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Would fain have struggled in Chaldea's chain :
Nay, kiss the rod: th' Avenger needs must reign,
And now, though every shrine is still,
Speaks out by me th' unchanging will:-
'Seek not to Egypt; there the curse will come;
But, till the woe be past, round Canaan roam,
'And meekly 'bide your hour beside your ruin'd home."

CORRESPONDENCE.

The Editor begs to remind his readers that he is not responsible for the opinions
of his Correspondents.

THE OCTOBER FESTIVAL.

SIR,-As those of the clergy have been in some places severely censured who refused to observe the 4th of October as a festival, I wish to offer a few observations on the subject, with a desire of having it fairly and calmly discussed, in order that, on any similar occasion, we may be prepared to act with unanimity.

Those are the best churchmen, and the best friends of the church, who, instead of relying on their private opinion and judgment, act upon her principles and obey her laws. Now, of the fundamental principles of the church of Christ, this is one-that nothing is to be done without the decision of the bishop. We are not inquiring now into the wisdom or the foundation of this principle; we simply assert that, whether right or wrong, it is a principle, not merely of the church of England, or any one portion of the church, but of the church universal, a principle as old as the apostolic age, being insisted upon by St. Ignatius, the pupil of St. John, in a manner the most earnest and impressive. There is, indeed, one passage in his epistle to the Magneseaces so striking that I cannot refrain from transcribing it. "It is fitting," says he, "that we should not only be called Christians, but be so. As some indeed, call their governor Bishop, but yet do all things without him but I can never think that such as these have a good conscience, seeing they are not gathered together thoroughly, according to God's commandment." What right, then, what authority has a simple presbyter to appoint a festival without having received a command from his bishop? I say a command, because such injunctions must always be made in due form, and according to canon. It is not sufficient excuse to say, Dr. A. or Dr. B., who is bishop of this place or that, thinks that we had better so act. In thus stating his opinion, he acts, not as a bishop, but as a mere individual, and may speak off-hand and incautiously; we must receive his command, or at least his sanction, under his episcopal seal, because it is there only that he addresses us in his official character, and this he will not do until he has fully examined the subject, and consulted with his metropolitan. Without this mandate, I ask again, what authority have we to

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appoint a festival? If we had thought it necessary to hold the 4th of October as a festival, our proper course, as I stated to the satisfaction of my own parishioners, would have been to have assembled and petitioned the archbishop and bishops of this province to appoint it as such.*

Whether they would have acceded to the request, may be more than doubtful. For what was it that it was proposed to celebrate? The publication of Bishop Coverdale's Bible as the first translation of the Scriptures into the vulgar tongue. But this is not a fact, and to assert it, as such, is to utter a base calumny on our church,—as if the divines of the church of England had made no provision for the instruction of the people in the Scriptures at any time before the era of the Reformation. Now it so happens that, within little more than a century after the first establishment of the church of England, in the year 706, a portion of the Scriptures was translated into the Saxon language, that is, the vulgar tongue, by Adhelm, the first Bishop of Sherburn. The Gospels were translated by Bishop Egbert before the year 721; while, a few years afterwards, a version of the whole Bible was completed by the venerable Bede, one of the brightest ornaments of the church of England. A part of the Bible was translated by King Alfred, and there was another translation by Elfred, who was Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 995. And long before Wickliffe's translation, we find an English version in existence, of which the date, according to Anthony Johnson, is 1290, the Saxon versions having, by that time, grown obsolete. Even so late as 1373, we find John Thurby, Archbishop of York, censuring the clergy because they were beginning to withhold the Scriptures from the people; and in 1394, Archbishop Arundel in his funeral oration on Queen Ann (wife of Richard II.), commended her especially for this, that, although a foreigner, she constantly studied the four Gospels in the English tongue. is not true, then, that Coverdale's was the first translation of the Bible; and it is most untrue (as it is wished to insinuate,-8 strange wish on the part of churchmen,) that the church of England had all along before his time neglected to provide the people with the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue. It may, indeed, be true that, owing to the circumstances of papists holding preferment in the church of England, until they were prevented from doing so by what was effected at the Reformation, (just as ultra-protestants hold preferment among us now,) the circulation of the translated Scriptures was impeded in the time of Bishop Coverdale, but this continued to be the case after the publication of his translation, so that the 4th of October could not be considered as the anniversary of the emancipation of the Scriptures. At the same time, let it be remembered, that, although the circulation of the translated Scriptures was impeded in the time of

