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One of these is the depravity of man's nature, of which he tells us "the creeds say nothing ;" another is justification by faith; and a third, sanctification by the Holy Ghost, whom Jesus died and rose again in order to bestow. All these are modern follies, according to our preacher. "The creeds say nothing of man's depravity, or of schemes for his salvation. They speak of God, and of what God is and has done." Mr. Hebert has so patiently, and with almost an excess of Christian forbearance and gentleness, tracked out the sophistry of these two sermons, that we shall satisfy ourselves with commending his pamphlet, which is printed cheaply for distribution, to the notice of our readers; and at the same time thanking him for his opportune defence of scriptural truth. We have spoken of the arrogance of Mr. Llewelyn Davies and his school, and we have no disposition to recal the word. Whether harsher terms ought not to be employed, is the only question; for there are times when men are to be rebuked sharply by all who love the truth of God. The dishonesty of the Germanizing school is at least equal to the dishonesty of the Tractarian school, while they remain within the church of England. The peril to the souls of their hearers is even greater. English common sense revolts against the popish harlequinades performed on Sundays at St. George's in the East. The better education of a West End audience scarcely detects the poisonous sophistries of Christ Church, Marylebone. There they have scripture texts, and even an evangelical phraseology; and, more attractive still to a considerable class of fashionable church-goers, a fine sprinkling of what is called metaphysical reasoning. This reasoning, it is true, is of the most frothy kind; but it serves its purpose. It diverts from solemn thoughts and deep searchings of heart, filling the mind with speculative notions with which conscience does not intermeddle. It flatters the hearer with a conceit of his superior penetration and loftier reach of thought. It ministers to intellectual vanity; and is, in short, an easy method by which smatterers and simpletons beguile each other, while the god of this world reigns unmolested in the soul.

It is a grievous downfall, this new heresy. Tractarianism was all our own. This bad pre-eminence cannot be assigned to us in the German Neo-platonic divinity. Other communities are not free from the baneful infection: it must be met at once with a courage proportioned to the danger with which the church is threatened, and with a compassion, if that were possible, proportioned to the guilt and peril which those incur who adulterate the bread of life with poison, and destroy the souls for whom the Lord Jesus shed his precious blood:

"But what," exclaims Mr. Hebert, "should be felt regarding those who publicly teach those opinions? Must not these notions shed a blight of death on their ministry? I tremble to write what the end must be to themselves.

"What, then, should be the sorrow, what the intercessions, and what the efforts on the part of all those who see in the Lamb of God the propitiation for all their sins, to rescue such ministers and their people from what they must believe to be a most deadly downfall. Surely love is not that which doubtingly or coldly leaves them to their way, but rather that which earnestly and believingly strives to win them to seek after like precious faith in the saving power of the death of Jesus." (Hebert, p. 50.)

LITURGICAL MUSIC.

"A Morning Service," consisting of "Venite," "Te Deum," and "Jubilate," with Introductory Remarks on "Liturgical Music; and an Appendix on the Verbal Suggestion of Musical Language." By the Rev. Edward Young, of Trinity College, Cambridge. Wright, Bristol. 1860.

Ir must be admitted, that every part of the Divine service should be so conducted as not only to answer to the apostle's requisition, decently and in order, but to promote the highest degree of edification of which it is capable. Tried by this standard, it is well to inquire in what degree the music in our churches is subservient to this end. To form a due estimate of its employment, we must understand its real character. We are apt to describe music as an art; but, strictly speaking, music is no art, but a natural quality-in other words, a divine gift. "Man," as Mr. Young argues, "no more made music than he made light; and he can no more unmake his sensibility to it without savage and guilty violence, than he can destroy his sensibility to the great objects of intellectual and moral vision." The judicious Hooker, in his Ecclesiastical Polity, does justice to the character and dignity of this divine gift :

