highly advantageous to it, by procuring for them towards the rebuilding of their church, double the sum they would otherwise have received ; but to what Dissenting community does he stand in a similar relation ? To account for the sanction thus given to a religious establishment, as Hume terms it, differing in its constitution from our own, let me observe, in the early days of our Reformation, the idea that now, as once under the local and typical economy of Moses, one and the same form of Church government was universally and perpetually binding, was unknown to the English Church, and has since been adopted, I say it advisedly, by but a very few of her divines comparatively. It was first brought forward, and the fact is not without interest, in support, not of Episcopacy, but of Presbyterianism, the divines of our Church combating the view. So the celebrated work of Hooker was composed, if, at least, Hooker himself be here any authority, for the express purpose of proving, in opposition to this Presbyterian assumption, that under the Gospel dispensation no one form of Church government was everywhere binding, and if so, there was no pretext whatever for unchurching our foreign brethren because differently governed from ourselves. Hooker, indeed, and the other writers of his day—and we think with justice regarded the episcopal discipline as more nearly conformed to apostolic precedent and practice than any other ; but those who went furthest in this sense-and I have had before me the opinion of many-dreamt not of making it necessary to the essential constitution of all Churches under every circumstance. Thus, when in 1609 three Presbyters of the Scottish Church were about to be consecrated bishops, and that it was suggested to Archbishop Bancroft that they should first be consecrated presbyters episcopally, their previous consecration being only Presbyterian, and consequently invalid, he refused to act on the suggestion, alleging this reason for bis refusal, that to renew their ordination as presbyters would be to call in question the ordination of the foreign Protestant Churches. Yet Bancroft was a very high Churchman, as it is called, and, according to Mosheim, the very first English clergyman to contend for the Divine right or Episcopacy. I come now to a striking and well-known fact. The Church of England, in the year 1618, sent her representatives to the Synod of Dort, though the only episcopal divines present. This was surely a strange step if she then held the doctrine of apostolical succession in the sense some would now give to it. Upon this principle, it is strange, too, that our deputies, Bishops Davenant and Hall, both strenuous advocates for Episcopacy, should not merely have consented to vote, as having only one voice with the delegate from the Kirk of Scotland, but should have defended the legitimacy of the Synod when impugned by the Remonstrant party. A few years later than this, Archbishop Laud is indeed supposed to have been less favourable to our foreign brethren, who, being established amongst us, still continued to worship apart, and it was not, perhaps, too much to expect, that when they had learnt our language they should worship with us : but, with regard to the foreign Churches abroad, what were his views ? His letters are extant, in which he addresses them as · his dearest brethren,' and ' as members with the Church of England, of one and the same body, believing and confessing the communion of saints.' When impeached,

THAITH

amongst other things, for having sought to divide the English and
foreign Reformed Churches, he indignantly repelled the charge with
this expression, which some of his professed admirers now would do
well to consider. "If I had done so, it would have been a very
unchristian and unworthy act. At the time of which I am now
speaking, and till a much later period, our Churchmen and divines,
when abroad, take e. g. Bishops Morley. and Cosins, both very high
Episcopalians, followed the rule so strongly enjoined by St. Augustine,
of worshipping and communicating with the Reformed Churches
amongst which they found themselves, according to their ritual. Our
ambassadors at Paris had a seat officially set apart for them in the
French Church at Charenton ; nay, so great was the national sym-
pathy, the unity of feeling, which at this time subsisted between
English and foreign Protestants, that when, in an unhappy moment,
the King of England had sent vessels of war to assist in besieging our
French Reformed brethren in La Rochelle, the crews on the very
eve of action deserted them, a practice not familiar to British seamen.
If the Church of England regards no orders as valid but those which
are episcopally conveyed, and so unchurches her foreign brethren ;
then I ask, how came it, that up to the passing of the Act of Unifor-
mity in 1660, i. e, for above one hundred years from the Reformation,
ministers of foreign national Churches, and of the Church of Scotland,
might, and did, hold preferment, and even dignities in our Church,
without episcopal ordination ? No Dissenter from our own, or from
a foreign Church, could indeed do so. No Englishman, e.g. seeking
to be ordained elsewhere than in bis national Church could officiate
in it; but as regards ministers of foreign Churches, it was otherwise,
and the fact is notorious. Nay, the Act of Uniformity itself, by
which episcopal consecration was first made necessary in the Church
of England, has a special clause exempting from its operation the
ministers even of the foreign congregations established in this country
by royal sanction. That Act, and let me observe, that it is the only
public Act that can be supposed to speak any other language than
that wbich I am holding nowmis in fact, as its title shows, an Act
bearing upon the Church of England and her internal discipline only.
Its purport is explained by the preface to our Forms of Ordination,
in which it is said, that in the Church of England no one shall be
accounted a lawful minister but those episcopally consecrated to the
office. The Act in question was passed to prevent the recurrence
of such a catastrophe as the abolition of the Episcopal Church of
England. It was passed to secure in future a peace which con-
tentions, as to forms of Church government, had long succeeded
in banishing. Hence it decreed that only one, and that the episcopal
form, should henceforth be recognised in the national Church, but it
pronounced nothing whatever on a totally different subject, the
validity in its own nature of foreign ordination not episcopal. From
the time of its passing, indeed, any person who, having only Pres-
byterian orders, sought to hold a living or to administer the sacraments
in our Church needed to be episcopally ordained ; but the bishops in
the very act of renewing the ordination, were accustomed to state
expressly, that they did this not by any means as implying the
invalidity of the previous orders, but simply to qualify the individual
SEPTEMBER, 1842.

