love of Christ the principle of Christian obedience, and to prove the efficacy of the principle by the constancy of the result. Sermon XXI. Philipp. iii. 13, 14. "The proper motives and conduct of a Christian." The subject is considered as it is exhibited in the conduct and aim of St. Paul, with natural reflexions arising from each view of the case. Sermon XXII. Luke xxiii. 43. "Warning against reliance on a death-bed repentance." A short and plain discourse, designed "to obviate a dangerous inference in favour of a death-bed repentance, which it is to be feared has been often drawn from the case of the penitent malefactor on the cross :" which as it has been again and again, is here also shewn to be peculiar, with natural reflexions on the danger and presumption of deferring the most important of all concerns to the last moments of life. Sermon XXIII. Psalm cxix. 9. "No rule of life safe and effectual but the Gospel." Honour, reason, and virtue, are insufficient guides, and the Scriptures alone comprize all which is good in their teaching; and at the same time that they correct their errors and supply their deficiencies, propose a true rule of life, with a sure promise of spiritual assistance, on which the Preacher expatiates at considerable length, with ability and judgment. Sermon XXIV. 1 Cor. xiii. 3. "The real nature of charity in almsgiving." Paley has a chapter on the same subject: but while it is right to correct improper and to recommend proper motives of the charity, which is shewn in giving of alms, it is very doubtful whether the charity of which St. Paul speaks has any connexion with charity in its modern and ordinary interpretation. From the context it appears to mean the love of Christians towards each other as members of the Church of Christ; and there is a Sermon by Jones of Nayland, in which he views it in this light. Sermon xxv. Matt. vii. 1, 2. "Censoriousness forbidden by the Gospel." A common vice deservedly reproved under authority of the command of Christ, whose precept agrees with natural equity, and with the rule of the last judgment. Sermon XXVI. 1 Cor. xv. 33. Danger of careless and indiseriminate intercourse." The subject is well explained in the title. Sermon XXVII. Hebrews xii. 14. "Holiness necessary to fit us for heaven." A plain, useful, edifying discourse. "If then holiness is the ornament of 'the Saints in light,' and if the same disposition is required of all who aspire to their society, we must prepare ourselves for this privilege, by cultivating similar manners, opinions, and pursuits: for it appears that they who propose to engage in any particular department, or to become members of any particular community, will find it expedient to train themselves for the object they have in view by suitable occupations, that they may be qualified for their future station, qualified to act in it and enjoy it." P. 414. "It is then impossible without holiness to see the Lord; it is impossible upon the common principle of reasoning-from the character of God's moral government and from his own solemn assurances." P. 417. Sermon XXVIII. Romans xiii. 1, 2. "Duty of obedience to civil government"-" a topic which the Christian preacher will never find unseasonable, but which at the present day imperiously claims our attention." If Radicals were domestic men, or readers or hearers of sermons, this discourse might not be without its effect even upon them; but from their reputed indifference, or rather antipathy to all religious instruction, its benefits. must be reserved for them whose happiness it is to be more peaceably disposed. The Sermon was preached on Jan. 30, 1811. The substance of the argument is, that God hath laid down certain rules of civil government, the violation of which will terminate in judicial and penal ruin, as was seen especially in the. history of the great Rebellion. A trial of personal and domestic manners is proposed, (p. 431-434.) which but few radicals would be able to endure; for some, at least, of the reformers of the state, have been proved to be very deficient in that branch of political philosophy, which was properly called economics, and was seen in the wise administration of domestic affairs. But as some of these reformers who have not laid aside their Christianity, may pretend that it is right and necessary to aim at perfection, it is expedient to encourage them in the pursuit, upon the condition that they understand the nature of the perfection to which they should aspire, and the method of pursuing it "It will be said, perhaps, that as dis customed to bring forth fruit with patience, so must every wise and salutary reform be permitted to work its way." P. 435. Sermon XXIX. Rom. i. 28. "Awful state of a reprobate mind." The word reprobate needs not to excite any apprehensions or alarms: it is used in a sober sense, and the subject is practically treated with a view of exciting a spirit of watchfulness, to avoid that awful state. The design of this very earnest and impressive Sermon is, "To correct an error which there is reason to fear has spread itself widely, that because pardon is promised to repentance the sinner may depend at any time on being reconciled to God. Though instances of hardened sinners being converted do indeed occasionally happen, it is surely perilous in the extreme to hold the hopes of salvation by so precarious a tenure. The natural, and (may it not be added?) the conscience, and who can permit him the judicial effect of habitual sin, is to sear self to expect that the measure of divine grace will be increased in proportion to the hardihood and inveteracy of disobedicuce?" P. vi, ciples of Christ we are commanded to aim at perfection, and to go on continually› towards the standard