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rectitude, of benevolent propensity, and of patience in adversity, is produced by all this costly machinery. That some part of this machinery may be useful it would be unjust to doubt, and rash must that man be, who would hastily and inconsiderately level to the ground even these supports, feeble as they are, of the virtue and consolation of a whole people. The great distinction between the English Clergy and those of the Catholic Church, as well as some of our English sectaries, is, that the former, in all their public services, strive chiefly to enforce practical virtue, while the latter lay the greatest stress on the adherence to their peculiar rites and doctrines.

"Religion in every country is calculated to produce an effect on manners as well as on morals; in England, among those who read but little or not at all, the effect is accomplished by public preaching; but in Spain, where preaching is by no means common, the knowledge of Religion is kept alive by sensible representations of the events of the Gospel history. These are exhibited in the Churches, or the Calvarios, on the days set apart for celebrating the leading facts of the Christian Religion, or on days consecrated to the memory of particular Saints. From. these the people collect with tolerable accuracy the true accounts of the life and miracles of our Saviour and his Apostles; but they receive with equal credit legends of Saints, which from the manner in which they are taught, they cannot distinguish from authentic facts; but virtue, which ought to form the ultimate object of all true Religion, which elevates man to the highest rank of which he is susceptible, and assimilates him to a superior order of beings, is left to the confessor to be impressed on the mind of the penitent.

"Auricular confession is but a poor substitute for public preaching; or rather, public teaching, which the Reformation introduced, is an excellent substitute for auricular confession. The dignity of the pulpit makes reproof more severe, denunciations more alarming, advice more powerful, and consolation more soothing; while the intimacy, and sometimes the familiarity of auricular confession, makes the penitent feel but too forcibly that the spiritual guide has all the passions and weakness of those who rely on him.

"I should, however, be sorry to see this practice abolished till some better were introduced in its stead; for though it be obvi ous that the profligacy of the higher classes is not corrected by their Religion, and whatever dominion they may allow their priests over their faith and their rituals, they allow them very little over their morals, yet, with the middle and lower ranks of society, who form the most virtuous and moral class of the peoNew Series-vol. II.

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ple, they have a beneficial influence. With the higher order, the great struggle of the confessor is to keep the mind free from doubts, to enforce submission to the dogmas and ceremonies of the Church, and prevent the inroad of heresy. With the other classes there is no such task; they never read books written by foreigners, nor ever conyerse with them; they have no doubts on points of faith, no scruples in matters of ceremony, and the task of the confessor is more directly addressed to the formation of the moral habits of sobriety, honesty, and veracity. On these points they have evidently been successful; for I have never been in any country where the mass of the people has approached the conduct of the Spaniards in these respects; in chastity, as far as I can judge, they have not been so successful; whether the evil arise from the celibacy of the clergy, the voluptuous climate, or the remains of Moorish manners, I cannot determine; but there is, in this respect, a degree of profligacy extending to all ranks in this country, which I trust will ever remain unexampled in our own."

While there is no reason to doubt the general correctness of the facts and opinions in the preceding extracts, there is perhaps a little inconsistency between what is said in the last paragraph, and what precedes. It may be doubted, whether the sobriety, honesty, and veracity of the lower classes in Spain is to be attri buted much to any direct religious influence. Sobriety seems to be a common virtue of southern climates, very little the result of moral restraint in their inhabitants; but depending principally upon physical causes. The other characteristics of honesty and veracity, are, perhaps, to be traced back to the manners and feelings of that age, when chivalry was the pride of Spain; or, at least, to be referred to moral sentiments, not very dependent on the instructions of the confessor.

EXTRACTS FROM FLAVEL.

It is impossible for any burlesque or misrepresentation of religion, to have a tendency to expose it to more contempt, than the writings of some of those who have been celebrated among the champions of the true faith. This remark may be illustrated by the following quotations from a Sermon of Flavel's. It is the third in the first volume of his works, on the covenant of redemption betwixt the Father and the Redeemer.

"Christ having told God how ready and fit he was for his service, he will know of him what reward he shall have for his work; for he resolves his blood shall not be sold at low and

cheap rates. Hereupon (Isaiah xlix. 3.) the Father offers him the elect of Israel for his reward, bidding low at first (as they that make bargains use to do) and only offers him that small remnant, still intending to bid higher. But Christ will not be satisfied with these; he values his blood higher than so; therefore, in ver. 4, he is brought in complaining, Thave laboured in vain and spent my strength for naught: This is but a small reward for so great a suffering as I must undergo; my blood is much more worth than this comes to, and will be sufficient to redeem all the elect dispersed among the Isles of the Gentiles. Hereupon the Father comes up higher, and tells him, he intends to reward him better than so, and therefore," &c.

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"The persons transacting and dealing together in this covenant are indeed great persons, God the Father, and God the Son, the former as a creditor, the latter as surety. The Father stands upon satisfaction, the Son engages to give it. If it be demanded why the Father and the Spirit might not as well have treated upon our redemption, as the Father and the Son? It is answered," &c. Our readers will be satisfied, we think, without the

answer.

