enlarging on each of these divisions in a very convincing manner, he proceeds to show that the sanctions of Christ's laws have all of them a reference to a future world only. They are declarations of those conditions to be performed in this world on our part, without which God will not make us happy in that to come. And they are almost all appeals to the will of that God; to his nature, known by the common reason of mankind; and to the imitation of that nature, which must be our perfection. The keeping his commandments, is declared the way to life; and the doing his will, the entrance into the kingdom of heaven. The being subjects to Christ is to this very end, that we may the better, and more effectually, perform the will of God.”

"The sanctions of Christ's law are rewards and punishments. But of what sort? Not the rewards of this world; not the offices or glories of this state; not the pains of prisons, banishments, fines, or any lesser and more moderate penalties; nay, not the much lesser negative discouragements that belong to human society. He was far from thinking that these could be the instruments of such a persuasion as he thought acceptable to God."—p. 11.

The rest of the discourse follows up these remarks, from which we shall make another short quotation.

"The peace of Christ's Kingdom is a manly and reasonable peace built upon charity, and love and mutual forbearance, and receiving one another, as God receives us. As for any other peace, founded upon a submission of our honesty as well as our understanding, it is falsely so called. It is not the peace of the Kingdom of Christ, but the lethargy of it; and a sleep unto death, when his subjects shall throw off their relations to him, for their subjection to others, and even in cases where they have a right to see, and where they think they see, his will otherwise, shall shut their eyes and go blindfold at the command of others, because those others are not pleased with their enquiries into the will of their great Lord and Judge."-p. 16.

We cannot be surprised that such a Sermon, coming from a Bishop, and sanctioned by the King, should have excited the indignation and resentment of the high Church party, when after the lapse of more than a century, Bishops have been freely censured, and obliged to apologize to their own Clergy, for a mere act of courtesy to a dissenter! If Convocations could now sit like Scotch General Assemblies, how would the offender against authority be treated by the Thorpes and Wodehouses, the Molesworths and Sewells, of the present day? We may judge by the proceedings against the Author of " The Morning and Evening Sacrifice."

The next Tract in succession was published shortly before the Sermon last mentioned. We fix this time because it

was after the publication of Clarke's Scripture Doctrine in 1714, and before the suppression of the Convocation, for Whiston mentions that that body was offended at its humour. The Tract is reprinted from the collected works of the Author in 1746. This Author was Dr. Francis Hare, who in the early part of his life was a vindicator of Queen Anne's Whig Administration; after his promotion to a deanery, joined with Dr. Sherlock and others in the Bangorian Controversy against Bp. Hoadly. He was afterwards made a Bishop. The object of the Tract is to advise a young Clergyman not to devote himself to the studies of the Scriptures on account of the danger with which it would be attended. On this topic he enlarges fully, and instances the cases of Mr. Whiston and Dr. Clarke, (without naming them) who, by devoting themselves to such study, had incurred the charge of heresy, and were debarred from all preferment. "Whatever you do," says the writer to his friend, "be orthodox: orthodoxy will cover a multitude of sins, but a cloud of virtues cannot cover the want of the minutest particle of orthodoxy." He advises, therefore, any study but that of the Scriptures-classics, mathematics, and other sciences, from devotion to which there could be no danger, and the Bishop seems to have been so far serious, as to have acted on his own recommendation. Indeed, if it were not for a kind of postscript, we might think it well-fitted to accompany the Oxford Tracts. But in this conclusion, he avows that he thinks Clergymen should not lay aside the study of Scripture, but that all discouragements to the free study of them ought to be removed. The Tract has therefore been considered as one of the best pieces of irony in the English language." It was reprinted in this series because, "the Bible, the Bible only," "is the publicly declared motto of an immense body of Christians, and is inscribed in flaming colours upon all exclusive Protestant banners;" and yet if any one by the study of it, "exercising the Protestant right and duty of private judgment, arrive at conclusions not palatable to the multitude, or not agreeable" to the standard adopted by any Church, such student is treated as if guilty of some shocking crime. We freely avow that this Tract is not a favourite with us, but we admit that it fully and strikingly exposes the absurdity of requiring men to take the Bible only as their standard; and yet only allowing them to read it in conformity with a prescribed creed. Far better with the Romanists and Oxonians to deny that it is the standard, and to refer at once to the dogmas of the Church.

Dr. Edward Gibson, who was promoted to the see of London, and who was a contemporary of the authors of the two preceding

Tracts, was a man of very extensive learning, and universally esteemed for his virtue and amiable qualities. But though originally promoted by Lord Chancellor Somers and Archbishop Tennison, he was not friendly to dissenters from the establishment. In 1713 he published a celebrated work entitled "Codex Juris Ecclesiastici Anglicani, or the statutes, constitution, canons, rubricks, and Articles of the Church of England, methodically digested under their proper heads, &c." "The scheme of Church power vindicated in this volume," says one of his biographers, "was excepted against, not only by dissenters, but by the soundest and most constitutional lawyers within the pale of the Church; who maintained that the principles and claims advanced in it would be sufficient, if acted upon in their utmost extent, to establish a sacerdotal empire, which must draw all power to itself, and render the civil magistrate its minister and dependent."