set before us. But bere it is necessary to remark, that this undertaking, as it is limited to the individual himself, is placed by the covenanted succours and promises of the Gospel within the power of each, and depends on his distinction, and will continue to warn us "A reprobate mind means that state in which the conscience has lost all feeling to point out the distinction between right and wrong. own exertions. But to legislate for the community, to restrain the passions and regulate the opinions of the multitude, to impress upon them the due distinction between liberty and licentiousness; to carb in the higher ranks the lust of authority and the stubborn spirit of wilful opposition, and in all to control selfishness, and establish in its place the principles of gemine patriotism, is, indeed, an arduous enterprize. To expect complete success would argue an understanding blind to the course of human things, and deaf to the voice of experience: it is wise then to pause before we attempt to shake the foundation of a system which has been long established, and to shrink from an experiment which would put all we possess to hazard: the work of reformation is not to be effected by declamatory harangues, or by mere professions, however eloquent and impassioned. Like every other undertaking which is to produce valuable and lasting effects, it must proceed from an 'honest and good heart,' and as that is acREMEMBRANCER, No. 28. "Now conscience marks to each this of it, if we pay attention to its warnings, and it is only after a course of resistance to these warnings, that God gives his crea tures over to a reprobate mind." P. 443. Sermon xxx. Deut. xxxii. 29. "Reflexions on death salutary.” A plain and earnest discourse, illus trated by strong and affecting ex amples, especially of the death of Hooker, as related by Izaac Walton. Mr. The reader is now in possession of the substance of Mr. Bishop's Sermons and prepared to pronounce his own judgment, and that judgment will hardly be unfavourable. Bishop's merits are principally seen in the shorter discourses, which occupy the larger portion of the volume, and in which he appears in the very amiable character of a master reading to his family, or a pastor ad dressing his flock, with the negligent Hh simplicity, and impressive earnest is eminently qualified to supply, which become the Christian and which ness, preacher, and contribute most effectually to the edification of a Christian congregation. If these Sermons were delivered with the earnestness in which they were composed, they could hardly fail to produce a lasting impression on the hearers, and to make them better men and better Christians, or to leave them without excuse. The I. III. IV. X. XIX. XXII. XXVII. " ง want is every day more sensibly felt and acknowledged. THE purpose which this author has betiloop vlasnicas, ei of Christ. Mosheim is the only standard book upon the 45 -Jegarse griesıyı bas are not sufficiently compressed for THE SUBJC Storical information, we have vari and his work is rather an introduction to an extensive course of reading, than a narrative that will give satisfaction to those whose reading is limited. Whether we consider it as harmless amusement, or as profitable study, or as a branch of religious knowledge, in which every member of the Christian community ought to be competently informed, the value of ecclesiastical history is equally indisputable; and many of the errors that prevail among us might have been avoided, and some of them might even now be removed or corrected, if the former fortunes of the Church were universally known and considered. Among the poor, more especially, much good would be effected. They are, at last, beginning to be readers; and the event is attended with several obvious inconveniences. But we have no doubt that, with care, they may be shunned or overbalanced; and that as the demagogue and the infidel must lose their temporary influence, when political knowledge has become as general as political conversation and interest; so the sectary and the heretic will be circumscribed in their career, as soon as the havoc that they have already made in the world is generally perceived and understood. Mr. Ives does not appear to have taken this view of the question. Half of his little volume is consumed by an abstract of the history of the Old Testament; and another chapter is chiefly dedicated to the Acts of the Apostles; and thus not more than fifty duodecimo pages remain for all that has happened since the conversion of Constantine. The wis dom of this arrangement is not by any means evident. For, in the first place, the Bible itself is the history of the Church of God, down to the time at which the sacred volume closed; and if it should be thought that the accounts which it contains ous useful abstracts in our schools and our cottages, which are calculated to produce, and have produced material benefits. And in the second place, the limits within which the latter part of the work is confined, are so much contracted, as to dimi nish both its utility and its beauty. The events to which it relates, must be considered as wholly unknown to the class for whose use it is designed; and for any light Mr. Ives has thrown upon the subject, we fear they must still continue.. So, For instance, the most striking and important events which immediately follow the sacred history, such as the persecutions of the apostles, and the primitive Christians, the destruction of Jerusalem, and Julian's attempt to rebuild it, are merely mentioned, not described; and the progress and downfall of Christianity in Asia and Africa are scarcely noticed at all. The account of the Romish Church is less defective; but even here we have rather a