3 A

to exercise the ministerial faculties he might already possess in the special pale of the English Church. Here let me add, that in the latter years of the seventeenth century, when the Lower House of Convocation sent up to the bishops of our Church in the Upper House, a Resolution implying that no orders were in themselves legitimate but those episcopally conferred, the bishops,--that order to wbich we mainly owe the Reformation ; that order which, under James II. preserved the nation from the tender mercies of the Papacy, at the risk of their lives ; the order to which the faithful sons of our Church are now looking for a similar deliverance,-rejected the motion of the inferior clergy, declaring that they would adhere to that which the Church of England had taught bitherto. Thanks to their firmness, the intimate and friendly connexion with our fellow-Protestants on the Continent was maintained, our communications with them in the early part of the eighteenth century being frequent. In the latter half of it, the prevalence of war, the absence of a common danger from Romanism, and, probably, the moral lethargy into which all Churches had fallen, reudered these expressions of fraternal regard less frequent: but we have lived to see them revive with the renewed life of our Church, under the special care of its Primate, of the Bishop of this diocese, and of the Episcopal Bench at large. This is but a hasty sketch of facts, lying upon the very surface of history, which cannot be gaipsayed or misunderstood, and which no longer must be lost sight of. If the Church of England, our mother, had descended from her high Christian standing ground, that of maintaining her own discipline to be godly, without impugning that of other Churches; had she followed the unhappy sect of Rome in denouncing as beyond the pale of Christ's Church every community whose external constitution was not precisely her own, then her children would, for the first time, have bad reason to call in question that moderation which gives her so distinctive a feature. She may, indeed when in her Articles she proclaims a due administration of the sacraments in all things necessary, to be an indispensable mark of the Church-she may have felt constrained to part company from those who take away one half from the Lord's Supper; but as regards her sister Churches of the Continent, she has never breathed one syllable of censure. Had she taken upon her to do so, she would have been in a high degree ungrateful, since to those Churches she has many obligations. If their advice, given to the first Puritan sectaries, had been taken, Dissent would have been unknown in our island. Towards our countrymen, exiled from England under Queen Mary's reign, Zurich, Geneva, and other foreign Churches showed all imaginable tenderness and delicacies of charity. At the Synod of Dort, unhappily the only opportunity they ever had of doing so, they gave to our representatives the post of honor ; and I would particularly remark, that for having taken part with the Church of England against the Presbyterian and Independent parties in the seventeenth century, as before and since that time, they have incurred the hearty and frequent denunciations of the Puritan historian, Neale. In Geneva, for a long period o. years, our government and Church were publicly prayed for by name as often as their own were thus remembered ; and to come to our own days, what shall we say of the King of Prussia, so worthily repre

sented amongst us? I will merely say tbis, that were he to-day in this country, he might very possibly bave been more worthily represented than even by the Chevalier de Bunsen, and that he is himself present in spirit with a Society like ours. Of the school of Theology I can speak with some personal knowledge: I have been permitted to assist at its lectures and at the examination of the students, with a satisfaction which might be expected to result from the fact, that Merle d'Aubigne and M. Gaussen, men of European reputation, as well as Christian men, are amongst its professors - the former presiding over it. This Theological school sprang out of the most melancholy consideration, that in Geneva, of late days, the Deity of our adorable Redeemer has been more generally and systematically denied than in any town in the world. For years it has been privileged to bear witness for him on whom all our hopes for time or eternity depend : whilst the necessity for its continuing to do so is becoming every day more urgent. I hesitate not to say, that though in many things this Theological School may be necessarily short of what it would be—it at this moment offers a guarantee for the exclusive teaching of sound doctrine, which no other institution on the Continent offers.

