissipation and vice, have been found no disqualifications for a claim to her emoluments, or the service of her sanctuaries: but still there has remained the Word which has often subdued the hireling himself to the obedience of faith, and which has been constantly augmenting the number of evangelical ministers even to this day: until, at length, two confederacies are formed, which are advancing the evangelism of the church with a rapidity exceeding even the faith of Newton, Romaine, Goode and others, whose early labours and prayers had no other concert than that which arose incidentally from the Providence of God, but which prepared the way for those two confederacies, which, with other designs, are rapidly advancing the evangelism of the church. We refer to the Bible Society: which, though open to all, has received a glorious support from members of the church of England-which, though it has been bitterly opposed by many bishops and dignitaries, has astonishingly ranked among its patrons at least eleven bishops, whose personal evangelism, and the evangelism of whose dioceses it has promoted. This has been the doing of eighteen years, in the face of opposition. Another eighteen years may show the majority of England's bishops, and, more probably, of England's clergy, among its zealous and laborious friends.

We refer also to the Church Missionary Society. This Society is now rich in resources, able in management, and grand in enterprise. It is doing much for the heathen. It is also doing much for the church of England. It forms a centre around which evangelism rallies; its progress affords a proof of the progressive growth of evangelism; it is itself, without any congé d'elire, a bishop in the English church, with a larger income, and with a wider supervision, than any bishop, and with a greater and holier influence, than all the bishops put together.

Add to these two confederacies, the evangelical press. Must not any one see a more powerful operation in favour of evangelism, through the Christian Observer, the Christian Guardian, the works of Thomas Scott-not to mention a hundred names of modern, and a host of widely read ancient evangelical writers of the Episcopal church, than in all the influence of her titled and salaried formalists. We trust the time is not distant when even formal bishops, and even an unsanctified throne, shall be compelled "without hand," to submit to public opinion; purified, enlightened, and animated by the spirit of the Gos pel. Nay, rather; when directed by public opinion, which is at once the energy and the security of the British constitution, the secular

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head of the church, will permit to be elected no other than evangelical bishops; and when active piety shall be an indispensable qualification for admission to the sacred office in the church of England. In the progress of these anticipations the time will come, when the machinery of the church will be made to subserve those holy interests, which in other times it has aimed to injure and destroy. This, or another generation, may see that the word of God has power to employ in useful, successful service, the hierarchy of the church of England. We repeat, in this view, from our last number, "There is no event which we should more sincerely deplore than the downfal of the church of England; nor do we anticipate a higher honour to herself; or a more glorious triumph to Christianity; than her ultimate victory over the dignified enemies of her own household." Hasten on, glorious day, when bishops, priests and deacons, shall sacredly employ the functions with which Divine Providence has invested them; and when, under their cultivation, the church shall flourish like a garden of the Lord; when the king of England shall become officially and really a nursing father to the church!

The American-Anglo church may not have all the advantages for promoting evangelical piety which the English state church now abuses, and may eventually employ; but she presents fewer obstructions. There is much hostility, it is said, on the part of some American bishops, while the people are too generally satisfied with the mere formalism of religion. But American bishops have comparatively little power; there is in the church no lay patronage; and we do not see how the opposers of evangelical piety in this country, expect to make successful resistance to our aggressor, which assails fearlessly and successfully the more frightful array of English formalism. The efforts which are made at this resistance are not alarming. The opposition to the Bible Society, for instance, has proved to be the brandishing of a scabbard, and not a sword. How the newly imported instrument* sent forth perhaps from the grand American armoury, will cut and slash, we venture not to predict with certainty; but we feel a satisfactory confidence, that the American Bible Society will stand, if the Episcopal church will not help it: that a host of Episcopalians will help it, without leave or license; and that just so much of the American Episcopal church as loves not the Bible, and fears its

It will readily occur to our readers that we allude to Norris's pamphlet noticed in a succeeding page. Though the "Christian Guardian" says it "has dropped pretty nearly stillborn from the press," it seems a nurse has been found on this side of the Atlantic, to resuscitate this miserable offspring of formalism and infidelity. On the very first page of the reverend curate's production he says, "a distinguished American" "bewails the accession of popularity that societies there [in America] hostile to the church!!" "have derived from inferences" "drawn from this document [the Earl of Liverpool's speech] which is most studiously propagated by American newspapers throughout the United States."

