One of these was very special, coming as it did from a stranger to these parts, but one observant of what was going on, possessed of quick sympathy with the movement, and able by abundant liberality to aid its progress. The donation was sent to this auxiliary by means of the Lord Bishop of Chester, accompanied by a kind and approving letter from his lordship. The gift was

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nymous, the donor signing himself an Octogenarian Friend," but it is now understood that this venerable friend (since dead) was the Rev. Thomas Gisborne, Prebendary of Durham.

Altogether, on reviewing the past year, we cannot help exclaiming, "What hath God wrought?" for the work has manifestly been of him. It was commenced and carried on, not in a spirit of vain glory or unholy excitement, but in much humility and self-abasement of mind, in earnest prayer for the guidance and blessing of God, and with no small measure of spiritual delight and satisfaction to the parties engaged. And though it is impossible to trace all the effects of so large a supply of the Word of God, working its way in many instances into the very obscurest recesses of society, yet many pleasing instances of usefulness came to be known, and more might be found if diligently enquired after. Enough

has come to light to assure us, that the seal of Divine approbation has been unequivocally affixed to this work of faith and labour of love.

One more feature of the recent movement remains to be noticedthe character of a large part of the agency employed. Heretofore, the greater portion of the distributors of the Scriptures have been persons in a condition of life above the workingclasses. But in the instance referred to, most of the parties who actually sold the Bibles and Testaments were the religious part of the workingclasses themselves, who became active agents in the distribution. Whether their fellow-workpeople received the Scriptures with less suspicion, as coming from those whose motives were not liable to be misunderstood, and in whom they had full confidence, we cannot positively affirm; but the fact is indisputable, that no distributors of the Bible were ever more successful in securing a large number of purchasers. While, therefore, we hope that the old and faithful friends of the Bible Society-the collectors and agents of the Ladies' Associations, will continue their labours of love with unabated zeal and increasing success, we trust that this new class of agency, which has worked so effectively in this instance, will hereafter be brought more systematically into operation.

It is with very great regret we record in our present paper the decease of the Rev. Edmund Dewdney, A.M., of St. John's College, Cambridge, who expired at Florence, on the 18th of June last. The above gentleman was a native of Dorking, where his family is still located, and on the resignation of the Rev. W. S. Dusautoy succeeded to the incumbency of St. John's, Portsea, where for thirteen years he laboured with an assiduity and devotedness of no ordinary character. For several years he conducted the entire of four weekly services, and when his failing health rendered even the help of a curate insufficient, he went to Switzerland and Italy, in October, 1845, in the hope that rest would restore his shattered constitution. He continued abroad with some alternations in his health till a few weeks since, when he was attacked by fever, which left him weak, but in no immediate danger. Up to the 18th of June he had continued improving, and on the 17th passed an unusually easy night. In the morning he suffered a relapse of the fever, but with no apparent danger till towards noon, when he became rapidly worse, and died at twenty minutes to twelve. It would be idle to attempt a panegyric upon DECEMBER-1847.

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the Rev. Edmund Dewdney, but it is due alike to those who loved him while living, and who will long lament him now that he is gone to his rest, as well as to those whose nearer union will attach them more to his bright example, that we should attempt to record the estimation in which he was held, who was a mighty man in our Israel. The diocese of Winchester has lost one of its most able preachers, one of its most spiritual divines, one of its best men. style comprised two opposite characteristics. In a cottage lecture it was the perfection of colloquialism; in a studied sermon it was highly argumentative and intellectual, and often loftily eloquent. He possessed an unusual power of reaching the heart, arising, perhaps, chiefly from the thorough conviction that he always impressed upon his hearers that he was in earnest, that he felt and acted in his life what he taught in the pulpit. He drank deeply of truth at the fountain head, and he imparted freely to others what he had freely received. He never presented partial truth; he declared the whole counsel of God, at all times, and in all places. As a public man (we say it fearlessly,) the locality has not his equal in the living generation. Adopting his side

