that God alone knoweth the state of any unconverted sinner, how alien he is from holiness, how averse from accomplishing known duty. Nor has he asked too much of any sinner, when he calls upon us in his word to obey him constantly. The promise given in the Old Testament is, "I will put my laws in their hearts, and in their minds will I write them, and they shall keep my statutes to do them. I will give them a new heart, and a new spirit will I put within them." When this new heart is bestowed, the rebel becomes a faithful devoted subject; and with that heart, and not without it, may he hope to accomplish the good pleasure of the Supreme. God does, indeed, show the greatest long-suffering, in order, as we are expressly told, to draw men to repentance. God will bear with much iniquity till that iniquity is full, and then, as in the case of the Amorites, vengeance may be expected. "The creature (says Manton, in his 'Commentary on St. James,' on the text God resisteth the proud' the creature must be humbled either actively or passively. If you have a humble heart, God hath a mighty hand. Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God' (I Pet. v. 6). He will either break the heart or break the bones: you must judge yourselves, or else God will judge you (1 Cor. xi. 32). God hath made a righteous law, sin must be judged in one court or another, that the law may not seem to have been in vain." * Every hope, therefore, that is not founded on the known purposes of God, as revealed in his word, would seek to frustrate the very grace of God which comes to us by the gospel, as distinguished from the law. The mercy which the sinner would plead offers him Christ; but to trust on the mercy of a broken code of laws, is to trust on a mere delusion. "That no man (says St. Paul) is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident; for the just shall live by faith." And as he says in a former verse, "As many as are of the works of the law are under the curse." From which we gather, that all those who seek justification by the law in the sight of God are not redeemed from its curse, but are accursed. Faith being the grand principle of the Gospel dispensation, everything which is not of faith is sin; and this is the argument of the apostle, when, in the twelfth verse of this third chapter of this epistle, he declares that the "law is not of faith" (Gal. iii.) And hence argues the apostle, in the same chapter, that "if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise; but God gave it to Abraham by promise." By which we are to understand, that for a person to declare himself justified by his moral obedience, is to declare himself no more of promise -that is, excluded from the covenant of grace. (To be continued). "Practical Commentary on St. James," by the Rev. T. Manton, D.D., chap. iv. ver. 7. EXTRACTS FROM A TRAVELLER'S DIARY.-No. I. "Patras, Friday, January 8, 1841." THOUGHTS SUGGESTED BY THE EARTHQUAKE OF YESTERDAY. THIS earth is but the footstool of the omnipresent God,* His foot was on us yesterday !-and the trembling startled earth Oh! if the lightest touch of God thus makes our bosoms thrill, And the earth all-withering fades away, and the risen dead throng round! || Lord! who hast formed us of the dust,§ yet sanctified our clay,§ Do thou by grace prepare our hearts for the light of that awful day! By faith and love bestowed on us enfranchise us from fear,¶ HOMILIES FOR THE TIMES; OR, ROME AND HER NEW ALLIES. WITH What feelings do our Oxford friends listen to the Io Pæans, the glad shouts with which Romanists on all sides hail their present efforts! Surely these alone might suffice to cause them to retrace their steps, if it were yet possible :-" Incedis per ignes," "Suppositos cineri doloso!" Is not their path now towards the crater of the volcano?-and if the superficies over which they walk were to be scratched away but never so little, what but burning liquid fire would appear beneath the cinders? In the French translation, or rather mistranslation, of Ranke's "History of the Popes," with a preliminary discourse by M. Alexander de SaintChèron, enlarging upon the brilliant prospects of the Church of Rome, we find the following passage, which we transcribe for our readers without further comment : "La France nest pas la seule où se manifeste ce rétour éclatant de notre siècle vers les doctrines et les institutions de l'Eglise Catholique. Le mouvement qui se signale est Européen, et cèst son étendue • Matt. v. 35. +1 Thess. iv. 16. (former part.) Rev. xxi. 1. § Gen. ii. 7. qui atteste sa profondeur. En Angleterre, les ouvrages du docteur John Lingard et de Cobbett out préludé à la réaction Catholique qui s'opere dans ce pays et excite si violemment la rage des torys. Je ne voudrais pas m'en rapporter à mon propre