Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

energies of the latter are loudly called for from the western states, in some such addresses as that of the man of Macedonia to St. Paul-"Come and help us." The call was deeply felt by the last General Convention; on which measures were adopted for the organizing of the Church in the western states, and for the extending to them of the Episcopacy. For the accomplishing of these objects, it is necessary to procure the missionary labours of some clergymen, and to organize congregations by their exertions. In doing this, it is to be expected that the zeal of the Church in Pennsylvania will be prominent, on account of our contiguity to the regions in which there is the greatest prospects of success.

There is another species of charitable institutions, which I beg leave to recommend on this occasion. It is that of the gratuitous instruction of the children of the poor in Sunday Schools. In the country in which those Schools were begun, they have been found the happiest expedients yet devised, for the clearing of the streams of corruption at their sources. The records of their effect on the moral state of extensive districts rest on evidence not to be resisted. It is a fact of general notoriety, that over the whole face of our country, there are temptations to juvenile licentiousness, peculiarly operative on the first day of the week, and tending to make its returning rest a cause of corrupt. ion, instead of its being, as was designed, and as the experience of ages has proved it fitted to be, the best preservative of morals and of decency. The evil is known and felt; and the Providence of God points to the remedy of it, in the blessing which has been bestowed on the expedient recommended. But it is my earnest recommendation, that whatever efforts may be put forth by my reverend brethren, for the extending of this species of beneficent institution, the instruction of them embrace the principles of Christian faith and worship, as maintained in this Church, and be under the control of its Ministry. There is an apparent liberality in the

contrary scheme; but it is never consistently acted on, so far as my know ledge extends, If it should be acted on, there must be a surrendry of Christian verity,

Within the last few months, there has been instituted a Society, under the name of "The Common Prayer Book Society of Pennsylvania." The object of it is to furnish Prayer Books for sale at the cheapest rates, and to distribute them to the poor, so far as the funds may enable. The Managers have purchased a set of Stereotype Plates for the book, of the uctavo size. The first edition has been struck off; and is placed on proportionably as good terms as the duo. decimo edition of New-York, hereto fore obtained, from time to time, by the Society for the Advancement of Christianity; who are to be relieved by the Seciety now named, from this branch of their expenditure. It ought to be known, that there is a gain, rather than a loss, attached to a mem bership of this Society; the subscriber being entitled to receive books to the amount of his subscription, at about half of the price at which books of the same sizes are usually sold.

In bringing these subjects into view, there ought not to be overlooked a female society, auxiliary to the first mentioned; and devoted, under the control of the ecclesiastical authority, to the publishing of small Tracts. These publications have been found very useful, in extending the knowledge of the genuine truths of Christianity. To those who are desirous of doing much good at a small expense, there may be recom mended the availing of themselves of the means furnished by this respectable Association.

It has occurred to some of our brethren of each order, that the subject of the fund for the future support of a Bishop has not been sufficiently notified to the several Congregations of the Church in this state. At the advanced time of life of your present Bishop, there cannot be thought a view to personal interest, in his recommending of it, as he now does, to the members of this Convention ; espe

[blocks in formation]

To a former Convention, there was made a communication of the renewed operation of the Society for the Relief of the Widows and the Children of deceased Clergymen. As the probable advantage to a family family considerably overbalances the required subscription during life, it is reasonable to conclude, from the paucity of those availing themselves of the benefit, that there may be use in this further notice of the fund in hand. Any future demands on it will be the fruit of fair purchase; and it would essentially interfere with the calcula tions on which the scheme was originally predicated, to encourage any expectations from the bounty of the Corporation.

At the General Convention held in

May last, the subject of theological education was considered and acted on. The prevailing sentiment was in favour of one general seminary, to be located in the city of New-York. It is my ardent desire, that there may be put forth the most zealous endeavours throughout the Union, to raise a fund for the carrying of the design into effect. With this view, a Committee was appointed by the General Convention. The Committee assembled in this city in January; when the consenting opinions of the members present, on all the leading points which came under consideration, were a favourable beginning of the business. The arrangements made by them will soon be laid before the public. For some years past, there have not been wanting the voluntary endeavours of the Clergy of this city, to prepare for the Ministry candidates admitted by the Standing Committee.

These endeavours were necessarily far short of what is to be desired. Perhaps they may be improved by a late measure of the Society for the Advancement of Christianity, with a view to this object, in their granting of a stipend, although very small, to the Rev. Samuel H. Turner, whom

[blocks in formation]

Matt. xiv. 23. He went up into a mountain apart to pray, and when the evening was come, he was there alone.

THE REV. WILLIAM BROMLEY CADOGAN died 1797, aged 46. He aimed at usefulness, not applause, and he had the happiness to find that he did not labour in vain; for few persons in the present day, for the space of time he preached, have been more blessed to the conversion of young and old, rich and poor. He was a remarkable early riser, being mostly in his study by six o'clock, even in winter. What time he spent in secret prayer is only known to his own soul. It is supposed, however, that he was much engaged in this duty. For when he had company, he would often retire from most of the family were gone to rest, them to his study; and there, when he has been frequently surprised on his knees by the domestic who usually took charge of the house. Let the ministers of the gospel learn to imitate this good man: the way to be useful in public is to be much with God in pri

vate.

