the flesh, and the devil. The same line of thought runs likewise throughout the Gospel of this writer. He is always referring to those spiritual powers which lie implanted in our new nature, dormant and unheeded, alas! in too many, but ready to be called into energetic action, so soon as conscience awakens to her duty; and the Spirit of God, which is ever hovering round those who have been dedicated to Him, is invited to revisit His Temple.

Who, then, shall estimate the responsibility of addressing such as these who form the mass of an average congregation, men whose final salvation seems, at the moment that the preacher speaks, to be in the balance, so that a word spoken in due season may be the means of re-invigorating the spiritual life within them; or a careless, spiritless composition, may confirm them in their indifference?

We have already spoken of the danger of undervaluing that portion of the priest's commission which consists in delivering addresses from the pulpit, we will now advert briefly to another, the temptation to make our preaching controversial. When we see evils around us, it is difficult to avoid making allusions to them. And yet it is to be considered that the pulpit is only very partially the place for such declamations. The sermon should be a direct appeal to the consciences of our people; not an essay on general sins. And further, when the Minister of GOD has occasion to reprove, he must be careful to do it with meekness and love. Above all things, he must avoid the character of an habitual scold. No character is more unamiable; and perhaps the best rules which can be given for avoiding this temptation are, first, a deep study of the Sacred Scriptures themselves; and secondly, a familiar acquaintance with the commentaries of the early Christian writers. The Word of God, as the experience of all the Saints testifies, does possess a depth and fulness which it is impossible to exhaust. New views and unlooked-for illustrations are constantly suggesting themselves to the mind of the diligent reader of Holy Scripture, which alone will go far towards supplying materials for composition, and will prevent the Sermon from being a mere repetition of former ideas. At the risk of being thought to travel somewhat beyond our legitimate province, we must here quote another passage from Archdeacon Wilberforce's admirable charge.

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"This is no doubt the reason why sermons are so often unprofitable. Those who write them have not lived enough in the habit of prayer and meditation they have not fasted and wept for the sins of themselves and their brethren; they do not feel the incalculable value of immortal souls, and the fearful hazard of making shipwreck of salvation-how, then, should they speak to men as ambassadors of CHRIST or stewards of the mysteries of GOD. It was no light estimate of the importance of souls which led the Lord of all to exchange the glories of heaven for the manger and the cross, neither will any man really preach CHRIST who does not follow Him. For this reason has our Church enjoined us to make every Friday, the weekly anniversary of our Lord's death, a day of fasting and self-denial; that this perpetual recurrence of seasons of devotion might deepen our impression of things divine, and that the impress of our Master's example might hallow our daily life. I am aware that there are some who scoff at this command of our Church, and more who neglect it. But the approach of public dangers, or even those privite visita

tions, age, pain, and sickness, may teach men lessons in which the instructors of the people are yet untaught. Above all, I rest in that grace of God's spirit, which I ask for you, which I entreat you to ask for me, that we may be guided amidst the doubts, and armed against the dangers of our ministry.

"Would we gain then the power of kindling other men's devotion; the first qualification is to be ourselves devout. Never spake our great Herbert with profounder truth than when he reminded us that the Parson's library is a holy life,' for that the temptations with which a good man is beset, and the ways which he used to overcome them, being told to another, whether in private conference or in the Church, are a sermon.' Do we feel, therefore, that our work is hard to perform, that our progress is less than could be desired, that men's hearts are not influenced as they should be, that the ordinances of the Church are undervalued, that is, the blessings of God's grace neglected, we have our remedy, that personal advancement, which is the true method of benefitting our brethren, which will draw down GoD's blessing, not only on ourselves, but on our land. 'O my people, enter into thy closet, and shut thy doors about thee.""

The other and subsidiary method which we would recommend is, to study the commentaries of the ancient Fathers. In interpreting Scripture, we are tempted to explain every thing in reference to modern disputes. Our Sermons, in spite of ourselves, are cast in one uniform mould; and we are controversial even when we are not aware of it. Hence arises one great benefit of studying the Fathers. We now longer read the Divine Word as it were through a colouring medium, or at least through one coloured differently from that through which we usually look. From them also and from those who formed themselves on their model, (as Bishop Andrewes for example,) may be learnt the expository method of preaching which seems to make the Sermon follow more the order of the Divine Word, than the will of the preacher, a method which, when men's minds, by the prevalence of controversies, are rendered suspicious, affords an advantage of no slight magnitude.