Now, who this "distinguished American" is, we know not, but of this we are confident, that no American, "distinguished" for piety and good sense, would have republished Norris's attack on the Bible Society, had he first read the one half of it. Even the printer, it appears, felt some fear lest his character (which we believe is every way worthy) should suffer from the use of his name in such an unchristian union, and has wisely left it off the pamphlet.

Review. Rev. Mr. Norris versus the Bible.

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wider circulation, will come to naught, or be overspread with the true spirit of the Prayer Book. This devout and catholic wish we believe is verging to fulfilment. The Book of common Prayer, in spite of the formalism of those who exalt it to an equality with the Bible, is daily extending its own evangelical influence, and the number of evangelical bishops and presbyters is surely increasing. There are in the American Episcopal Church, bishops devoted to the spread of the Gospel, and who use their episcopal oversight, with advantages which no parish minister can command. In this diocess even, where the opposition to the Bible Society has been the most unblushing, there is an irrepressible elasticity, an unconquerable word, whose movements, appearing on every side, would baffle an Episcopal Briareus, with an hundred eyes and an hundred hands.

A Respectful Letter to the Earl of Liverpool, occasioned by the speech imputed to his Lordship at the Isle of Thanet Bible Society meeting, October 17, 1821. By the Rev. H. H. Norris, M. A. (no imprint.) pp. 60.

THIS is the title of a pamphlet written by a Clergyman in London, of the name of Norris, who has for many years been a virulent opponent and calumniator of that noble institution, the British and Foreign Bible Society. A coarse edition of this pamphlet having been put into circulation in this city (and for what reason is best known to its friends) without the usual imprint to designate its publishers, to prevent any ill effects which its perusal may be designed to produce on the public mind in relation to the Bible cause in this country, it is deemed expedient to show the light in which this puny effort is viewed in England.

The following notice of Norris's work is from "the Christian Guardian and Church of England Magazine," for September, 1822; a work conducted under the superintendence of that pious and distinguished clergyman, the Rev. Leigh Richmond.

"This Mr. Norris distinguished himself a few years ago by an attack on the Bible Society, and received in consequence so complete an answer from the powerful pen of Mr. Dealtry, as might well have cautioned him against needlessly resuming the subject. He has, however, thought proper to publish this volume, which he has the assurance tocall a respectful letter. Exclusive of the Author's immediate circle, there can be but one opinion upon the subject. This Letter is neither respectful nor decent. For instance, it insinuates, in the very title page, that the Speech on which he animadverts is imputed to his Lordship: whereas it is a matter of public notoriety, that it was actually spoken by his Lordship-that it expresses his Lordship's known and avowed sentiments-sentiments not hastily taken up at the impulse of the moment, but which he had long before publicly stated, and the previous anunciation of which could not be unknown to one so deeply read in the Monthly Extracts of the Bible Society as Mr. Norris is. As, however, it may gratify some of our readers, we will

just insert a report of his Lordship's speech from the chair at the fifth Anniversary of the Cinque Ports Auxiliary Bible Society, November 6, 1817; four years, be it remembered, before that on which Mr. N. has presumed to animadvert; and will add a note of Lord Castlereagh on the same subject, which is at present painfully interesting to our minds.

In addressing the meeting (which was by far the most numerous since the formation of the institution,) his Lordship took a comprehensive view of the object and constitution of the British and Foreign Bible Society, and expressed, in the most clear and decided manner, his increased attachment to both.

The noble President adverted also to the high station which he had the honour of holding in the government of the country, and the consequent duty which devolved upon him to maintain inviolate the trust thus reposed in him by his sovereign. With this impression, and with the firm attachment which he entertained to the Established Church, he could not, from a sense of duty, lend his support to any society which stood opposed to it. In uniting with the Bible Society, however, he conscientiously believed he was supporting the interest of the Established Church in particular, and that of Christianity at large. He was a friend to a kindred Society, because its object was the extension of that Church of which it was his happiness to be a member; and he cordially gave his support to the Bible Society, because, its operatious being unlimited, it could extend itself where the other could not; and, by uniting the energies of Christians of all persuasions, it was, in fact, carrying the word of life to every nation and every clime. His Lordship concluded an able and energetic speeeh, by stating, that his motive for supporting the Bible Society, was the same as that assigned by his venerable sovereign, who, on one occasion, expressed the hope, that he should live to see the day, when every subject in his realm would be able to read his Bible; and his Lordship, acting upon the same principle, hoped the day was fast approaching, when every man throughout the whole world would be able to read the Bible, and have it to read, in his own language.