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always from high motives, he had a lofty disregard of self, and a noble scorn of the temporizing principles of worldly policy. Whatever he had to do, he did it with his might. As a benefactor of the poor, a reliever of the distressed, his worth will be seen only in the light of eternity. With a private fortune not large, with less than £200 a year from his incumbency, his charities were munificent; oftentimes when no public list would show them, and they are known only by accident. As a private friend few will look upon his like again. His affectionate sympathy, his able counsel, his generous help, were freely accorded, and he was always accessible. In this character, also, he will be doubly endeared to many of his congregation. Blessed beyond most men in his Master's work, his labours were specially acknowledged in the gathering of the young-"the lambs of the fold." To many such his loss will be irreparable. Such a clergyman, combined with such a friend, is a treasure of no common value. The friendship can be renewed only when the pastorship will not be needed. Even his faults were those of a generous and ardent temper, such as a cold heart or a coward spirit would never have fallen into. He could not brook a cool argument about the relief of suffering humanity, and had no sympathy with the worldly policy that too often pervades the Church.

He would denounce with all the earnestness, and some of the vehemence of his Master, the hollowness of unpractising profession; and hence the comparatively rich, who thought they had done much when they had made the plate tingle with their shilling, or the comparative temporizers, who thought that Christian principles are too strict to be always used in the town, or the parish, or the nation, were sometimes offended. But here we are forcibly struck with the truth of God's word, that "When a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him." We remember the remark of a neighbouring clergyman, made now two years ago—"I have just been to see Mr. Dewdney, who is unwell. I always leave him with a higher opinion of him. He seems ripening for glory." We believe that public opinion has gone in accordance with this. Even those who differed, and thought him harsh, have, in their calmer judgment, thought him sincere and faithful. He died universally honoured and lamented. this tribute of respect we cannot but mingle one breathing of regret that such a man should pass from this stage, being only an incumbent of a proprietary chapel. The honours of the Church above are awarded by other rules than those of the Church below.-Hampshire Advertiser, July 3, 1847.

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might, it is true, arise against it, from the very fact that its fundamental principles are identical with those of the religious organizations antecedent to Christianity, especially those of the Jewish dispensation; for it might well be argued, is Christianity nothing more than a reproduction of such systems under a form suited to universal acceptance? Do the prophets, for example, when they speak of the

future Church of Christ, establish no essential distinction between it and the system under which they lived? Is there no progression, no gradual unfolding in the divine appointments? On the other hand, it might be maintained that the fact of this similarity in principle only proves that the Romish view of the Church is founded in nature, that what is found in all systems of religion previous to Christianity cannot surely be wanting in it, the last, and most perfect, product of the divine wisdom. The Romish controversialist may apply to all parts of his ecclesiastical system the reasoning by which he defends the mass, viz., that since "the servants of God had by His appointment, sacrifice both under the law of nature and the written law, it would be extraordinary if, under the law of grace, they were left destitute of this, the most sublime and excellent act of religion which man can offer his Creator."* It was impossible to draw out our sketch of the Romish doctrine of the Church without hinting, as we went along, at what we believe to be its fundamental errors; but this seems the place for noticing them more fully.

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The great error, then, as it to us, which pervades the Romish view, and, we may add, all Romanizing views, of the Church is, a confounding the essentially opposite ideas expressed by the terms, "law" and " gospel." "The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ," (John i. 17.); in these few words is, as we conceive, contained the whole difference between the Romish, and the Scriptural, representation, of the Church. The great characteristic of a religious institution founded on the principle of "law" is, that it aims at producing effects upon the character by means of visible ordinances, and positive injunctions; it works from without inwards. Careless, in the first instance, of the inward state of those for whom it is framed, it provides for them a discipline, a frame-work of institutions, by obedience to which the mental habits which the lawgiver wihes to produce, shall be gradually

* Milner, Letter 20.