In these remarks, we regard not so much the tastes and feelings of the laity, though within due bounds they are an object deserving of very tender regard, -as the comfort and usefulness of the Clergy. It is with some a real difficulty to know how to address themselves to their flocks. A great movement, stirring the hearts of men, has taken place in a certain class; but it has not extended very widely as yet. Consequently there is at this time a peculiar want of sympathy, and even tendency to estrangement, between individuals who formerly, perhaps, were not conscious of any difference existing between them. Prudence and patience, then, are eminently needed in order to conciliate the confidence of the people in their Pastors; without which, of course it is in vain that they preach. Many a zealous parish Priest has been disappointed of the fruits of his labours from attempting to instil doctrine in the first place into the minds of his people. What he ought to aim at as the foundation of all success, is the producing simply a serious impression; for when minds are in that state, they will instinctively catch the tone of him who created the impression in all other things. When this is done, it will be unnecessary to aim at inculcating any peculiar doctrinal system. It will have been already learnt, even before it was consciously taught.

Whereas if we begin with being controversial, and appear to wish to force men to our own views, they assume at once an attitude of resistance, and repel instinctively the unwarrantable intrusion. reason, in fact, must be won through the affections. This is a law of our natural being: and we may add, that it has been sanctioned and sanctified by CHRIST, Who "first loved us," and has been graciously pleased to make this the basis of His claim upon our love.

Were we reviewing Archdeacon Wilberforce's Charge, we should have to dwell at some length on two characteristics of effective preaching on which he very forcibly insists :-the necessity of adapting our sermons to the course of the ecclesiastical year, and of making our appeal to the conscience from the pulpit accord with that line of examination which the Priest is directed by the Prayer Book to pursue in the case of the sick and dying. Our object, however, being merely to present a few desultory thoughts on the subject of preaching, we shall assume that our readers are agreed on the two points now referred to, and pass on to one of greater difficulty and delicacy, the right method, namely, of addressing the carnal and indifferent and irreligious who form, alas! so large an element in an average congregation. It has been said already that they must be reminded that they were once "purged of their former sins, and made partakers of the Divine nature.” But what more shall we say to them? Shall we call upon them to be "converted"? The orthodox Clergy, it is well known, of late years have scrupled to apply this language to the baptized, lest they should seem to countenance the gigantic heresy of the Methodists. Robert Nelson, in his "Fasts and Festivals," heads the Collect for Christmas Day, A Prayer for Conversion." When that author wrote, the doctrine had not been abused by heretics; and there was no need, therefore, of great scrupulousnesss of language. In later times it has been necessary to guard ourselves more carefully against misinterpretation. The Prayer Book,* it would seem, does not sanction this application of the word. The Bible, in several places, connects the act of conversion dogmatically with the first adoption of the Christian faith and Baptism as the seal thereof; and in the cases which may be seen to be exceptions, that is, where the word is used to express the recovery of the Christian from a state of sin into which he had fallen, it will be seen that it is not used in its technical, theological sense; it is not, to speak logically, a word secundæ intentionis; it does not imply an entire change of heart, but the abandonment of some particular sin. The three places referred to are, our Lord's words to S. Peter, "When thou art converted, (the better rendering would be, "come to thyself,") strengthen thy brethren;" his words in reference to the proud thoughts of the Apostles, (Matt. xviii. 2,) and the passage in S. James, "If any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him." All of these uses of the word, it will be observed, describe a restoration to a place once occupied by the person fallen; in the use which has been made of it, by persons calling themselves "Evangelicals" and denying the grace of Baptism, it signifies the first opening of the heart to receive the

In the Collect for Good Friday, it appears to refer only to those without the pale of the Church :—“ Jews, Turks, Infidels, and Hereticks."

lessons of Divine truth. This distinction should not be lost sight of: because if the word is to be allowed, as the Archdeacon judges, great care must be taken to vindicate it from the heretical gloss which a modern interpretation has put upon it. Mr. Wilberforce says in direct terms; "What these men need is conversion. They need to be turned from their old to new objects. This must be the basis of all instruction. Till men are disposed to give serious attention to what we propose, our arguments and advices are frivolous." As a matter of fact this is indisputable. But it does not quite decide the question, whether the word be rightly used in this sense or not. Our own opinion is, that it may be lawfully so used: that is, that none should be precluded from using it in this way; and that this great positive evil has arisen from its being a proscribed word, that men have not been sufficiently admonished that a deliberate consecration of the heart to GOD is first needed before the word spoken can gain admittance into the heart, or bring forth its appointed fruits. At the same time these two points are specially to be borne in mind; first, that in its proper and strict dogmatical sense, Holy Scripture makes it the equivalent of Baptism into the Church; and secondly, that when used more popularly, it does not signify that entire change of heart which gives a title to salvation under the Gospel, but simply a recovery from some sin committed to the state in which the person was before, which may or not have been a state of acceptance.