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The following letter was then read from the Right Honourable Viscount Castlereagh.

'Dover Castle, Nov. 6, 1817.

MY DEAR LORD, 'Having received an invitation from the Committee of the Auxiliary Bible Society, to attend their Meeting this day at Dover, and having heard that your Lordship is to preside on that occasion, I request your Lordship to have the goodness to express my regret at being prevented, by public business, from attending in person, and my willingness to become a member of the Society, as well as my wish to promote, by any means in my power, the prosperity of so laudable an Institution.

'I am, my dear Lord,

To the Earl of Liverpool, &c. &c. &c. Dover.'

'Yours very sincerely,
'CASTLEREAGH.'

"The present publication contains little that is new, and less that is interesting. A captious irritability and a determination to censure is every where evinced: there is a good deal of insinuation and inuendo, which intimates a sad want of right moral feelings-a species of jesting which is not convenient, and which is very unbecoming in a clergyman. Some assertions are made which compel us to doubt the correctness of the author's memory; and there is a reference to certain circumstances which every friend of the Bartlett's Buildings Society and the Christian Remembrancer would wish to be forgotten. We allude especially to the Welsh Bible and the French Testament. A more complete failure was never witnessed than that of the Christian Remembrancer on the latter subject; and Mr. Norris makes but

United States.-American Jews' Society.

433

a poor return to its conductors for their kind attention to his meagre verses, by thus bringing their sins to remembrance. The circumstance, indeed, is not of much importance; Mr. N.'s volume has dropped pretty nearly still-born from the press, and we should not have thought it worth notice were it not possible that our silence might have been misrepresented.

"The following remarks, however, of the British Critic, for March 1813, appear so important as to the general question, that we beg leave to recall them to Mr. Norris's recollection, and with them we shall close the present article.

'If authority could decide a question perfectly cognizable by common sense, we should be inclined to bow to the authority which (very unhappily, we think) opposes itself to the Bible Society. Or, if acute and subtle argument could possibly make us believe white to be black, we should doubtless be staggered by the logic which has (with equal unhappiness) been wasted on this subject. But, as it is, we can only lament, and deeply lament, that invincible propensity to take different sides on every question, which breaks out even in the clearest and plainest concerns of human life.

'If it be a clear point that Bibles and Testaments, unsophisticated and uncommented, cannot possibly do harm;

'If it be clear that such a gift cannot be vitiated by the giver;

'If it be certain, that a society selling cheap Bibles and Testaments, and also other excellent works on theology, cannot possibly be hurt by having a great part of its expense voluntarily borne by another society; it is and must be clear

to us

1. That the Bible Society is a good thing.

2. That it tends to assist, rather than to injure, the excellent Society for promoting Christian Knowledge.

Ten thousand volumes of controversy cannot, in our opinion, invalidate these plain truths, and therefore of such volumes we take no notice, that we may not perplex our readers and ourselves in vain.'”

If this subject should hereafter be considered deserving of further attention, ample materials are at hand to show the consideration due to a man who ventures, in this enlightened era of the Church, to prevent the "word of God" from "having free course," and "being glorified," in the salvation of perishing sinners, whose fury against the Bible cause has so besotted his reason, that he solemnly declares his belief (p. 3) that "quietness, peace and love have rarely been assailed by a confederacy from which all Christian people have more to dread, than is threatened by an institution," whose sole object is to circulate the unadulterated Oracles of God.

Entelligence.

UNITED STATES.-AMERICAN JEWS' SOCIETY.

Of all the families which have peopled the globe, no one has acquired so much celebrity, through a duration so extended, and in situations so varied, as the family of the Patriarch Abraham. At the age of seventyfive, this illustrious man, with a divine vocation, and the promise of a seed numerous and distinguished beyond all example, voluntarily retired from his country, his kindred, and his father's house. "He went out not knowing whither he went," and contrary to the usual course VOL. IX.

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