sumption of personal power, as in the Church of Rome: no Grand Penitentiary absolves in the name of a Pontiff. Every thing is resolved into the will and mercy of God; and the occasional form permitted in the Office for the Sick,' is fully explained by the general absolution in the standing service of the church. The same judgment will be formed, by any mind not incapable of candour, concerning the expression in the Burial service. This writer has, indeed, misquoted it for the sake of making the offence which he cannot find; but our sure and certain hope' is declared, in the passage which he has mutilated, not concerning the individual, on whom no sentence is pronounced, but concerning the resurrection of all good men to eternal life. Yet were it otherwise, what offence could fairly be taken, if the hope were openly expressed, as it is in another passage, that even the sinful brother whom we lay in the earth may be forgiven, and that he may also become the object of divine mercy, at the resurrection of the just?

Leaving therefore these minuter points, we will rather bestow some attention on the general principle now at issue between the Church of England and those who dissent from it, a principle on which depends the whole character of our Reformation. The objection to our establishment is conveyed in the description given by this writer of the nature of true evangelical liberty.

"A church of Christ is any particular community of professed Christians, voluntarily associated for the purpose of keeping the divine commandments, as appointed in the gospel of Jesus Christ. The object of their union is not worldly, but spiritual. They are attracted together by the love of Christ, actuated by the spirit of Christ, and obedient to the authority of Christ. They acknowledge one Lord,' and they have one Master.' They do not take their religion from the pretended successor of Peter-or from reformers, however illustrious— or from human statutes, however commanding or from governments, however excellent, or from kings and heads of the church, however unexceptionable in private character, or revered as civil magistratesCHRIST is all and in all.' The term Church is never used in Scripture in a national sense."-pp. 170, 171.

This is followed by a similar attack on our forms of worship, on the order of bishops and their pretension to communicate, by ordination, any kind of gift, talent or qualification not previously possessed; and the whole is closed with certain reflections which may be regarded as issuing from the common body of our separatists.

What errors then have subsisted in the world! How many human traditions have intruded into Christian worship! What a cloud of inventions has darkened the holy light from heaven, that sheds its glory in the sanctuary! How many Uzzahs have put forth a feeble and an impious arm to prop the ark of God, imagining it required their support! How many have disfigured, while they intended to decorate religion,

by

by unauthorised pomp and ceremony, and demeaned while they professed to dignify the Son of God, by stripping him, so to speak, of the sackcloth of a man of sorrows,' and arraying him in the purple of an earthly potentate!"-p. 173.

To this we reply with all confidence, that we wholly disclaim human authority, of any kind, as the foundation of the faith and worship of the Church of England. These rest altogether on the divine will declared in the Scripture; nor do we accept the support of human authority unless as subsidiary to Revelation, and in concurrence with it. On this principle was planted our Reformation; and it is the ignorance or the scorn of this truth which has led so many to conclude, that the public maintenance of a religi ous establishment is incompatible with the love of Christ.'

When it became necessary to deliver our church from the dominion of the See of Rome, and from the corruptions which had infected the pure profession of the Gospel, two methods of proceeding were presented to the agents in that great work. On one side, was the unrestrained freedom of private opinion, which has been so fatally indulged by our later sectaries-opinion loosely and arbitrarily adopted without ecclesiastical learning, without research into the ancient practice of the Christian Church, and without a careful provision of the means of forming an enlightened judgment. On the other hand was the propriety of deriving assistance from the religious institutions of the primitive ages in conjunction with the study of the Scripture-institutions which, on account of their proximity to the times of the apostles, might appear best adapted to the wants of a church desirous of re-establishing itself on the purest models. The preference was justly given to the latter mode, since it offered the surest standard of faith and discipline, and, while it satisfied the conscience as to the more important points relating to God, held out the best defence of the Church of England against its enemies. And unquestionably, in no subsequent age of our establishment have the literature and history of the first three centuries of the Christian Church, from the time of the apostles, been so effectually studied and so carefully taught as in the period immediately following the first acts of our Reformation. It was indeed one distinguished mark of divine Providence, that so many materials had been preserved as the means of ascertaining the points in question. These were to be sought for in the mixed mass of the histories and controversies of the church, as well as in the evangelical doctrines positively taught during the early ages; and they were amply furnished in the long and illustrious list of writers, from Clement, Ignatius and Polycarp, to Eusebius and Sulpicius Severus, to Chrysostom and Ambrose, to Basil, the Gregories, and Jerom. Hence resulted the

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discovery

discovery of the usages and sentiments of the early church in illustration of the letter of Scripture and the labours of the apostles. Now was ascertained the general reception of that doctrine and discipline which, from so early a prevalence, must be supposed most consonant with the views of the inspired founders of the original churches. Of this the more prominent points were the Divinity of Christ, with the solemn remembrance of his death, resurrection and ascension; the baptism of infants in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; the sole worship of the Deity thus interpreted; the free use of the Scriptures, and the establishment of collective assemblies of the faithful; the celebration of the Lord's Day, and the episcopal government, visible in every region of the world to which the Gospel had been carried ;—a government however exhibiting no traces of the tyranny of one over the ecclesiastical rights and just independence of different and distant nations. These may be called the common notions of the primitive church; and they had on the minds of our reformers that influence which was due to so prevalent and so unsuspected a testimony. They were in full agreement with the Scripture itself, and hence they drew the authority which was attributed to them. That there were shades of difference indeed, on certain points, between several of the writers of those ages, is not to be doubted; but these do not affect the conclusion which was drawn; nor can it be denied, that from the primitive writings taken together, the general state of the Christian Church is satisfactorily ascertained during the ages in question. If it be asked, whether there were not individuals in those ages who set the example of that license which is now so loudly claimed, and who ventured to produce their private opinions on the ground of personal choice alone,—we answer that there were several; but that their cases have the most powerful tendency to discredit the cause which they are intended to support: for who were they?-persons on whom the brand of heresy was fixed by the general judgment of Christian antiquity; and hence we are enabled to discover, beyond contradiction, the sentiments and condition of the church at large in its earlier and purer state, before the papacy was formed, and before the intermixture of civil and religious interests under an establishment could have produced those evils which some are so prone to attribute to any secular maintenance of the gospel. This fully appears from the writings of Irenæus, Epiphanius, Tertullian, and others who were expressly engaged in the refutation of heresies: and their testimony is still more valuable, as they were only the precursors of those councils which were afterwards assembled, when certain private opinions began to threaten a wider mischief, and when it became necessary to protect the purity of the faith by the collective judg