The practical point, however, in which we are quite one with the Archdeacon is this, that by abstaining systematically from the use of the word, the due order of preaching has in some measure been subverted; that is, we have gone into the detail of particular duties without sufficiently insisting on that previous preparation of heart, which consists in removing the crust of worldliness, which too many have allowed altogether to stifle the inner life of the regenerate soul. To such persons, certainly, the one only thing to be said is, Your heart must be given to God; you must undergo a change; you must strive to become what you once were, when GOD's Spirit was yet alive in you, even the seed of regeneration; in other words, you must be converted. We do not then object to the employment of the term in the way of adaptation and analogy; only let it be remembered that if we have suffered from its entire exclusion from the phraseology of the orthodox portion of the Church, because there is no other word to be found equally expressive, truth and piety have been still more severely wounded by its unwarrantable enforcement upon all, without reference either to the bestowal of baptismal grace or to the character of a man's past life.

But it is time to draw these remarks to a close. Dry they will be considered, we fear, by some. But if they are found to be practical, we shall be satisfied. We have written under the impression, that sufficient pains are not always bestowed by the Clergy in preparing for the pulpit; and we are of opinion that more advantage might be taken of the general desire which is felt for "hearing sermons." The skill of the workman is shown, not so much in making a good work out of good materials, as in making the best of such as happen to come to hand. Now persons who never communicate, and scarcely pray, will listen to

sermons. Surely, then, it is worth considering how we may make the most of this disposition, which, if not itself religion, is at least an opportunity for promoting it. S. John Chrysostom earned his honourable title in the service of CHRIST; and the solid arguments of Bourdaloue have received no slight additional persuasiveness from the eloquence with which they are expressed. The equals of these great preachers we are not likely now to see; but their writings are still available to us as models.

ON THE OFFICE OF BISHOPS AND THEIR VISITATIONS. WHATEVER may be the inconveniences which have of late years arisen from the public and warm discussions of subjects relating to the Church, too important for the columns of a newspaper, and too profound for the comprehension of the majority of even well educated men, one consequence of this collision of opinions and these tumultuous discussions may be valuable, and produce excellent effects. It is this: people have begun to feel that there is something very unsatisfactory in the grounds and reasons advanced by the organs and champions of public opinion on both sides, in almost every instance in which matters of Ecclesiastical polity have been discussed. They have begun to suspect that these matters are not quite so easy and obvious as they have been used to believe; that what is called common sense affords no solution of their difficulty, and that many things which have passed for principles, are little more than received common-places quite inapplicable to practical purposes. Those, who are not mere declaimers and party men, or shallow thinkers, have perceived more or less clearly that there is somewhere an unexplored or imperfectly known region where certain truths are treasured up, the fundamental principles whereon the whole machine and economy of Church government are grounded; and that those principles are required to infuse life into our Ecclesiastical constitution, as well as to settle the doubts and disputes which circumstances or human perversity from time to time create.

Let us suppose a great empire in which there is indeed a regularly constituted administration, with a multitude of offices subservient in various departments to the public welfare; but wherein no one cares to investigate the spirit of those institutions, their relation to each other and to the commonwealth, and the benefits which ought to accrue from each, and from the combination of all for the happiness and honour of the body politic. What would be the consequence of such a state of things? Such a government would be like a man possessing a precious scientific instrument, but wanting the knowledge to use it otherwise than by a species of imitation and the force of mere mechanical habit. Some advantage he may derive from it, but its more recondite and important uses are utterly lost to him. He can do nothing beyond his usual practice. If he is required to deal with any uncommon difficulty, he stands amazed and embarrassed. Such a government as we have supposed must moreover be liable to decay. Many things therein will thereby become obsolete and suffer a change, because no one knows what they