tion from Sir W. Dugdale cannot fail of stimulating our readers. to a serious comparison of those wretched times with our own, to which they will be found to bear the closest resemblance.

"In the early period of the troubles in the reign of Charles the first, after having driven that unfortunate monarch to measures, which were subsequently made the assumed ground of charges against him, under a seeming devout and holy pretence to advance and promote the preaching of the Gospel, they got a number of lecturers into most of the corporate towns and populous places of these realms, according to the pattern of Geneva, especially in the city of London, whom they maintained by voluntary contributions, to the end they might be engaged to preach such doctrines, as should upon occasion prepare the people for any disloyal attempt, and dispose them to rebellion when opportunity served. And for the support of these, they purchased in, divers impropriate tithes, constituting some of the clergy, some lawyers, some citizens (ali of the Puritan party,) under colour of redeeming the Lord's por tion out of lay hands, as the phrase was; by which subtile practice, they gained many large sums, in order thereto from sundry wellmeaning persons, who saw nothing at all of the main design, which was underhand driven on by the great contrivers *.” ” P. 86.

The great importance of the subjects which are discussed in the Charge before us, and especially in the Notes and Appendix, have induced us to exceed our usual limits in our extracts; but we are inclined to anticipate that our readers will not require any apology from us. Of the Notes indeed and Appendix both in the observations suggested, the citations made, and the proofs exhibited, we cannot speak in too high terms. They place in the hands of the Clergy a body of very important documents, extracted from sources quite inaccessible to the generality of his clerical readers, and yet highly worthy their notice, and extremely applicable to the circumstances in which they are placed. These copious materials are not introduced with an idle parade, or ostentation of research, but are very judiciously selected, and are strictly subservient to the confirmation of the positions, advanced in the body of the Charge. To theological enquirers they are highly valuable, and indeed to general readers very interesting and instructive. From some curious extracts from the puritanical writers of the time of the grand rebellion, and the subsequent usurpation, now become exceedingly scarce, he traces a very singular resemblance in all their traits, between ancient puritanism and modern methodism, which Bishop Warburton, with his usual strength and felicity, denominated the older and the

*Short View of the late Troubles, pp. 36, 37, by Sir W, Dugdale."

younger

younger sisters. When we consider the extended ramification of the latter over every part of this kingdom, occupying not only the denser masses of population, but extended with incessant activity into the most isolated country villages; when, above all, we consider that it has found abundant entrance into the sanctuary itself, and that not only in the metropolis and its suburbs, but in many of our most populous cities and towns, it has in-. fected a formidable proportion of our parochial ministry, it becomes us certainly, from mere temporal prudence, to examine what are its lineaments, what is its genealogy, and what its con. sanguinity; and what is to be expected when its predominancy is confirmed and paramount, whether it brings with it "airs from heaven, or blasts from hell," surely we cannot but think that our worthy Archdeacon has done no mean service to true religion, in furthering this inquiry, and in the assistance he has afforded us, by his citations both from tracts which are become scarce, and by his development of practices, to which we should do well to attend.

In some able and spirited animadversions on Mr. Gisborne's ill-timed and obtrusive attack upon the Bishop of Lincoln, the favourite charge of a Popish spirit, so generally brought forward by the advocates of the Bible Society, against the Churchmen, is with singular felicity retorted upon themselves, by a very curious citation from Father Paul's History of the Council of Trent.

"Is it true, because the Popes have assumed absolute authority in their mandates and a blind obedience to their decrees, that therefore a Christian Bishop should be denied that deference of opinion from his Clergy upon a doubtful point (and surely such is that of the expediency and duty of preferring the peculiar mode of distributing the Holy Scriptures adopted by the Bible Society) which both Scripture and the purest primitive antiquity allot to him? Nay, may we not rather, if there be any leaning towards Popery in the case, impute it to the side upon which Mr. Gisborne's services are engaged? for the grand feature of Popery has ever been, as the annals of the Church of Rome sufficiently evince, to depreciate episcopal jurisdiction, and to usurp an authority over those who are, by every right and principle, equals! Mr. Gisborne's attempt to censure a prelate in the legitimate discharge of his duty, in his own proper place and function, has too near a resemblance to the usurped power of the grand distributor of censures and anathemas to escape notice. Those who have read the inimitable History of the Council of Trent by Fra. Paolo, will recollect the observations of Eustache de Bellaye, Bishop of Paris, to this point. He says that the kingdom of Heaven, as the Church is called, is no longer a kingdom but a temporal tyrannythat the title of spouse of Christ is taken from the Church, to

prostitute

prostitute it to the service of one man,' that by this stratagem there is but one Bishop appointed by Jesus Christ, and the others his vicars, to be removed at the Pope's pleasure: that he wishes the council to understand that the episcopal authority, already so degraded, is likely to be utterly annihilated, since the congregation of monks (alluding to the newly established order of Jesuits) just started into existence already laboured so hard to shake it: that the Cistertian monks and those of Clugny, and others, had given a serious blow to the authority of the Bishops, which had been preserved till 1050, and that it was, by means of these orders, that Rome had usurped the essential and proper functions of the Bishops; that the mendicant orders, which arose about the year 1200, had deprived the Bishops of almost the whole of their authority, which had been seized by these men, under colour of their privileges: that in short the new order of Jesuits which was neither secular nor regular, were attempting to overthrow the whole episcopal authority."-See Histoire du Concile de Trente, traduite par P. F. Le Courayen, lib. vii. pp. 354, 355. P. 59.

To the expression of Mr. Gisborne, that in the Bible Society is discoverable "the finger of God," the Archdeacon replies in the following spirited language; nor is the historical evidence, which he has adduced, less worthy of our serious attention.

