plicable to the character of such amusements. Now, if balls come within this description, they are clearly forbidden, not to clergymen alone, but to all Christians, by St. Paul's words, (Gal. v. 21;) and it is worth remarking, that St. Paul in these words distinguishes "revellings" from "drunkenness," (with which it is, I think, usual to identify these,) and excludes from strict Christian practice, not the things specified only, but others of like nature as well.

With respect to the first position above stated, I said that I believed "things indifferent" to be much fewer than is ordinarily supposed; and therefore that, in point of fact, the rule for clergy and laity is almost, if not entirely, the same. In this statement I am glad to be borne out by the opinion of your correspondent " J. C.," with whom I quite agree in considering, that "the Christian has no indifferent actions.' He is, in my judgment, quite right in making this statement without qualification. Qualifications to it of course there are; but they are such as obviously suggest themselves; and it is best not to weaken important moral statements for the sake of meeting all possible objections. I think, with your correspondent, that the number of indifferent actions in life is so small as to justify his universal negative. Let any one consider how actions, abstractedly the most insignificant, gain importance from circumstances, and he will surely be unwilling to admit exceptions to your correspondent's seemingly rigorous rule. This is just the fallacy which persons impose upon themselves, and try to impose upon others." What harm," they ask, "in such an action?" naming one which is abstractedly trivial, but leaving out of the account the circumstances which may render it absolutely wrong in a particular case. The sentiment may be thought absurd ; but there is no question that the most important principles may be involved in such (apparent) trifles as the wearing of a white hat or a black neckcloth.

The tendency of this remark is to shew that most, if not all, actions admit of being tested by some better criterion than the mere opinion of others. And if this be so, it will follow that the rule of lay and clerical conduct will nearly, if not altogether, coincide. We should not lower the clerical, but raise the lay standard. It is quite true, as "J. C." observes, that St. Paul writes, not for the clergy, but for the church. I know not why we should think that clergymen are more bound than other Christians to make good use of their time; to attend to the religious welfare of their households; to avoid occasions of excitement; to discourage sin in every, however disguised, shape; in fine, "to have (while in the world) their conversation in heaven." Now, try by some or all of these rules many of those amusements which are ordinarily permitted to the laity and forbidden to the clergy; hunting, for instance, or play or ball going. I ask, whether they can fairly be pronounced consistent with the profession of those who are "called to be saints?"

I have, for the sake of exemplification, classed together plays and balls; for I am far from wishing to represent them as standing upon the same ground. The main objections to balls are, that they encourage an unhealthy state of mind, lead (I will say necessarily) to "foolish talking," and (commonly) to selfishness and dissimulation,

and break in upon religious and domestic habits. Of that which is essential, or practically essential, to them, it would be too severe to say that it is sinful, but only true that it borders very closely upon positive sin. But of the amusements of the stage much more than this must be said. It must be said of them that, as now conducted, sin is wrought into their very nature. For were it to be granted (as it is surely too much to grant) that neither the prejudicial influence of these amusements upon the character of the performers, nor their actual connexion with positive and gross vice,* nor their tendency to weaken serious and right impressions by the inculcation of profligate sentiments and the use of irreverent language, be objections singly sufficient to condemn them, yet surely the cumulative force of these objections is such as to render the theatre a forbidden place to those who are warned against having "fellowship with the works of darkness, (Eph. v. 11.)

Of balls, on the other hand, it were truer to say that their tendencies are dangerous, than that they are in themselves sinful. I believe that, as a matter of fact, they do much harm; encourage a great deal of vanity, ill will, manoeuvring, and (as I may call it) refined sensuality; lead to the having of "the person" in admiration, and thus especially foster those worldly regards and associations from which it should be the Christian's business to disengage himself. And if such be their plain tendency, it makes no difference towards the main question that this tendency is in many instances (as we trust) not developed into a result. If, again, it be urged that other social meetings have the same tendency, that sin may be extracted from everything, that "to the pure all things are pure," &c., I answer, that all this is of course, in a certain sense, perfectly true; that it is a question of degree, and that the objection here made to balls is grounded upon the supposition of their having these bad tendencies in a greater degree than other social meetings. Of course, if other recreations have the same tendency, the rule must be made still more exclusive. But, for my own part, I believe that the aforementioned tendencies exist in balls far more than in social meetings, which are free from their peculiarly exciting accompaniments, and which, as they terminate at an earlier hour, are not in the same way destructive of those habits of periodical devotion and domestic regularity upon which a person is not justified in admitting a single unnecessary encroachment. Take, again, the late Bishop of Limerick's test+ of Christian society, its compatibility with serious conversation. I believe that the application of this test would be more unfavourable to balls than to other social meetings. I believe that the most serious minded person would find himself unable to talk seriously to his partner at a ball. frivolous conversation would seem out of place.

