were proclaimed that a clergyman and his adherents might arrange a Church as they pleased, and have just what services they liked, an immediate impulse would be given to religious zeal, and purse-strings would be rapidly loosened." This is true in a narrow sense, but most false in a broad one. We freely admit, that if proclamation were made, that either the Mass or Comte's Worship of Humanity might be established in any of our churches, some purse-strings would be quickly loosened, in order to set up these false religions. But if the falsehood could be widely spread, and as widely believed, that "one religion is as good as another," the million sterling which is now annually raised for Christian Missions, Bible translation, &c., would quickly vanish away. If we look at countries where a liberal creed prevails, Holland, Geneva, or philosophical Germany, we do not find "purse-strings loosened," but a widespread indifference to the duty of propagating the Christian faith. The Editor, Mr. Clay, supplies the third paper, which is on "Clerical Liberty." He repeats some of Mr. Fowle's statements; as, for instance :

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Wrangles that harassed our forefathers are defunct for us; a circumstance which has rendered at least a dozen of the Thirty-nine Articles simply obsolete." (p. 115.)

"A generation hence, educated Christians will be as incapable of believing in endless perdition as they now are of believing in the diurnal revolution of the sun round the earth." (p. 120.)

"Science," we suppose, is to "discover," by-and-bye, after the manner of Galileo, that hell is a place which has no existence, and eternal punishment a thing physically impossible.

Essay IV. is by the Rev. W. Berkley, Vicar of Navestock. Its subject is, "The Church and the Universities." We observe nothing new in it; nothing which has not been said a hundred times before. But the writer is tolerably outspoken. His goal is "Rational Religion." (p. 153.) He evidently regards "Religion" and "Truth" as things yet to be discovered. The idea that "the faith of Christ" was revealed to man more than eighteen hundred years ago, and that all the "science" in the world cannot add one single iota to it, is evidently one which finds no lodgment in his mind. His idea is, "that if knowledge be progressive, there must be, even on the highest subjects, a continual re-considering of our conclusions. Things once held for certain are seen to be doubtful; doubtful questions, on completer evidence, are decided." (p. 152.) "Protestantism is becoming more and more restless and irrational, because it has before it an alternative which it has not courage to face. It cannot, or will not, see that the Reformation was a first step, and that the second step has now to be taken if the first is not to be stultified." (p. 153.)

Mr. Berkley has lost sight of the main fact of the case,that the Reformation was not a step forward, into some new discoveries in religion, but backward, into the religion of Christ and His Apostles. When that faith has been accepted, there is no further step to be taken in the present dispensation. "That which is first, is true," said Tertullian; "that which is later, is corrupted." If our faith were earthly and man-devised, it might be continually improved; but being from Heaven, nothing but some further revelation can alter it.

The Head Master of the City of London School contributes the next paper, which is a curiosity of its kind. It is impossible not to respect and esteem the writer; and yet there is a simplicity in his paper which is almost grotesque. The writer is, we believe,—and his paper leads to that belief,-one who never has had, even for a single twelvemonth, a parish of three or four thousand people to manage; and yet he undertakes to tell his brethren how such a parish ought to be ordered and guided. An amateur musician, who had never strayed beyond his own parlour, and yet undertook to teach us how a monster-concert ought to be arranged and conducted; an ensign of volunteers, who essayed to give directions for the review of 30,000 men; a junior reporter, who offered to take the control of the Times newspaper, would, any of them, excite bursts of merriment. But Mr. Abbott is so evidently sincere and earnest, and many of his suggestions are, intrinsically, so good, that we pardon, after a while, the intrinsic absurdity of the attempt, and leave off, esteeming him nearly as much as we wonder at him. Our worst wish for him is, that he were bound to bring his theories to the trial in such a parish as Whitechapel or Lambeth, for a period of at least seven years. In that time he would have done much good, and would have gained much knowledge; and by the end of such an apprenticeship he would have learnt, first, to put his present paper behind the fire, and next, to write a very different one.

The sixth paper is by the Editor, and its subject is, the Education of the People. We have very little fault to find with it; and Mr. Clay is a perspicuous and intelligent writer.

Mr. Westlake, who was, we believe, Bishop Colenso's legal adviser, contributes the Seventh Essay, on "The Church in the Colonies." Its object is, like most of the other papers, to plead for "more liberty,"-for liberty to believe as much, or as little, of Christianity as a clergyman or a bishop feels inclined; and for a Church which can embrace both Colensos and Mackonochies at one and the same time. The paper exhibits very little power, and its object is one with which we have no sympathy.

The Latin Professor at University College contributes the

closing Essay, on "The Church as a Teacher of Morality." We go with it more than with most of the preceding papers: and yet it starts with a statement which we must entirely reject. The writer says:

"Upon the question whether the Christian community is to be regarded by its teachers as one and homogeneous, or as divided between a small number of true believers, the children of light, and a large number of merely nominal believers, the disguised children of darkness, depends more than is commonly perceived the whole character of Christian teaching. Those teachers who take the latter view will practically abandon all moral questions; those who take the former will, unless some counteracting influence intervenes, occupy themselves as much with morality as with religion." (p.247.)