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"And forasmuch as God knew it was a hard and difficult work his Son was to undertake, a work that would have broken the backs of all the Angels in Heaven, and men on earth, had they engaged in it, therefore he promises to stand by him, and assist, and strengthen him for it. So Isaiah, xlii. 5, 6, 7."

The work of redemption it seems was so hard, that it was necessary for omnipotence to be strengthened in its accomplishment. It is afterwards said however, that both the federates in the covenant were infinitely able and faithful to perform their parts.'

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"They were hard and difficult terms indeed, on which Christ received the elect from the Father's hand; it was, as you have heard, to pour out his soul unto death, or not to enjoy a soul of you. Here you may suppose the Father to say, when driving this bargain with Christ for you:

Father. My son, here be a company of poor miserable souls, that have utterly undone themselves, and now lie open to my justice. Justice demands satisfaction from them, or will satisfy itself in the eternal ruin of them. What shall be done for these souls? And thus Christ returns:

Son. O my father, such is my love to and pity for them, that rather than they should perish eternally, I will be responsible for

them as their surety. Bring in all thy bills, that I may see what they owe thee. Lord, bring them all in, that there may be no after reckonings, with them; at my hands shalt thou require I will rather choose to suffer thy wrath, than they should suffer it. Upon me, my Father. upon me, be all their debt.

it.

Father. But, my Son, if thou undertake for them, thou must reckon to pay the last mite; expect no abatements; if I spare them, I will not spare thee,

Son. Content, Father, let it be so. Charge it all upon me, I am able to discharge it; and though it prove a kind of undoing of me, though it impoverish all my riches, empty all my treasures, (for so indeed it did, 2 Cor. viii. 9. Though he were rich, yet for our sakes he became poor,) yet I am content to undertake it.”

The preceding extracts are saved from being the grossest profaneness, only by being the grossest nonsense. Yet Flavel was a very popular writer in his day; and his works are recommended, as of particular-value to a young clergyman, by the Professor of Sacred Eloquence at Andover, in the list of select books for a theological library, which he has published. How much his writings will tend to purify and elevate the religious sentiments of those by whom they are studied, and to raise their conceptions of God, and of our Saviour, may be inferred from the extracts that have been made. Their happy influence in leading men to the practice of virtue, may be judged of from the following passage -Sermon 14.

"It would grieve one's heart to see how many poor creatures. are drudging and tugging at the task of repentance, and revenge upon themselves, and reformation, and obedience, to satisfy God for what they have done against him. And, alas, it cannot be ; they do but lose their labor; could they swelter their very hearts out, weep till they can weep no more, cry till their throats be parched, alas, they can never recompense God for one vain thought. For such is the severity of the law, that, when it is once offended, it will never be made amends again by all that we can do; it will not discharge the sinner for all the sorrow in the world. Indeed if a man be in Christ, sorrow for sin is something, and renewed observance is something; God looks upon them favorably, and accepts them graciously in Christ; but out of him, they signify no more than the entreaties and cries of a condemned malefactor, to reverse the legal sentence of the judge. You may toil all the days of your life, and at night go to bed without a candle. To that sense, that scripture sounds, Isa. l. ult. Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks; walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that you have kindled: This shall ye have of mine hand, ye shall lie down in sorrow.

By fire, and the light of it, some understand the sparkling pleasures of this life, and the sensitive joys of the creatures; but generally it's taken for our own natural righteousness, and all acts of duties, in order to our justification by them before God. And so it stands opposed to that faith of recumbency, spoken of in the verse before. By their compassing themselves about with these sparks, understand their dependance on those their duties, and glorying in them. But see the fatal issue, Ye shall lie down in sorrow. That shall be your recompense from the hand of the Lord; that is all the thanks and reward you must expect from him, for slighting Christ's, and preferring your own righteousness before his. Reader, be convinced, that one act of faith in the Lord Jesus, pleases God more than all the obedience, repentance, and strivings to obey the law, throughout thy whole life can do.".

It has always been the grand object of false religion, to find out something, which would please God better than obedience.

EXTRACT FROM MITFORD'S HISTORY OF Greece.

AFTER what has just been quoted, it will be comfortable to hear again the voice of reason. The following passage is from the most judicious, the most acute, and the most philosophical of historians. We do not, however, agree with him in believing that the prevalence at one time of superstition, and at another of scepticism, is an inevitable consequence of the nature of man. But the greater are the tendencies to these evils, the more strongly are we called upon to exert ourselves in resisting these tendencies.

"In all countries," says Mitford," and through all ages, RELIGION and civil government have been so connected, that no history can be given of either without reference to the other. But in the accounts remaining of the earliest times, the attention every where paid to religion, the deep interest taken in it, by individuals and by communities, by people polished equally and unpolished, is peculiarly striking. A sense of dependency on some superior Being, seems indeed inseparable from man; it is in a manner instinct in him. His own helplessness, compared with the stupendous powers of nature, which he sees constantly exerted around him, makes the savage ever anxiously look for some being of a higher order, on whom to rely and the man educated to exercise the faculties of his mind, has only to reflect on himself, on his own abilities, his own weakness, his own know

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