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This is surely the only safe and correct view. With every respect for the excellent persons who were forward in promoting this, as they would every work which they considered good, one must still ask, Is it to be in the power of any individuals to appoint a fast or festival in the church? Men without any sense of religion, or with mere fanaticism to prompt them, may take the same step hereafter, unless the next attempt is decidedly and openly opposed.-ED.

Bishop Coverdale, this had only been the case for a little more than a century. The only prohibition, I believe, in existence, as far as the church of England is concerned, is to be found in Archbishop Arundel's constitutions, and it is very cautiously worded: "We enact and ordain that no one henceforth do, by his own authority, translate any part of Holy Scripture into the vulgar tongue, or any other, by way of book or treatise. Nor let any such book now or lately composed by John Wickcliffe aforesaid, or since or hereafter to be composed, be read in whole or in part, in publick or in private, under pain of the greater ex-communication, till that translation be approved by the diocesan of the place, or, if occasion shall require, by a provincial council." An admirable translation, thus sanctioned and approved, the church of England now possesses, but that translation is not Bishop Coverdale's.

It is not to be denied, that the use of the Bible was prohibited in the popish council of Toulouse, A.D. 1229; but there is no proof that this canon was ever sanctioned by the church of England. It may have been acted upon by some of our ecclesiastical rulers, but this does not prove that it was received by the church in convocation. The distinction between an act of the church, and of those who happen to be its members, is a fair one. The majority of the clergy in England might, for instance, preach Calvinism, since there is no canon by which they could be punished for that offence, yet this would not prove the church of England to be Calvinistic: or the majority of the clergy might act on latitudinarian principles-doing what is right in their own eyes, without deferring to their bishops-but this would not prove that the church itself sanctioned such uncatholic practices; it would only shew that some fresh canons or articles are required. I do not say that such is the case, but merely that such may be the case. So, before the Reformation, the majority of the clergy may have preached popery, but it does not follow that the constitution of the church of England was popish. I do not, however, wish to pursue this subject at present, my object being merely to assert that the church of England is clear from the blame which some of her ultra-protestant friends would heap upon her, of having prohibited the use of the Scriptures to the people all along, until the time of Bishop Coverdale. Considering that the great body of the people were unable to read, as much was done as could easily be expected; and the solitary enactment to which reference can be made to substantiate the charge, did not affirm that no translation ought to be admitted, but that it ought not to be used until properly revised,-in other words, that that ought not to be given to the people as Scripture which was not Scripture.

Whether I am correct in the remarks now made or not, this may be fairly admitted in our favour,-that we have acted wisely in not appointing a festival to commemorate a fact of the existence of which we are not convinced; and that we ought not to be blamed for consulting history as to the nature of our facts, instead of taking for granted the statements of a pamphlet, even though that pamphlet be written by one of whom it is impossible to speak without respect. As to the effect of this commemoration on the Popish dissenters, I know not how we can give them a greater triumph than by asserting what we cannot prove. W. F. H.

OCTOBER FESTIVAL.

SIR,-Excepting the completion of Coverdale's Bible, abroad, the year 1535, the centenary of which we have been invited to celebrate, has not much to recommend it to the memory of the church of England. It was the year which saw the first public execution take place on account of the Reformation;-the venerable Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, and the learned and amiable Sir Thomas More, having been beheaded in this year by Henry VIII., who thus furnished an example and plea for all the cruel butchery with which the papists retaliated in Queen Mary's reign. It was the year which saw the first lay commission appointed to harass and oppose the church and the Universities, which last were, in this year, compelled to surrender their charters to the commissioners. It was the year which saw one of the lay courtiers (Cromwell) appointed vicar-general and vicegerent over the whole church, with power to summon the bishops and metropolitans. It was the year which witnessed a Christian king of England forbid the bishops of Christ's church the exercise of their spiritual authorities, the inhibition forbidding the bishops and metropolitans to hold visitations having been issued in this year. Lastly, it was the year which saw the commencement of the authorized spoliation of the property which had been dedicated to the service of Almighty God.