JERUSALEM. From a Narrative of a Mission of Inquiry to the Jews from the Church of

Scotland in 1839. “ The site of the proposed Hebrew church is close to Mr. Nicolayson's own house. At that time they were only digging the foundations, and preparing the stones, which we saw camels carrying into town, and were told that they were brought from a quarry a few miles north of Jerusalem, near a village called Anata, the ancient Anathoth, where Jeremiah was born. In seeking a solid foundation, the builders had already dug down about forty feet, and had not yet come to the rock.* They laid bare heap after heap of rubbish and ancient stones. It is a remarkable fact, wbich cannot but strike the traveller, that not only on Mount Zion, but in many parts of the city, the modern town is really built on the rubbish of the old. The heaps of ancient Jerusalem are still remaining; indurated masses of stones and rubbish forty and fifty feet deep in many places. Truly the prophets spoke with a divine accuracy when they said, “ Jerusalem shall become heaps.” (Micah iii. 12.) “I will make Jerusalem heaps.” (Jer. ix. 11.) And if so, shall not the future restoration foretold by the same lips be equally literal and full ? “ The city shall be builded upon her own heap.” (Jer. xxx. 18.) The fact that these heaps of ruins are of so great depth, suggested to us a literal interpretation of the words of Jeremiah, “ Her gates are sunk into the ground.” (Lam. ii. 9.) The ancient gates mentioned by Nehemiah, (Neh. iii.) are no longer to be found, and it is quite possible that several of them may be literally buried below the feet of the inquiring traveller.”

* In April 1840, the old foundations were discovered at the depth of fifty feet, in fulólment of Isaiah lviii. 12.

Xntelligence.

CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY.

INDIA WITHIN THE GANGES.
CHUNAR.

hundred chairs were placed, and The Rev. W. Bowley continues to many tents were erected in the neighlabour at this station with his usual bourhood, for persons coming from a activity and zeal. The following distance. I had our tent pitched short account of the state of the Mis- close to the road-side, so as to be sion is taken from the Chunar Asso- contiguous to all. Oh! how will ciation Report:-

every thing here please the natives ! Congregation. The Native con During the day the whole populace, gregation has continued full and congregated here from the district, encouraging: several of the regular seemed to be in motion, in anticipaattendants upon the means of grace tion of what is to take place to-morhave, we trust, given themselves row and the following day. This entirely to the Lord, and have been will do more to engage the whole admitted to the Holy Communion. district to take an interest in schools During the year, several infants of than if ten times the sum had been converts have been added to the laid out in support of them. Our tent Church by Baptism : though no was filled by the school lads and adults have been admitted to that others during the remainder of the ordinance, there are three candidates day; and we gave away all the who will, in all probability, be bap- English Tracts, half-a-dozen Testatized during the present year.

ments, and all the Romanised GosOrphan Asylums.-Several of the pels which I had brought., I only girls and young men educated in regretted that I was not better prethese asylums have, during the past pared to meet the wants of this class year, been united in matrimony, and of the people : in fact, the demand are 'earning their livelihood with of all classes was so great, that at credit to themselves and their Chris- night we had not a single Oordoo tian profession. One family has been Gospel left. sent to labour under the missionaries Jan. 8.-At an early hour, the at Allahabad; and six of the most whole space prepared for the multiforward lads were, for want of an tude to witness the examination was efficient teacher on the spot, sent to fully occupied ; and when business be instructed at that station, whence, commenced, thousands of people, after an absence of ten months, they clean and well-dressed, and hundreds have lately returned.

of wealthy men, among whom were There are at present in the asylums three Rajahs, were assembled : many forty-two inmates; twenty-six boys, ladies and gentlemen, some of them and sixteen girls. Between school natives, had come from the interior hours the boys are employed in the of the district: it was a cheering garden or the field, or in Tailors' sight, especially when connected with work.

the results likely to follow to the During the month of January, Mr. people at large. All was perfectly Bowley made a missionary tour. quiet and orderly while the examFrom his journal we extract the fol. ination took place : the English and lowing account of his visit to Azim Oordoo classes which were examined, ghur und examination of the Govern seemed to give the highest satisfacment Schools.

tion. Considering that the schools Jan. 7, 1841.–To-day we visited were opened only two years ago, Azimghur. The most influential their progress is astonishing : the civilian in this district had made English head master gives up all his great preparations here for the ex time to it; and the magistrate's examination of the government schools. ertions, both of body and mind, after A sort of stage was erected around the performance of his official duties, three sides of the schools, and are devoted to the same object. covered with flooring to suit the Jan. 9.–To-day there was a disnative taste : in the area, about one play of vegetables brought in from