No one

worked into the character. has described this province of "law" better than Aristotle. In the beginning of the second book of the Nicomachean Ethics, after propounding his theory that moral virtue is produced in us by "habit"—that is, that in order to become just, we must begin by doing just things-he remarks that a confirmation of it may be drawn from the principles of political science, for that "lawgivers aim at making their citizens good by habituation; and this is the scope of all law;"* that is, the lawgiver supplies injunctions, precepts, ordinances, customs, by the working of which on the character, the result he has in view is brought about. It is true that when once this is effected, a reverse action takes place; when the law becomes thus, as it were, an inward rule of action, it is no longer felt to be "law," that is, an outward rule of constraint; the habits formed by it become second nature; what was formerly done from necessity is now done from preference; the letter gives place to the spirit; and now the citizens are enabled, not only to advance spontaneously in the track pointed out to them, but, from time to time, to make new laws in the spirit of the old. It is thus that laws create national character, and then national character reacts upon the laws; what was once extrinsic to the national mind becomes, by degrees, intrinsic to it, becomes a part of the mental constitution of the people; and national character, once formed in this manner, propagates itself. But, although this inward character is what the lawgiver aims at ultimately producing, and although unless it be produced his work is incomplete, his method of bringing about the desired result is still by means of "law," a constraining outward rule; in a word, he works, as we have said, from without inwards, not vice versa.

Now if we examine the most cele

* Μαρτυρεί δε και το γινόμενον εν ταις πολεσιν οι γαρ νομοθετοι τους πολίτας εθίζοντες ποιεσιν αγαθές" και το μεν βουλημα παντος νομοθετου τετ' εστιν. -Ethic. Nic. Lib. 2. c. 1.

brated systems of Paganism, both those which have passed away, and those which still exist, we find that they have all been constructed on the principle of "law." That is, their organization has not developed itself naturally from an internal principle; but, on the contrary, that internal principle (wherever such existed,) was worked into the community by the external organization. The whole outward framework of such systems was delivered by the constructor, perfect and complete, to those upon whom it was intended to work. The Eastern sage came with his religious polity accurately drawn out, and defined in its minutest particulars. He did not look for, nor (on his system) did he want, an antecedent internal principle; this was what he was to create in, gradually to "inure" into, his disciples. The principle, then, of such systems being "law," they were necessarily ceremonial in their essence; everything was definite and prescribed; nothing could be left to be gradually organized by an internal principle when no such principle was supposed to exist; and a rigid system of ordinances, extending to the minutest ramifications of religious duty, was, accordingly, the aspect under which they presented themselves to mankind. How remarkably all this is exemplified in the Brahminical system has already been pointed out, and need not here be repeated.

But what are we to say of the Jewish system, instituted by God himself? We have purposely abstained hitherto from making any remarks upon it, inasmuch as it is too important a subject to be noticed incidentally. For, in truth, this is one of the strongholds of those who, whether Romanists or Romanizers, would construct the Church of Christ on the legal principle. We have seen how frequently the Church of Rome, in her authorized documents, refers to the elder dispensation as warranting her doctrines of the priesthood, the sacrifice of the mass, and the hierarchy. If these things were found in the Mosaic economy, why should they not exist in the Christian? To the same effect argues one who lately belonged to our Church, and was in

communion with her when he wrote as follows, but who has since, constrained by the logical development of his principles, passed over to Rome" If the Old Testament is still our rule of duty, except in such details as imply a local religion, and a material sanctuary; if it is our rule of duty in its principles, its doctrines, its precepts; if the Gospel is but the fulfilment of the law; if the parts in both are the same, only the circumstances without and the spirit within new; if though circumcision is abolished yet there is baptism instead of it; the Passover abolished, yet Holy Communion instead; the Sabbath abolished, yet instead of it the Lord's Day; if the two tables of stone which contained the law are destroyed, yet the Sermon on the Mount takes their place; if though Moses is gone, Christ is come; and if, in like manner, though Aaron is gone, and his priestly line, another order of priests is come instead (and unless this is so, the Old Testament is in a great measure but a dead letter to Christians, &c., &c.)"* This is, as we have said, a favourite line of argument with those who adopt Romanizing views of the Church: it is the more incumbent upon us, therefore, to endeavour to arrive at a clear view of the structure and design of the Mosaic economy.

Whatever traditions of truth and light may have descended from antediluvian times, or emanated from the patriarchal dispensation, seem to have been well-nigh lost, and obliterated from the minds of men, at the time when God issued his commands to Moses to lead the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt. The state of the world at large may be gathered from the sample afforded by the nations of Canaan, as they are represented by the inspired writers of the Old Testament. The time had come when the promises made to Abraham were to be fulfilled, and a new revelation of the divine character and purposes was to be let in, as a beam of heavenly light, upon the benighted world, preparatory to that final and more perfect knowledge of the mind of

* Newman's Sermons, Vol. IV., Ser. 18.