"Though musical harmony, whether by instrument or voice, he but of high and low in sounds, a due proportionable disposition; such, notwithstanding, is the force thereof, and so pleasing its effects in that very part of man which is most divine, that some have been thereby induced to think that the soul itself by nature is, or hath in it, harmony; a thing which delighteth all ages and beseemeth all states: a thing as seasonable in grief as in joy; as decent, being added to actions of greatest weight and solemnity, as being used when men most sequester themselves from action. The reason whereof is an admirable facility which music hath, to express and represent to the mind more inwardly than any other sensible mean the very standing, rising, and falling, the very steps and inflexions, the turn and varieties of all passions to which the mind is subject; yea, so to imitate them, that whether it resemble the same state in which our minds are, or the direct opposite, we are not more contented, by the one confirmed, than changed and led away by the other." (Hooker's Eccles. Polity, vol. xxxviii.)

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To determine the accuracy of this description, it is not necessary that a man should be musically intelligent, or even possess the faculty for musical enjoyment. Though wholly devoid of ear or taste, he can examine testimony of the highest authority, the word of God, where he will learn what attributes have been ascribed to it.

"It were easy," says Mr. Young, "to present"-and, indeed, he has himself presented"" an array of instances that must startle the thoughtless, and rebuke the gainsayer-instances scattered over the whole area of God's revealed government, from the morning stars singing together over the glories of creation, to that final triumph of Redemption, when they shall sing a new song in the heavenly places." (Introd., p. vi.)

The number, however, of those who are wholly destitute of musical perception is but small. In most cases the faculty exists, though in some it has become deadened by want of exercise. Let there be the least sense of pleasure in any sound, whether vocal or instrumental, and there is the gift, which needs only cultivation to make it answer the purpose designed by the Giver.

But if it be allowed that music is a divine gift, and the power to appreciate its character possessed by the mass of our congregations, then the question arises, what mode or style of musical composition is best suited for our church services? In this inquiry of course must be borne in mind the state of the hearers; for as music is but a means to an end, unless the mind is duly enlightened, and the heart attuned, the most devotional strains may fail of their object. Supposing, however, the mind prepared to receive a devout impression, then we need scarce observe, as a preliminary, that the music shall be of a character to interest and please. And yet, strange to say, some good persons have been jealous in this particular, as if the pleasantness of a melody must necessarily lead astray; beguiling the mind from devout sentiment to a carnal enjoyment. But these surely overlook the fact, that if the music be music, and there be a faculty of apprehension in the hearer, it must of necessity be pleasant; for this is the very quality of the gift. When David seized his harp, whether it was to accompany themes of joy and thanksgiving, or to soothe, calm, and enliven the soul in times of sorrow, the very object aimed at depended upon the pleasantness of the strain. Thus St. James recognises music as the very expression of a joyous emotion: "Is any merry, let him sing psalms." It is impossible, in point of fact, absolutely to separate the means and the effect, and to define what, in a service of praise, may pertain to the natural, and what to the spiritual part of man. God, indeed, is often pleased to make that which is confessedly natural subserve that which is spiritual. "All things serve Him :" and if the outward delight experienced in some pleasant melody open the heart to the sentiment it accompanies, a man has no more right to grudge the pleasure, than one who has been converted under the

ministry of the word, the particular external endowments of the preacher who may at first have arrested his attention. It was this morbid jealousy that led an old divine to say: "It is a great gift to have no gift." Assuredly it is vastly truer divinity, and a vastly greater gift, to have the love of God constraining us to devote our highest natural endowments to His service. St. Paul, so far from putting any check upon a hallowed ambition lest the divine gifts should become a snare, while he points out the "more excellent way," bids us, at the same time, to "covet earnestly the best of gifts."

Still, all will agree, that not every pleasurable strain is becoming a sacred service; for some are so manifestly frivolous in their character, or worldly in their associations, that devout feeling cannot but be outraged by their introduction into the house of God. A certain tone of seriousness, gravity, and earnestness should unquestionably pervade all portions, whether of praise or prayer. As Mr. Young observes, the very "expressiveness of the church cannot be the expressiveness of the theatre; nor the elaboration of the church the elaboration of the concert-room."