ment

ment of bishops summoned together from the whole Christian world. It is impossible therefore, with any regard to truth, to maintain that the articles of faith declared by those councils were human inventions, or imposed merely by human authority; since it is obvious that the anxiety of the councils was to place them on the original foundation of Scripture, and to appeal to the general reception of them by the church before the heretical opinions sprang up, against which their judgment was directed. This was eminently proved in the councils of Nice and Constantinople. The standard to which they had recourse was that of Scripture and Christian antiquity: they appealed to the latter as exhibiting the best testimony of the interpretation of the Scripture in the ages immediately following that of the apostles; they declared that no novelties subversive of the truth should be admitted, and in one of their canons professed that this was done through an unshaken attachment to the ancient tenets and usages of the church.-Ta αρχαῖα ἔθη κρατείτω. Can. 6. Nic. Syn.

This general statement of the principles of our Reformation may be sufficient to expose the ignorant malevolence of the writer before us. We will only add, that perhaps it is Daillé, who has taught so many of our sectaries to believe, at least to affirm, that the government and discipline of our church were invented in a comparatively late age, and that their principal support was human authority.* But these persons are too much heated to make an obvious distinction. The testimony of early writers, and of councils, as to the state of the church, is no proof, in itself, of the human origin of ecclesiastical practice. On the contrary, it appears from the same testimony, that the faith and government, which it is now attempted to degrade, had been in full vigour from the times of the apostles; and the appeals to this fact are a convincing argument, not of the late creation of the tenets of the church, but of their apostolical descent.

*Yet Daillé openly professes his admiration of the Church of England and its Reformation. Anglicanam ego ecclesiam exoticis, pravis, superstitiosis cultibus, errorisbusque aut impus aut periculosis egregie ex scripturarum cœlestium norma purgatam, tot tamque illustribus martyriis probatam, pietate in Deum, in homines caritate, laudatissimisque bonorum operum exemplis abundantem, lætissimo doctissimorum ac sapientissimorum virorum proventu jam a Reformationis principio ad hodierna usque tempora florentem, equidem eo quo debui loco ac numero habui hactenus, ac dum vivam habebo : Ejus honos, nomen, laudes semper apud me manebunt.-Testes meæ hujus de præstantissima illa ecclesia existimationis possum laudare nou paucos, neque contemnendos viros. Itaque, qui hac mente, hoc animo hactenus fui, non potui non judicare insignem mihi ab iis fieri injuriam qui mecum sic agant quasi de Britannica, vel Ecclesia, vel Reformatione, male sentiam.'-De Cult. Lat. It is true, that in his zeal against the See of Rome he has, in many instances, urged certain objections which also affect us. For his inconsistencies, Daillé himself must be answerable; but it is proper that those who will see nothing but abuses should yet know, that no acknowledgments more positive, no praises more splendid can easily be drawn from any writer than those which are bestowed by this idol of sectarian spleen on the Church of England.

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ART

ART. VI. The Journal of a Mission to the Interior of Africa, in the Year 1805. By Mungo Park. Together with other Documents, official and private, relating to the same Mission. To which is prefixed an Account of the Life of Mr. Park. London. 1815.

SOME of our readers may require to be told that the African

Association and the African Institution are two distinct societies, whose views and objects are altogether different; both of them, however, composed of the most respectable and enlightened men that this country can boast, and both engaged in African objects— the Association being no less distinguished for its exertions in promoting the extension of geographical discovery on this long neglected continent, than the Institution for its unwearied efforts in abolishing the odious traffic which for three centuries the people of Europe have carried on, in buying and selling its unhappy inhabitants.

Mr. Park's first journey into Africa was performed under the authority, and at the expense, of the Association; who, on his return, allowed him to publish an account of his travels for his own benefit; in the composition and elucidation of which he was assisted by some of its most able and distinguished members. His second journey was undertaken by the immediate orders, and at the expense of, government; at the suggestion, however, of some of the leading members of the Association, and with the same views as those of the former mission. It was stated in his instructions, that the great object of the journey was that of pursuing the course of the Niger to the utmost possible distance to which it could be traced; and, among other matters, to discover whether any and what commercial intercourse could be opened with the natives of the interior of Africa.' It was natural therefore to conclude, that the documents relating to this last mission, which were officially transmitted to the Secretary of State, would by him be placed in the hands of those members of the African Association under whose superintendence, and by whose aid, the former volume bad been published with so much credit to the author, and received with so much satisfaction by the public. This, however, was not the case they were put into the hands of the Institution-probably, through inadvertence--by design it could scarcely be, as that would seem to convey a kind of censure on the members of the Association. On the question of fitness, it will not be necessary for us to decide in whose hands documents of this nature would most advantageously be placed-in those of Sir Joseph Banks and Major Rennell, or of the Duke of Gloucester and Mr. Wilberforce.

The determination once taken, that the original and official documents should be printed, and, as it would appear, without alte

ration,