Now this, as a matter of fact, is not true. Take, for instance, three well-known names, among men distinguished as Calvinists. Thomas Scott was pre-eminently a preacher of morals. A glance at his life shows him to have been a man always fighting with Antinomianism, and encountering much obloquy and unpopularity because he had no toleration for those who are at ease in Zion." Charles Simeon was an equally well-known leader, and equally faithful as a preacher of morals. And so was James Harington Evans, an unquestionable Calvinist, but who would often preach, for ten Sundays consecutively, upon one of St. Paul's preceptive chapters. It is an assertion based on a want of actual personal knowledge, that preachers who believe their Lord's assertion, that the broad road has many travellers, and the narrow road but a few,-are apt, as a consequence, to leave the multitude to their fate, and to "preach only to the elect."

Nevertheless, although the writer is, in fact, but slightly acquainted with the real state of the case, he makes some strong assertions, the truth of which we readily admit. Our readers will scarcely require to be reminded that, again and again, in the last five years, we have pleaded for a more distinct and positive declaration of both Law and Gospel than is common from the pulpits of the present day. Hence, without entirely endorsing it, we receive without anger such an accusation as this:-"The people of England are not taught morality at all. The task is entrusted to the clergy of teaching the community what is right and what is wrong, and it cannot be said that in any practical sense of the word they perform it." (p. 249.)

Substantially, this charge has too much truth in it. Out of twenty pulpits, within a mile of our present writing, there will be given to the people next Sunday, from eighteen to nineteen of them, a neat, fairly-written essay on some Scripture incident, or church-practice, or religious custom, without a

word to make any one tremble in his seat, or inwardly resolve, "I will lead another sort of life from that which I have done."

The essayist seems to think that in modern pulpits one duty, and only one, is inculcated; "the duty of relieving distress.' He says "The only practical lesson which can be clearly collected from the sermons now preached, namely, the duty of relieving distress, has been thoroughly learnt, and is very generally practised." (p. 263.)

We fear that he here gives far too much credit to modern preaching. The duty generally inculcated is that of putting half a crown or half a sovereign into the plate, when a collection is made for the Schools, or the Infirmary. But how miserably inadequate a representation is this of the morality of the Gospel! When do we hear, broadly and earnestly set forth, the lessons of our Lord's last sermon? "Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an-hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal." (Matt. xxv. 41-46.) How many a Dives is allowed to go away satisfied, having given his smallest coin of gold, without ever being reminded that some Lazarus is pining for crumbs within a hundred yards of his dwelling.

The positive charges brought against the clergy in this essay are for the most part true:

"Our censors content themselves too much with generalities. When great public scandals arise as lately, for example, in the commercial world-the censorship of the press is vigorous and useful; but where is the censorship of the pulpit? The journalists either had or procured the necessary special knowledge; but the clergy generally knew too little of the subject to be able to deal with it. Alarmists sometimes come forward with strong assertions of the utter demoralization of large classes of the community, or of the gradually advancing demoralization of the whole. Mr. Herbert Spencer writes an essay on the 'Morals of Trade,' in which he maintains, with a quantity of detailed evidence, the universal dishonesty of the trading classes. If all this is true, should the clergy leave it to be discovered by amateur moralists and preachers? Is it not their business to find it out and proclaim it ?"

But we cannot extend this notice further. Without agreeing to one half of the statements of this Eighth Essay, we recognize in it a great amount of important truth. There is nothing in the volume so likely to be useful as this concluding paper.

As to the general tenor of the volume, it teaches us more reflexly than directly. It tells us what the young men of the Broad Church school are thinking about, desiring, and imagining; and this, of itself, is an interesting kind of information. Juvenility, and a great want of any real knowledge of what Evangelical Religion is, constitute the main faults of the book. All the contributors seem to share in the imagination, that the Christianity of St. Paul and of Luther is going to vanish away, and that some new Christianity is about to arise to take its place. This dream is not likely to last long. A very few years will suffice to show, that the great facts which occurred in Judea, in the days of Augustus, Tiberius, and Claudius, were not events of a temporary character; but were the grand decisive events of the world's history. Their importance can never suffer either diminution or change. Nothing can be added to them, nothing taken away, except by that one event which will end the present dispensation. "This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven." (Acts i. 11.) "They shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory." (Matt. xxiv. 30.) We have left ourselves no room to offer any comment on these positive and distinct predictions; we can only add, in the briefest manner, our conviction, that their fulfilment cannot be very far distant.

THE STANDARD OF DOCTRINE.

OLD questions, long ago debated and settled, are again coming to the surface. Minds which have acquiesced in sound conclusions, without any laborious process of investigation, are surprised by the bold re-assertion of dogmas and principles often refuted and expelled, and in no small danger of being led astray. It becomes necessary, therefore, in such days, to reassert true principles, and to show the foundations upon which they rest. This remark applies at the present time to that grand old question of Reformation times, What is the standard of doctrine in the Christian Church? There are two theories for settling this question, let us place them side by side, and determine which is true.