description of doctrinal errors, than a narration of events, and it is to the latter that Mr. Ives's readers must be expected principally to attend. Remarks upon church history may be found extremely serviceable to those by whom the history itself is already known. But the general ignorance which prevails upon the subject, was the cause of Mr. Ives's publication; and that cause cannot be removed by an essay or a dissertation. A slight sketch of the leading events is indispensibly necessary; and the lives of the principal actors in the more remarkable ages of the Church, would serve to fill up what such a sketch did not contain. A valuable book of this sort, Gilpin's Lives of the Reformers, is already in extensive circulation; and if the events of earlier and more recent times were embodied in similar works, and one volume devoted to the compendious history, of which 10 Mr. Ives so fully appreciates the value, we cannot doubt that much practical information would be disseminated. The following extracts will furnish a fair specimen of Mr, Ives's labours. "In the mean time the English Church was obliged to conceal her rising hopes and expectations of deliverance from papal thraldom, by reason of the decided opposition of Henry the Eighth (then King of England) to the doctrines of this first reformer. That bigoted and violent prince even went so far as to write a book against Luther, in defence of the pretensions of the Romish Church, in return for which he ob. tained from Rome the title of Defender of the Faith, a title which still pertaineth to the kings of England, and indeed with much more propriety in the present times, inasmuch as they are now the stedfast defenders of our purer faith. "But Henry was not of a disposition to submit to any authority whatever, longer than it agreed with his own unruly wills and inclinations. He soon after quarrelled with the Pope, in consequence of his refusing to grant him a dispensation, or licence to put away his wife, and marry another; and, without much difficuly, procured an act of parliament to be passed, wherein the Holy Scriptures were declared to be the only infallible rule of faith, and the dominion of the Bishop of Rome over the Church in these realms was expressly renounced. By the same act, power was granted to the king of visiting and reforming the monasteries or religious houses, which every where abounded throughout the kingdom, and till then disclaimed all temporal jurisdiction. Visitors were ac cordingly appointed, who reported so many shocking abuses, and wickednesses, carried on within their walls, by men who pretended to have separated themselves from the world through the love of God, and a desire of religious knowledge, that no great difficulty was found in procuring another act for entirely suppressing them, and taking away their lands, "At this time the doctrines of Luther had made considerable progress among the people at large, by means of the Bible and other religions books, which were printed in Germany (for the art of printing had lately, and we may say providentially been brought to light) and sent over upon the first intelligence of the quarrel of Henry with the Pope, and of the consequent se paration of his kingdom from the papal power. But, in delivering the Kingdom of England from the yoke of papal tyranny, it was by no means the intention of the king to deliver the Church of England from the still more grievous yoke of papal superstition. So far from it, he persecuted, even unto death, those of her members, who shewed any disposition to embrace, what were then reproachfully called, the new doctrines; and would perhaps have suc ceeded in driving them altogether from the land, but for the zeal and judgment of Cranmer exerted in their support. This celebrated man, in whom, as in many other worthies of that day, the eye of faith will surely discern an instrument of Providence for promoting the cause of truth, was, at that time, Archbishop of Canterbury, and, by his conduct in that high station, may justly be called the Father of the Reforma tion in the English Consch. With a happy mixture of predence and courage, le ventured, and in many instances successfully, to oppose the opinions and decrees of the king, and retained ijis influence over him to the last, notwithstanding the many attempts of the Popish party to work his overthrow. "Cranmer was entirely consenting to the suppression of the monasteries, as well on account of the profligacy which prevailed within their walls, as of the danger which must have resulted to the opening liberty of the Church and nation, hy suf fering them to remain according to their original constitution. A large proportion of the land of the country had come into their possession, by the means above described, and no small number of the people were, in consequence, dependant upon them for their daily food. If then we co sider that they were, one and all, entirely devoted to the Pope, under whose patronage they had obtained their enormous wealth, it will be evident that a king, who, like Henry, had publicly, abjured his authority, could not, with any regard to his own safety, permit them to continue in his dominions, But Craumer, in consenting to their suppression, hoped that he should prevail to have their revenues usefully employed in sacred foundations; in the esta blishment (for instance) of new bishoprics, in royal charities, and in the increase of the poorer benefices of the Church; instead of which, he was doomed to see the larger part of them wasted in extravagant luxury, by his royal master." P. 95. "Elizabeth, the next successor to the throne of these realms, (whom perhaps my readers may remember to have heard of, under the familiar name of good Queen |