When the year which we have been invited to celebrate is fraught with such recollections, and the year in which we are invited to celebrate it finds us either suffering or dreading a repetition of all these evils, is it great matter of surprise that some among us should have felt more disposed to "hang up our harps by the waters of Babylon," than to "sing the Lord's song" of rejoicing " in a strange land ?”

These considerations afford no reason for our pulpits being silent as to the fact of the completion of Miles Coverdale's important labours in this year; but they may serve to account why those who entertained them did not celebrate a jubilee which seemed to them at variance with the feelings which either the aspect or retrospect of events connected with the year was calculated to excite.

A.

ON ARGUING WITH THE CHURCH OF ROME.

SIR, It is exceedingly necessary, at the present time of excitement, that those who engage on the English side of the controversy with Rome, (especially the younger portion of them,) should not be provoked, by the evil practices or furious malice of our opponents, to urge objections against them beyond the sure warrant of truth ;—necessary, to the highest degree (for the temptation is great), that they should carry before them this consideration,--that every departure from Rome is not necessarily an approach to Christ. Fearful as the evil is, to build up, upon the one foundation, the wood, hay, and stubble meet for the fire, which the church of Rome has done, there may be worse evil than this, even to reject the foundation itself, as the Ra

tionalists and Socinians have done, and some others who boast of their protestantism seem in the fair way to do. Under the negative appellation of protestantism, men are broaching errors as destructive of sound Christianity as any which the Romans have devized. Some, in their ill-informed zeal, set light by the holy sacraments, as means of grace and salvation, because the church of Rome has attached a great weight to them. Little do these reckless writers consider, that if they deny the "Spirit's" operation by the (baptismal) "water" and the (Eucharistic)" blood," they are setting aside the value of God's chosen and appointed" witnesses upon earth," and tending too surely to the eventual denial of Him to whom they "bear witness." (1 John, v. 8.) Rationalism, or Socinianism, is the too certain terminations of those systems of religion which begin by setting aside the value of God's own appointed ordinances. Others, again, cry out, like the dissenters, for the right of private judgment, without explanation and without limitation. If they merely mean by this that every man is answerable to Almighty God for the interpretation he may put upon the passages of holy writ, no doubt it is true. But if they mean, as the obvious impression is, that God has left all men to form, each man for himself, a system of religion, from the bare letter of the Bible, and has not furnished him with guides and assistances to coming to a right understanding of the scriptures, to which guidance and assistance he is ordinarily bound to pay deference, and which he cannot ordinarily neglect without presumption and tempting God, and running himself in danger of error,-then, all I can say is, that such a notion is as contrary to the scriptures themselves as it is to the voice of the whole church of Christ since its foundation, and to the decision of the English branch of that church, as expressed in her Articles and Canons, and in the Homilies, which are sanctioned by the Articles. ALPHA.

BURIAL FEES.

SIR, Sir Henry Spelman, in his "Tract de Sepulturâ," says, that these fees had their commencement after the beginning of the sixteenth century; but, from some entries in an old parish register in a northern county, I doubt the correctness of this assertion of that learned writer. The point is interesting in an historical point of view. Can any of your readers throw light upon it? Information derived from parish registers would be valuable, and perhaps you would allow it a place in your pages. In the register I have inspected, the fee was twopence, in 1590, but seems to have been frequently remitted; as, "Ann Simpson, a poor bastard, 00." Sometimes, "ii & lar. vi." Your obedient servant,

N. C. T.*

The Editor would be much indebted to any Correspondent, who can throw light on this subject, to do so.

VOL. VIII.-Nov. 1835.

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