Romans viii. 13. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.

BISHOP HOOPER martyred 1555. Such, as one observes, is the method of the gospel, that where God persuades to duty, he propounds the reward; when he dissuades from sin,

:

he urges judgments. It is a holy design for a Christian to counterbalance the pleasures of sin with the terrors of it and thus to cure the poison of the viper with the flesh of it. Thus that admirable saint and martyr, Bishop Hooper, when he came to die, one endeavoured to influence his mind by saying, "O Sir, consider that life is sweet and death is bitter." To which he replied," Life to come is more sweet, and death to come is more bitter;" and so went patiently

to the stake.

When the iron work was brought to fasten him to the stake, he took an iron hoop, and put it about his waist, and bidding them take away the rest, he said, "I doubt not but God will give me strength to abide the extremity of the fire without binding." He died, we are told, as quietly as a child in his bed-in the 80th year of his

age.

THE FRIEND.

(BY BISHOP HORNE.)

THE fastest friend the world affords
Is quickly from rae gone:
Faithless behold him turn his back,
And leave me all alone!
"My friend, sincerely yours till death:"
The world no farther goes;
Perhaps, while earth to earth is laid,
A tear of pity flows.

Be thou, my Saviour, then, my friend,
In thee my soul shall trust,
Who false will never prove in death,

Nor leave me in the dust.
Home while my other friends return,
All solemn, silent, sad,

With thee my flesh shall rest in hope,
And all my bones be glad.

TRANSLATION.

(By the same.)

THEE, mighty Father, we adore,
And praise thy Name for evermore;
Whose bounty feeds all Adam's race,
And cheers the hungry soul with grace.
Great co-eternal Son, to thee,
With one consent, we bow the knee;
For our salvation man become,
Thou didst not scorn the virgin's womb.
The Paschal Lamb, foreshown of old,
In thee, sweet Jesu! we behold,
And pardon through thy blood receive,
While on thy cross we look and live.

[ocr errors]

Thee too, all-hallow'd mystic Dove,

We ever bless, and ever love :
Thy wonders how shall we declare?
The Lord was born, the virgin bare!
Almighty everlasting Three,
Thy glorious work, immortal King,
In triumph thus we daily sing.

No other God we have but thee;

From the Albany Gazette.

CONSECRATIONS.

On Friday, the 20th Nov. Christ Church, Binghamton,Chenango Point, Broome county; and on Sunday, the 23d, Zion Church, in the village of Louisville, Butternuts, Otsego county, were consecrated by the Right Rev. Bishop HOBART. The Church at Butternuts, which is a substantial thic order of architecture, with a handstone edifice, 67 by 47 feet, is of the Go

some tower, and is finished in the enterior as well as exterior with much neatness and

elegance. The architect, Mr. McGeorge, of Oxford, deserves much credit for the design of the building, and for the manner in which he has executed it. The Church, it is thought, affords, in many respects, a finer specimen of Gothic architecture than any other Church in the state; and it is an evidence of the zeal and liberality of the congregation by whose contribution it has been erected, and an ornament to a flourishing town, which less than thirty years since was a wilderness.

T. & J. Swords have just published, "Swords's Pocket Almanack, and Christian Calendar, for the year of our Lord 1819; being the third after Leap Year. Containing the rising, setting, and eclipses of the Sun and Moon, the time of High Water, &c." Also Observations on the Observance of Sundays-Explanations of the Festivals and Fasts of the Church-Succession of American Bishops-List of the Clergy of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States-Standing Committees→→ Time of Conventional Meetings-Religious Societies attached to the Epis. copal Church in the United States Scientific, Literary, and Benevolent Insti tutions-Officers of the Government of the United States-Ministers Plenipotentiary from the United States to Foreign Powers --Ministerial Appointments from Foreign Powers to the United States-Officers of the Government of the State of NewYork-Common Council of the City of New-York-Courts in the State of NewYork-Clerks of the Supreme CourtMayor's Court-Rates of Postage-Times of arrival and closing of the Mails, &c.

&c. &c.

Printed by T. & J, Swords, New-York.

No. 23.]

THE

AND

LITERARY REGISTER.

No. I. FOR DECEMBER, 1818.

Apostolical Preaching considered, in an Examination of St. Paul's Epistles; by the Rev. J.B. Sumner, M.A.

ON ELECTION.

(Continued from page 341, and concluded.)

Ir appears to me that there are two criteria by which the truth of that interpretation of these expressions in St. Paul which refers them to the election of the Gentiles, may be very fairly tried. First: if it was really this election which the Apostle had in view, and was princi pally anxious to enforce, then we shall expect to find it most strongly urged and most clearly stated to those churches where the Jewish converts were most numerous, and the peculiar circumstances of the Jewish nation most familiarly known. The Jewish religion was, of course, best understood in Asia; and the Jewish converts were most numerous at Rome; and, accordingly, the Epistles to the Romans and Ephesians furnish us with the only passages which can be thought to make any thing like a plain declaration of this doctrine; that to the Ephesians, moreover, being generally considered as not addressed to this single church alone, but to all those of the Roman provinces of Asia, among which the authority of the Jews might be supposed considerable, even if it were not proved so by the errors which they succeeded in propagating on the subject of the observa tion of their law. To the Grecian churches St. Paul is nearly silent on the subject, and only alludes in the most general way to their being called to the knowledge of God; a silence which pleads as strongly as any negative argument can be said to do, when VOL. II.