To speak of particulars, we may observe, that the portion of our musical service most valued, as admitting general participation, is the chorale, or psalm tune. This may be termed the child of the Reformation; for if it was not originated in that great religious movement, it was so adopted, cultivated, and carried out in practice, that it proved one great means for the dissemination of gospel truth. Of this there is abundant proof. To cite a single instance; bishop Jewell notes, in a letter to Peter Martyr, that a change now appears visible among the people which nothing promotes more than the inviting them to sing psalms. "This was begun in one church in London, and did quickly spread itself, not only through the city, but in the neighbouring places; sometimes at Paul's Cross there will be 6000 people singing together."

The style of tune now introduced in most churches is well calculated, on the whole, to encourage this devotional practice. Good, substantial harmonies, with sufficient melody to prevent heaviness, characterise such tunes as Bedford, St. James', St. Bride's, St. Ann's, and a host of others, which form the staple of our psalmody; while light and vapid compositions, as “Rousseau's Dream," as well as certain coarser effusions, have been for the most part discarded. But it is still too apt to be overlooked, that taste in music, as in other branches of art, is a quality capable of improvement; and that no one, on the mere ground of his likings and dislikings, should too confidently pronounce this to be good and that bad, till he has moulded his predilections and guided his judgment upon the best models.

But the best kind of psalm tune as a medium of conveying ideas is open, after all, to a serious objection. Not only are the

verses of the same hymn, though varied in sentiment, applied, verse by verse, to the same melody and harmony; but the words of each several verse are all yoked to the same harness, bound to go at the same pace-particles and mere auxiliaries having equal weight with their principals. This, of course, is a defect. We do not speak or read in this style. And yet, incongruous as it may seem that all distinctions in the relative value of words should be thus disregarded, the general impression is, after all, not very materially affected. The remark of Cecil to Henry Martyn in St. Paul's Cathedral, when, pointing out a main feature in pulpit oratory, he waved his hand toward the dome, and said, Cupola painting-cupola painting," applies equally to music. Broad dashes of light and shade, strains strongly marked by their characteristic peculiarities, will produce the desired effect amongst the people, when minute delicacies and more exact proprieties would be unperceived or unappreciated. It must also be remembered, that there is, in the broad facts of metrical structure, a very considerable amount of adaptation between verse and tune. Despite, therefore, incidental incongruities, if the music respond to the general idea of the words, the mind will be raised or bowed down according to the tenor of the strain.

But is there not some style of composition which may accommodate itself to the requirements of a general participation, at the same time that it is a strict exponent of each successive idea with which it is associated? Will the chant answer this purpose ? Now the chant is plainly as artificial as the chorale. Whatever the words, the first part runs upon one melodic note, though each division closes with its varied harmonies. Rigid, therefore, as to its style of composition, it will be at once seen, that unless words are written expressly to suit the style, incongruities must necessarily abound in an ordinary chant. To this Mr. Young makes evident allusion in the following passage:

"In the Jubilate we speak to each other and our own souls. In the Te Deum we speak to God. In the Venite God speaks to us; and in terms that may well excite amazement how words so deep and dreadful can so often run with such frightful volubility across our lips. We begin indeed with mutual exhortation, as in the Jubilate,- O come let us sing and heartily rejoice:' and we appeal to acts and attributes that may well intone our hearts and raise our songs. But the two first verses are no sooner over, than we are wrapt in the clouds of mystery that surround the throne. Anon comes the trumpet call, To-day, if ye will hear his voice; and then that sad expostulatory appeal to things that happened as examples,' bringing us step by step before the very threshold of the living oracle and open vision- Your fathers tempted me and proved me -I was grieved, and sware they should not see my rest.' To jumble all these things in a running sentence; to sing them with the same accent, the same tone, rhythm, measure, and rapidity; to make them fit one after another, into the same framework of musical carpentry; to go, without so much as breathing time, from joy to grief, from exulta-.

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