As Bishop Gibson acted on the principles of his book, and was zealous in his opposition to the dissenters and their claims, he became no favourite with the ministry of that day, and at the instigation, it is said, of the Lord Chief Justice Hardwicke, Mr. Foster (afterwards Sir Michael Foster, and one of the Judges of the Court of King's Bench,) wrote an answer to it, published first in 1735. The editor of the Tracts conceives that the assertions frequently thrown out by the High Church party, required the republication of this answer to the Codex by a lawyer of such authority as Sir Michael Foster. "In it, it is proved that the CHURCH is the CREATURE of the state-to be ruled, changed and REFORMED, as the Crown, by the advice of Parliament, shall determine." The party in Scotland now seeking to establish a power over the legislature and courts of law, under the pretext of popular election, would do well to study "this Examination of the scheme of Church power." We are not hostile to the free election of Ministers by their hearers, but as their ancestors chose to give up this privilege for the advantages and emoluments of an Established Church, and the appointment by Patrons is the law of the land, we cannot see why they should enjoy both the privilege and the equivalent for it, and receive pay from dissenters as well as others, when the latter become such, almost entirely in consequence of their attachment to the free election, agreeing with the establishment in their adherence to the Westminster confession. The clergy of both establishments would gladly have all appointments from the Archbishop to the Curate rest with themselves, and would then soon make the state as subordinate to the Church as it was in the worst days of Popery. But let us hope that such is not to

be apprehended; and turn to extracts from the golden remains of the ever memorable JOHN HALES, which form the eighth Tract. This eminent man lived in the time of James the First and Charles the First, and was patronised by Archbishop Laud. Accounts of him by Lord Clarendon, and by Bishop Pearson, who published an edition of his works, are prefixed to the Tract. We shall extract a passage from the noble historian, as likely to lead our readers to refer to the treatise concerning Schism, which occupies the greater part of the Tract.

Nothing troubled him more than the brawls which were grown from religion; and he therefore exceedingly detested the tyranny of the Church of Rome, more from their imposing uncharitably upon the consciences of other men, than for the errors in their own opinions; and would often say, that he would renounce the religion of the Church of England to-morrow, if it obliged him to believe that any other Christian should be damned; and that no body would conclude another man to be damned, who did not wish him so. No man more strict or severe to himself; to other men, so charitable as to their opinions, that he thought that other men were more in fault for their carriage towards them, than the men themselves were who erred, and he thought that pride and passion, more than conscience, were the cause of all separation from each other's communion; and he frequently said that that only kept the world from agreeing upon such a liturgy as might bring them into one communion; all doctrinal points upon which men differed in their opinions being to have no place in any liturgy. Upon an occasional discourse with a friend, of the frequent and uncharitable reproaches of heretic and schismatic, too lightly thrown at each other, amongst men who differ in their judgment, he writ a little discourse of schism, contained in less than two sheets of paper; which being transmitted from friend to friend in writing, was at last, without any malice, brought to the view of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Laud, who was a very rigid surveyor of all things which never so little bordered upon schism, and thought the Church could not be too vigilant against and jealous of such incursions."

To the Treatise on Schism are annexed some extracts from sermons, of which we shall quote a passage from that on private judgment.

"It is a question made by John Gerson, some time Chancellor of Paris, wherefore hath God given me the light of reason and conscience, if I must suffer myself to be led and governed by the reason and conscience of another man?' Will any of you befriend me so far as to assert * this question? For I must confess I cannot. It was the speech of a good husbandman-' It is but a folly to possess a piece of ground except you till it.' And how then can it stand with reason, that a man should be possessed of so goodly a piece of the Lord's pasture as is this light of understanding and reason, which he hath endued us with in the day of Clear from difficulty, explain, answer.

our creation, if he suffer it to lie untilled, or sow not in it the Lord's seed?"

We now come to the ninth Tract, on the Nature of true Religion,' by Sir Mathew Hale, who was Chief Justice both in the time of the Protectorate and the reign of Charles the Second, having resigned his office a few months before his death in 1676. He was a member of the Church of England, but lived in friendship with several Non-conformists, and amongst others the celebrated Baxter, who was the first publisher of the treatise. The spirit and tendency of this work may be judged from the following extract, which in all that is essential, is as applicable to the present time, as that in which it was written, though the subjects of controversy are not as prevalent.

"There are some superadditions to religion, that, though I do not think they are to be condemned, yet are carefully to be distinguished from the true and natural life of religion; and so long as they are kept under that apprehension, they may, if prudently applied and managed, do good. But if either they are imprudently instituted, imprudently applied or inconsiderately over-valued, as if they were religion, they may and many times do harm.

"It is a pitiful thing to see men run upon this mistake, especially in these latter times; one placing all his religion in holding the Pope to be Christ's vicar; another placing religion in this, to hold no Papist can be saved: one holding all religion to consist in holding Episcopacy to be jure divino; another, by holding Presbytery to be jure divino; another, in crying up congregational government; another, in Anabaptize; one, in placing all religion in the strict observation of all ceremonies; another, in a strict refusal of all: one, holding a great part of religion in putting off the hat and bowing at the name of Jesus; another, judging a man an idolater for it; and a third, placing his religion in putting off his hat to none; and so, like a company of boys that blow bubbles out of a walnut shell, every one runs after his bubble, and calls it Religion; and every one measures the religion or irreligion of another by their agreeing or dissenting with them in these or the like matters; and at best, while we scramble amd wrangle about the pieces of the shell, the kernel is either lost, or gotten by some that doth not prize any of their contents.

"Believe it, Religion is quite another thing from all these matters. He that fears the Lord of heaven and earth, walks humbly before him, thankfully lays hold of the message of redemption by Christ Jesus, strives to express his thankfulness by the sincerity of his obedience, is sorry with all his soul when he comes short of his duty, walks watchfully in the denial of himself, and holds no confederacy with any lust or known sin, if he falls in the least measure is restless till he hath made his peace by true repentance, is true in his promise, just in his actions, charitable to the poor, sincere in his devotions; that will not deliberately dishonour God, though with the greatest security of impunity;