[VOL. II.

it is remembered that the Epistle to the Philippians was written at the same time with those to the Ephe sians and Colossians, in which the union of the Jews and Gentiles in the

worship of the same God makes so prominent a feature. Neither do we trace the doctrine of personal election in the Epistle to the Hebrews. To acquaint them that they were "elect of God," as a nation, there was no occasion; they had always prided themselves too much on the distinction; and they are not told that they were individually chosen by him to salvation out of the wreck of their countrymen by an irrevocable decree or eternal purpose, which it is reasonable to believe they would have been, if it had been either true in fact, or important in doctrine.

Secondly, if the passages usually alleged from St. Paul, to prove the doctrine of personal election, were written by him in allusion either to the election of individuals, in so peculiar a manner as the first Apostles of Christianity were chosen, or to the election of the Gentiles into the Church of the true God; then it will follow, that in proportion as indivi duals ceased to be chosen in that special manner to fulfil the divine pur poses, and in proportion as the calling and conversion of the Gentiles ceased to be extraordinary, when indeed the church was composed of them alone, the subject of election will also cease to be insisted upon and taught by the early Christian authors. The facts exactly correspond with this expectar tion. Among the canonical writers, it is but vaguely alluded to after the destruction of Jerusalem and in the writings of the fathers we find little authority for the doctrine, and not a

45

single passage which is not reconcilable with that interpretation of St. Paul, for which I have contended. Those writers who are clear and sound in the fundamental articles of the Christian faith, are silent, or nearly so, on the subject of the election of grace, which some of them must have often heard from the in structors of their early youth,* and, therefore, have understood in its just and primitive signification. And they, where they introduce election at all, use it, like St. Paul, as an incentive to holiness. So Clement to the Corinthians, "Let us go to him with a sanctified heart: influenced by the love of our gracious and merciful Father, who hath made us by election his peculiar people." It is notorious, and has been largely proved, that this Calvinistic tenet was not held, except by those who were reputed heretics, for four centuries, and that the term election grew into disuse as. Christianity gradually became more and more widely diffused: till it was at length involved with questions of fate and free-will, which in truth belong to natural religion, and the phrase ology of St. Paul was adopted to strengthen the opinion ultimately espoused by St. Austint in the fifth century.

These circumstances are not only intelligible, but strictly natural, if

* Milner states this with regard to Justin Martyr, and Irenæus in particular;

but makes a different conclusion. Vol. i. p. 201 and 271. The testimony of Irenæus is very cogent: because he argues elaborately against those who represented one class of mankind as incapable of salvation, and another as certain of it, as perverting the nature of the Gospel, and nullifying the calls to repentance it contains. This is of great weight, from a writer who appeals to the succession from the Apostles for the accuracy of his interpretation of Scripture: it evidently never entered his mind, that such a distinction between mankind could be justly derived from any part of the sacred Canon.

It is quite impossible to account for the authority which this Father has enjoyed, and still maintains, on any common principles; or to understand why St. Aus tin against the Manichees, might not be consistently quoted to refute St. Austin against Pelagius.

St. Paul speaks of the calling of the Gentiles; but supposing him to declare the universal plan of God's dealings with mankind, I know not how the decay of the doctrine can be consistently explained.

Bishop Butler, in his Analogy, has a powerful argument to this effect: that if, upon consideration of religion, the evidence of it should seem to any persons doubtful; yet even this doubting concerning religion implies such a degree of evidence for it, as, joined with the consideration of its importance, unquestionably lays men under the obligations to have a dutiful regard to it in their behaviour. On the same principle, it may be justly argued, that if there is a bare possibility of the doctrine of election being founded on a wrong interpretation of St. Paul's words, that doctrine ought not to be made a subject of instruction to a Christian congregation. And that such a possibility has been made out, must, at least, be admitted, after the review which I have taken of the very questionable circumstances under which that doctrine appears, or is supposed to appear, in two of St. Paul's Epistles. When this is considered, and joined to the certainty that the Apostle could lay no important stress upon a subject which he so rarely, and almost incidentally, introduces, in direct opposition, as will be fully seen, to his practice on the grand articles of a Christian's faith, I cannot help expressing the most un affected surprise that any minister should conscientiously think himself bound to make this a leading point in the course of his public instruction. For that every individual should be led to suppose that he can come to salvation, if he will, without the counteracting clause, that he cannot have grace to will, without God's special if it be found untrue, when "the sedecree; cannot be prejudicial, even cret things of the Lord our God" are disclosed-but that a single individual should be induced to despair of grace and of salvation, must be of the deepest importance in his sight, who" willeth not the death of a sinner." So it is safe in practice, even

« ПредишнаНапред »