jugement sur un sujet où il est si facile de prendre ses désirs et ses espérances pour les réalités, si je n'avais le temoignage meme d'un savant Anglais, M. le docteur Wiseman, qui a prêché à Londres, il y a deux ans, des conférences Catholiques dont le succès n'a été égalé que par celles de M. l'Abbè Lacordaire à Paris. M. Wiseman, recteur du college des Anglais à Rome, a lu cette année, a l'Acadèmie Catholique de cette ville, une longue et curieuse dissertation sur l'état actuel du Protestantisme eu Angleterre. Les faits nombreux cités dans ce travail nous montre chez les esprits les plus éclairés de la Grande-Bretagne non seulement l'abandon des préjugés les plus invétérés contre le Catholicisme, contre la Cour Romaine, mais un rétour décidé vers les doctrines de l'Eglise. C'est surtout au sein de la célèbre université d' Oxford que se manifestent ces symptômes de réaction, et M. Wiseman cite pour preuve un recueil de dissertations publié par les professeurs de cette universitè, sous le titre de Traités pour les temps présens." Certes, in Dr. Wiseman the Tractarians have found a hard task-master: "Take my yoke upon you and learn of me," Protestantism invites, "for my yoke is easy and my burden is light;" instead of which they burden themselves with cumbrous traditions, observance of effete rites and ceremonies, doctrines of transubstantiation, hyper-apostolical succession, prayers to saints and angels, purgatory, and what not? With a team thus trimly harnessed, fatigued though they may be with their journeying hitherto, what more is required than for some spruce and skilful Jehu to guide the reins and apply the whip? "Let the galled jade wince, our withers are unwrung." Hear the titular Bishop of Melipotamus: "You will remember that your late amiable friend, Mr. Froude, in one of his unhappy moments of hasty censure, pronounced us not Catholics, but wretched Tridentines.' This expression was quoted with apparent approbation by his editors in their preface. It seems hard that now we should be deprived of even this 'wretched title,' and sunk by you a step lower in the scale of degradation; still more it seems unaccountable that you should now court that title, and assert (as your tract does), that while we have abandoned the doctrines of Trent, you, and those who take the articles in your sense, interpret them in accordance with those doctrines. I say this in a spirit not of reproach, but rather of charitable warning. That which you once considered a heavy imputation, you seem now to consider comparatively a light blame; for you would now be glad to see us in stricter conformity (according to your views) with the decrees of that council. You then blamed us for adhesion to them; you now blame us for de-. parting from them. Why not suspect your judgments, if you find that they vary? If there was ever a time when you did not see many of our doctrines as you now view them; when you utterly rejected all comprecation with, as much as prayers to, saints-all honour, without reserve, to images and relics; when you did not practice prayers for the departed, nor turned from the congregation in your service; when you did not consider bodily mortification necessary, or the breviary so beautiful; when, in fine, you were more remote from us in practice and feeling than your writings now show you to be, why not suspect that a further approximation may yet remain, that further discoveries of truth in what to-day seems erroneous may be reserved for to-morrow, and that you may be laying up for yourselves the pain and regret of having beforehand branded with opprobrious and afflicting names that which you discover to be good and holy?" (Letter to the Rev. J. H. Newman, by N. Wiseman, D.D.) This haughty tone is not quite gratuitously assumed towards the author of the ninetieth Tract, and co-editor with Dr. Pusey of the "Remains of Hurrell Froude." In truth, we ought not to be surprised that Dr. Wiseman, an acute and able controversialist, the most subtile of modern opponents of Protestantism, the most wary zealot of the Romish faith, pushes just at the proper moment the advantages given him by such expressions as the following: "You will be shocked at my avowal, that I am every day becoming a less and less loyal son of the Reformation. It appears to me plain that in all matters that seem to us indifferent, or even doubtful, we should conform our practices to those of the Church which has preserved its traditionary practices unbroken." (Remains, &c., vol. i. p. 336). "Really I hate the Reformation and the Reformers more and more, and have almost made up my mind that the rationalist spirit they set afloat is the yevcompons of the Revelation" (p. 389). "I am sure the daily service is a great point, so is kneeling with your back to the people” (p. 