PREFACE.

OUR annual Preface is always with us a solemn thing; it tells of another large portion of human existence passed away; while it reminds us in our public capacity, as well as our readers and ourselves individually, to take account of our stewardship. The closing of the present volume peculiarly suggests these monitory reminiscences; for it is the first of a New Series; and its pages have recorded the decease of almost the only survivors who planned or conducted the earlier volumes. The very first Number mentioned the departure of that venerable servant of his Divine Lord, the late Mr. Babington, one of the projectors of the work, and a frequent and highly valued contributor to its early pages. Shortly after, we had to announce the removal of Mr. Macaulay, its Editor and chief writer from the first volume till the year 1816. The subject has again pressed upon us in reviewing the Life of Mr. Wilberforce; as where he mentions, March 26, 1802, "Talked in the evening about the Christian Observer; fixed Macaulay should take management ;-he, Pearson, and Babington with us; -Mr. Thornton also, and Mr. Stephen had just been named, with an "et cætera," which may have included Mr. Venn and other early friends of the work.

These recollections suggest three questions: What was the design of the publication? was that design laudable? and, has it been consistently kept in mind?

The design was to endeavour to promote the glory of God and the salvation of men, by setting forth the doctrines, and inculcating the precepts, of the Gospel, as understood and received by the Church of England. General discussions, matters of taste, science, and literature, and a brief memorial of the passing events of the day, were proposed to be kept subordinate to the above leading object, and to be rendered ancillary to it. By the doctrines of the Church of England was understood, generally, those tenets in which the whole family of the orthodox Protestant reformation concur with us, as recognized in our Articles, Homilies, and Liturgy; and, specifically, those points in which we differ from the Church of Rome, and also those in which we differ from some of our sister Protestant churches; particularly in our adherence to the Apostolical model of Episcopal government. In regard to differences within our own pale, the conductors declared their firm intention, God being their helper, to uphold, with the Bible in one hand, and the formularies of our Church as an invaluable com

ment on it in the other, the doctrines set forth by our venerable reformers; the doctrines contended for by our Cranmers, Latimers, Jewells, and Hookers, as opposed to the innovations of that newer school, whose leaders thought the Anglican Reformation had receded. too far from Popery, and who, among many other errors of no small magnitude, embodied that which was indeed the foundation of them all, the denial of the scriptural doctrine of Justification by Faith, as set forth in all the Confessions of Protestantism, and the restoration of which, from the overlayings of Popery, was the glory of the Reformation.

To those who believe that the above is a correct estimate of the doctrines of Scripture and of our Church, no other proof can be necessary that it was desirable to establish a monthly periodical publication which should uphold them, than the simple fact that there was no such publication at that period in existence. The doctrine of justification by works, now set forth chiefly in a stealthy and ambaginous manner, which lands us in that conclusion, though avoiding a direct word-for-word contradiction of the Articles, was then unequivocally avowed in volumes for the rich, and tracts for the poor; in University discourses, and Visitation charges, and, worst of all, in innumerable parochial sermons; and if the Christian Observer has done no other good, we believe it will be allowed to have had some share in promoting that return to a more scriptural tone of preaching which Secker, and Horsley, and Porteus declared was necessary to save us from being mere "apes of Epictetus."

With regard to the third question, we are not very solicitous to reply to it, because whatever other faults have been imputed to us it has not been said that we are inconsistent; indeed the main charge is, that we persist in the same errors with which we set out; and that in opposing certain modern doctrines we are only refurbishing the weapons with which Wilberforce, Thornton, Pearson, Babington, Richmond, Scott, Newton, Simeon, Milner, Farish, and Hannah More, were contending against the lethal writings of too many divines of the last generation. The New Series, it was expressly stated, originated in no change whatever in the principles or conduct of the work, but was solely for the purpose of introducing it with more convenience among new subscribers.