Any but

It should be said, in justice to Mr. Macready, the present proprietor of Covent Garden theatre, that he has taken active measures to obviate this part of the objection to theatrical amusements as at present conducted.

In his excellent "Letter to a Clergyman on Fashionable Amusements," lately published upon a single sheet; with the no less excellent Letter of King George the Third to Archbishop Cornwallis on the same subject.

A few words upon the principle, " to the pure all things are pure." Most unquestionably they are so. There is a state of purity conceivable (even upon earth) which would render even contact with vice harmless to the mind possessed of it. But this is a state to which most Christians are tending, rather than one to which they have as yet attained. And, while still in that state of progress, they do neither wisely nor well to brave temptation, through a confidence (possibly mistaken, and, if mistaken, how serious the mistake!) in their own powers of resistance. There is such a thing as over sensitiveness in such matters, no doubt; but so, on the other hand, there is danger of self-deception. It must be remembered, too, that such oversensitiveness is more easily imputed than disproved.

Between attending balls occasionally and frequenting them, there is, of course, a great difference; and the case is conceivable in which going to a ball might even be felt as an act of self denying duty. But it must be remembered, with respect to the former case, that it is very dangerous to admit exceptions to a rule of conduct; and with respect to the latter, that a person who goes to a ball even once countenances thereby the system which, by the hypothesis, he disapproves; and that many more will take courage by his example than will know or appreciate his motives. I am, Sir, your obedient servant, F. O.

PROHIBITION OF MARRIAGE.

SIR,-Allow me to lay before your readers the following prohibitions of marriages, which, in the general rule, deserve to be called "unseemly, and even monstrous." They are distinct from those in canons 99 and 100, and derive their authority in our ecclesiastical courts from the ancient constitutions of the church, and confirmatory acts of parliament passed at the time of our religious revolution in the sixteenth century. I think they will be allowed to merit the considerate attention of any of the parochial clergy who have not been previously acquainted with them.

1. Carnal knowledge is held to create affinity as much as marriage; so that, if a man chance carnally to know a woman, he may not marry her daughter, sister, mother, father or mother's sister, &c.; and similarly the woman may not marry his son, brother, &c.Vid. 28 Hen. VIII. cap. 7; and the report of the case of Harrison v. Burwell, by Ventris and Chief Justice Vaughan.

2. Persons pre-contracted may not marry contrary to that precontract.-Vid. Constitutions of St. Edmund, 1236, and of Walter Raynold, 1322; also the 32 Hen. VIII. cap. 38, and its repeal in 2 Edward VI.

3. A person having a husband or wife still living is forbidden to marry.—Vid. 1 James I. cap. 11.

To these others might be added, such as natural impotency, idiotcy, lunacy, one of the parties being a Jew; but enough has been said to shew that a clergyman may, and ought to, refuse the church's

+

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marriage sanction; and a spectator, having knowledge of the circumstances, to forbid banns in certain cases, not even alluded to in canons 99 and 100. And a clergyman, therefore, anxious, as we must suppose him to be, to carry into execution the discipline of the church, is bound to seek and act upon a much more extensive knowledge of her decisions on this subject than he can obtain from those canons.