390). "I am more and more indignant at the Protestant doctrine of the Eucharist, and think that the principle on which it is founded is as proud, irreverent, and foolish as that of any heresy, even Socinianism" (p. 391). "Also why do you praise Ridley? Do you know sufficient good about him to counterbalance the fact that he was the associate of Cranmer, Peter Martyr, and Bucer? N.B. How beautifully the Edinburgh Review has shown up Luther, Melancthon, and Co.! What good genius has possessed them to do our dirty work? Pour moi, I never mean, if I can help it, to use any phrases even which can connect me with such a set. I shall never call the holy eucharist the Lord's supper,' nor God's priests 'ministers of the word,' or the altar the Lord's table,' &c. &c." (p. 393). "The Reformation was a limb badly set-it must be broken again in order to be righted" (p. 433). "I wonder a thoughtful fellow like H. does not get to hate the Reformers faster" (p. 434). "One must not speak lightly of a martyr, so I do not allow my opinions to pass the verge of scepticism. But I really do feel sceptical whether Latimer was not something in the Bulteel line, &c." (p. 251). "As to the Reformers, I think worse and worse of them. Jewel was what you would in these days call an irreverent Dissenter' (p. 379). Our readers cannot fail to be struck with the very natural sequence o this hatred of the Reformers and the Reformation: "As far as I have gone, too, I think better than I was prepared to do of BONNER and GARDINER!!" (p. 251). Shall we in anywise attempt to draw the true portraits of these two individuals for our readers? No, deeply enough are their hideous lines traced upon the memorial tablet of every true English Protestant; and for Luther, Melancthon, Cranmer, Latimer, Ridley, Jewel-oh! to hate these, is it madness, or ignorance, or crime? But who, further, are the most especial favourites of these men? Thomas à Beckett, or rather (under correction) Saint Thomas of Canterbury, Laud, Ken, Kettlewell, &c. These certainly are not the men whom Protestants in general, at the present day, would mark out as the brightest jewels in the breastplate of our Church. It were worth while, since we have mentioned Ken and Kettlewell, of nonjuring notoriety (however much we may admire their fervent though ascetic piety), to observe that Queen Victoria owes small thanks to the men who, so much in love with their principles, have their names continually on their lips, whose memory they think to hallow in their prose, to immortalize in their verse. If non-jurors were right, why all our sovereigns from William III. to Victoria were base intruders and usurpers, and we must needs search if haply we may light upon some forgotten scion of the wronged house of Stuart, some prince or princess, perchance luxuriating in the despotism of some Italian court; him should we instal in his rightful throne, submit ourselves body and soul to his service, and, though the universe may crash, thank God that justice was at length done. The author of Tract No. 80 tells us, that at the time of the glorious Revolution, or (to use Dr. Pusey's phrase) which "men have dared to call the glorious Revolution," our Church "threw, as it were, out of her pale the doctrine of Christ crucified, together with Ken and Kettlewell." What matter? When we have a Duchess of Modena for our ruler, everything shall go on prosperously; the Vatican shall again thunder, a Pope's legate shall be again resident among us, anathema upon anathema against " High Church," " Low Church," and "No Church," and everything except holy Mother Church and Protestantism shall be extirpate from the land! One more extract from the "Homilies for the Times :" "No nation under heaven can owe more to the Protestant Reformation than this highly-favoured country. It was the cradle of our liberties, and it is no less their palladium. As Protestantism has been depressed, despotism has reared its frowning brow; as it has triumphed, constitutional freedom has spread its protecting wings over all our national institutions, and has given to Conscience an asylum which she has sought for in vain in countries where Popery has held uninterrupted sway. Liberty of opinion and worship-attachment to the rights of conscience-laws breathing the spirit of genuine freedom -institutions purged alike from feudal barbarity and priestly domination, have been the blessed fruits of the Reformation in this country. It has elevated the blessed word of God in the eyes of the people, and asserted the right of every man to examine its sacred contents; the result has been, that the spirit of the Bible bas infused itself into the current of our national feeling, and that Great Britain is looked upon as a kind of model-country, on which the eyes of the civilized world |