After writing the above, we took up the first volume of the former series, and laid it side by side with the first of the New. We trust that the comparison is not unfavourable in any respect to our present friends and correspondents; but of this it were fitter that others should judge than ourselves. But we have been struck with the coincidence of many passages to the circumstances of the present day, and we will quote a few lines from the Prospectus, the first

Number, and the first Preface, as bearing upon some particulars above alluded to. The New Series will thus renew, and pledge itself to, the manifesto of the old.

"Their chief object," said the original Prospectus, as set forth by Mr. Wilberforce and his friends, "will be to promote the increase of sound theological knowledge, and to delineate the characters of primitive and unadulterated Christianity. As members of the Established Church, they will occasionally examine, in a temperate manner, the principles on which that Church is founded; and they will endeavour to explain and enforce the pious tendency of her rites, ceremonies, and liturgy. But in these, and in all other discussions, they will endeavour carefully to avoid whatever may tend to lessen that Christian love which ought to unite the members of Christ of every denomination." In reference to some of the party appellations which have divided the Church, the originators of the work expressed their wish to lose them altogether "in the more catholic term of Bible Christians;" and "to give the right hand of fellowship, as to true believers and true churchmen, so far as these points are concerned, to all who unequivocally, and with the heart, regard salvation as originating wholly in grace, applied through the instrumentality of that faith which is the gift of the Holy Spirit, and which brings the believer into a state of acceptance with God, by making him partaker of the merits of Christ, and prepares him for heaven by maturing him in love and obedience."

The conductors further expressed their opinion that "a spirit of forbearance and Christian charity, is perfectly consistent with the strictest orthodoxy;" and they "indulged a sanguine hope that Christians in general would concur in this sentiment;" but they add, in their very first Preface, that "their expectation had been considerably disappointed." Calvinists thought them too Arminian, and Arminians too Calvinistic; "the cold and formal professor of Christianity stigmatizes," said they," our doctrines as canting and methodistical; while the heated enthusiast denies that spirituality or evangelical truth can be found in our pages; some of our correspondents complain of our manifesting too great mildness and conciliation towards Dissenters;" while "on the other side some Dissenters have charged us with being bigoted persecuting churchmen, and have not only treated us as adversaries of the Dissenting interest, but as the enemies of Christianity itself." We quote this passage, because Dissenters have of late eulogised the pristine "mildness and conciliation" of the Christian Observer; as though it had latterly changed its tone. Even had it done so, there would have been a reason, if not an excuse, in the altered tone of the Dissenters themselves, who were comparatively quiet when our National Church was in a

state of awful supineness, but have increased in bitterness in the very proportion in which, according to their own admission, our Clergy have become more evangelical in their doctrines, and more devoted in their lives. But the fact that we have changed our tone, is not true, as the above extract proves; for the fathers of the present race of Dissenters charged our predecessors quite as strongly with being "bigoted persecuting churchmen," and "the enemies of Christianity itself," as their sons do us; and as the sons say that our predecessors were mild and candid, the next generation may say that we were so too, when the full effects of the modern schemes of certain Dissenting leaders shall have been fully developed in all their baneful results.

We will quote one short passage more from the Preface of 1802, adopting it as the manifesto of that of 1838. "In respect to doctrines," says that Preface, "WE ACKNOWLEDGE NO SUPREME AUTHORITY BUT THE HOLY SCRIPTURES; approving at the same time [most heartily] of that exposition of them which is contained in the Articles, the Liturgy, and the Homilies of the Church of England. Beyond this we do not engage to submit to any human authority.'

We have room only for a few lines more, and the passage which we will select is the following, from the View of Public Affairs in the very first Number, in which the reader will recognize the pen of Mr. Wilberforce :

"Let us remember that we have received from our forefathers, as a sacred deposit entrusted to them from above, OUR CHRISTIAN SABBATH; THE SANCTITY OF OUR MARRIAGE Vows; and all those laws, habits, and institutions by which practical religion and morals have been so long upheld among us, and the domestic and social happiness of millions has been secured; and let us see to it that we guard them from further violation and disparagement, and endeavour rather to transmit them to our children, together with the principles by which they are to be maintained and confirmed, in renovated strength."