"The finger of God," exclaimed Peter the Hermit, when he led forth the legions of Crusaders; "the finger of God," exclaimed Cromwell, through the whole career of his sanguinary march to power and usurpation of the rights of the people; "The finger of God," exclaimed John Wesley, in the prosecution of his schism: "it is plain to me," he says, "that the whole work of God termed Methodism, is an extraordinary dispensation of Providence."

"In giving an account of his victory at Dunbar, in a letter to Mr. Mayor of Hursley, Cromwell, after having stated the numbers engaged, and that after much appealing to God,' his army destroyed 3000 men, &c. having but few killed on his side, says, This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes.' See Noble's Memoirs.

6

"In his speech upon dissolving the long parliament, he observes, upon the subject of raising money without the consent of the people, that either this cause is of God or of man,' and that if he were not satisfied that it is of God, he would many years ago have run from it.' Let (he says) men take heed, and be twice warned, how they call his (God's) revolutions, &c. of man's creation,' for they by so doing do vilify and lessen the works of God and lessen his glory.' Towards the conclusion of his speech, he thus exclaims against those who impute to him and his adherents, the convulsions and revolutions in the state: Oh what blasphemy is this! because men are without God in the world, and walk not with him, and know not what it is to pray, or believe, and to receive

returns

returns from God! Those men who live upon their mumpsimus and sumpsimus, their masses and service books, their dead and carnal worship, no marvel if they be strangers to God, and the works of God. They that shall attribute to this, or that person, the contrivance and production of these mighty things God has wrought in the midst of us, and that they have not been the revolutions of Christ himself upon whose shoulders the government is laid, they speak against God, and they fall under his hand without a mediator. Therefore whatsoever you may judge men for, and say this man is cunning and politic and subtle, take heed again, I say, how you judge of his revolutions, as the product of mens' inventions.'His Highness's Speech to the Parliament in the painted Chamber, &c. Published by Henry Hills, (in order to prevent mistakes) printer to his Highness. 1654.

"The frequent allusion at present made to the precaution recommended by the example of Gamaliel, by those who are anxious to silence the objections urged against the Bible Society, has as little of novelty as of sound reason to recommend it.

"There is one place in the Acts of the Holy Apostles which they (the Dissenters) make constant use of to encourage their party, and to discourage weak and timorous minds from meddling with them, lest they be found to fight against God, as they persuade people, all those do, who do any ways oppose them, who with so much confidence call themselves the children and people of God. Now that this is upon the holy records as the word of Gamaliel, and not as the word of God, and an unerring rule for our direction and practice is plain; because it is neither universally true nor obliging, which, whatever is the word of God, most undoubtedly is; for every work and every counsel which does stand is not of God. 'Tis thought by some that there was a time when all or the greatest part of the Church was Arian; and Athanasius the only or principal person who opposed it. I hope they will not agree that the heresy was of God, or ought not to have been opposed because it stood long and flourished; or because all or the greatest part of Asia, a considerable part of Europe, and most of Africa, being become proselytes to the detestable impostor Mahomet, that Mahometanism is therefore the work or counsel of God, because it does stand and has stood above these thousand years!"-The Countermine, &c. London: printed by Jonathan Edwin, 1677. P. 63.

We heartily wish that our limits allowed us to lay more of the valuable contents of the Notes and Appendix before the public; but we trust that we have stimulated our readers, of all descriptions, particularly those in the Church, to avail themselves of materials so well adapted to enable them to form just sentiments of principles now advanced, and scenes now passing before them.

Upon the whole, we are of opinion, that the Archdeacon has met the delusive and destructive errors of the times with vigour,

LI

with

VOL. V. MAY, 1816.

with firmness, and with effect. He has brought considerable powers of eloquence in aid of the great cause he defends: this cause he bas sustained, in the words of Quintilian, Non fortibus modo, sed etiam fulgentibus armis.. It is impossible not to give him credit for very considerable powers of writing. It has not escaped us, that inadvertencies, and some occasional incorrectnesses, do here and there occur in the diction; but they bear a small proportion indeed to the general merit of the composition. But what we most admire, is the courage and the frankness displayed by him throughout, which are so fully commensurate to the exigencies of the times, and to the dangers with which the Church is encompassed. The Archdeacon has spoken with boldness and with spirit, at the same time never losing sight of that unaffected temperance, and that Christian charity, which is fully compatible with the most powerful representations of impending danger, and the most distinct warnings against both avowed and against masked hostility.

ART. IV. Bertram, or the Castle of St. Aldobrand, a Tragedy in five Acts. By the Rev. R. C. Maturin. 8vo. 80 pp. 4s. 6d. Murray. 1816.

A SUCCESSFUL Tragedy is a production now so exceedingly rare, that our readers will be anxious to receive an early account of so portentous a stranger in the walks of literature. The author is a gentleman of the name of Maturin, a native of Ireland, and exercises his clerical functions at present, as we understand, in the city of Dublin. We were certainly inclined at one time to suspect that the larger portion of the Tragedy was the production of another hand; as the characters, sentiments, and language, bore so close a resemblance to the well-known style and manner of a certain noble lord. We have since however heard enough to abandon that opinion, and without hesitation to ascribe the whole to the gentleman whose name it bears, and to consider it as an imitation only, not an original. Our readers will have been made too well acquainted with the plot, from the report of the daily papers, to require any long detail. We shall therefore content ourselves with giving an outline only as briefly as possible.

The scene is laid in Sicily, and the play opens with a violent storm, in which a vessel is wrecked off the coast. The only one who is supposed to escape from destruction is Count Bertram, who had formerly stood high in the councils and in the favour

of