But it is not permitted us to limit a clergyman's obligations to the enforcing the church's discipline as now existing. She herself laments that that discipline is imperfect, and desires its restoration to a state of more primitive strictness; and those, if her clergy therefore, who imbibe her spirit in this respect, (and so far as they do imbibe it in this and other respects, and no further, are they her faithful and efficient ministers,) will be ready to seize all opportunities that offer to lessen and remove the obstacles which have hitherto prevented that restoration; they will not be deterred by its unpopularity from bringing a subject of such importance before those entrusted to their care. They will endeavour to introduce and foster customs that may smooth the way to the final reestablishment of that purifying discipline which they feel to be the one thing most needful to the perfection of her they love and serve. Such, too, will hear the words of the unbelieving radical, "set thy house in order," and the various echoes that have been returned from kindred spirits and their deluded followers" divide thy wealth more equally"-"exact no longer oaths that no one keeps" and "blot out even the remembrance of obnoxious canons," as the war-cries of an enemy, not the advice of a friend. They will feel convinced that the one only condition required by Providence for the preservation of a church is, that she should be true to herself-that she should refuse to tarnish the purity, or to dim the lustre, of a single one of her apostolical institutions, by compromising with rebellious subjects, and even hostile heretics, though at the risk of forfeiting present peace, and even apparently present existence.

Surely the only death a church can die is that of suicide. If instead of-in disregard of the wills of donors, long-continued rights, and in some cases manifest convenience-dividing their wealth, in compliment to the legislative fashion of the day, in such a way as to make the situation of the bulk of the clergy more apparently equal than it is at present, some men would reform, not outward circumstances, but inward, and freely give the larger portion, or even the whole, of their clerical incomes, in relief of the poor amongst their brethren or the laity, as was sometimes done in former times,-if instead of ceasing to enjoin oaths because they found them no longer kept, they would do their best to correct the erroneous impression that has gone abroad respecting their obligation, by declaring the guilt incurred in breaking them, and punishing it to the utmost of their power, and if, again, there were sufficient humility, wise humility, in them, to allow of their bestowing some impartial attention upon those long neglected legacies of the rulers of the church in better times-I mean the "popularly obnoxious" canons—and, thoughtless of their unpopularity, except as affording increased reason for caution, they would proceed VOL. XIV.-Sept. 1838.

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with as much regard to altered circumstances as need be, but still actually to put them in force, the church would indeed have set her house in order; but it would be for life, and not for death. She might be unestablished; she might be robbed of all her property, and "prophesy in sackcloth," but still she would exist; a preference of peace to purity, of concord to truth, would not have caused her candlestick to be removed.

But if so, the preservation of our church is, according to the sphere given him, in the hands of every clergyman, and, in some most important points, of every layman in the community. The diligent acting upon the view here given will cause to live much that is else but dead letter; and it will not, like petitions for convocations and synods, trench upon the deference due to our governors, but, by a frequent reference of difficulties to them, bring before them the need of reenacting ancient laws, either by their own or synodal authority, in a way that cannot fail of being attended to. I remain, Sir, &c. S. P.

NOTICES AND REVIEWS.

A Grammar of the New-Testament Dialect. By Moses Stuart, Professor of Sacred Literature in the Theological Seminary at Andover (U.S.) London: Stewart, and Burns. 1838. 12mo.

THE reviewer has so often got into scrapes by noticing a word or two in the prefaces of anonymous editors, who are quite certain that all the world knows their name and fame, and that consequently it was intended to annoy them personally, that he must begin by declaring most positively that he has no notion whatever who the English editor of this grammar is; he can only say, that a better puffer could not be found, as witness what follows: "To those who ask for evidence of the former (the author's qualifications), it may be sufficient to mention Professor Stuart's Commentaries on the Epistles to the Romans and Hebrews-works which stand alone in the whole range of English critical commentaries on the scripture! and which will ever remain imperishable monuments (!) of his skill as an interpreter, of his eminence as a sacred philologer, and of his sagacity as a critic. (!)" The justice of this eulogy will perhaps be more conspicuous at the end of this article than it is now. Here the reviewer will only express his hope that these commentaries will always stand alone in the whole range of English critical commentaries, for a different reason from that for which they may be said with some truth to do so now*-which is, that English sacred literature is sadly and discreditably deficient in critical commentaries on scripture. It is almost the only branch of divinity of

It is the more remarkable that the editor should have written thus as to English critical commentaries, when his hero, at the end of the preface to the Commentary on the Hebrews, notices at some length the entire deficiency of them.