time is so well applied, as to display to the most obtuse its connexion with the matter of the discourse. Rapid glances at the historical career of the papacy occur. He properly observes, that the Romanists, who, like the Scribes and Pharisees, make the word of God of no effect, and by their traditions, set up their church as the supreme judge of the Scriptures, instead of acknowledging the Scriptures to be the judge paramount of the church, and, therefore, keep the Bible as a clasped book, lest the nullity of their pretensions should be discovered. It is not too much to say, that we scarcely recollect to have seen a sermon fraught with more serious, orthodox, and sensible observations and advice, and that we consider it extremely valuable in the present state of Protestant affairs. The Poor Churchman's Quarterly Magazine. Edited by the Rev. T. K. ARNOLD, M. A. Rector of Lyndon, Rutland, and late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. London: Rivington. Nos. 1, 2, 3. THIS is one of the few literary undertakings which performs more than its title promises; for its materials are so judiciously selected, and its style is so very far removed from bathos, that, although every page is calculated to instruct the poor man, the man of education may peruse it with improvement and satisfaction. Its character is decidedly not polemical, yet it does not lose sight of popery and other important questions of religious difference, which affect our Church; it is adapted, respecting these things, to establish the churchman in his faith, and to convince the adversaries, and those who are halting between two opinions. It is fraught with sound doctrine, and a practical application of texts; and whilst it enters into the minutiae of the christian life, it defends church government and religious discipline, by proving their necessary deduction from Scripture. Biographies of reformers and martyrs, historical extracts, interesting anecdotes, narratives of travellers, select and appropriate tales, are so admirably interblended with graver subjects, that no tedium can arise from any one number; for the several parts are so diversified, that the whole becomes as amusing as it is instructive. These fasciculi should be in the hands of every friend of the Church, both for private use and for distribution; and we individually rejoice that we have found in Mr. Arnold so staunch a supporter of our good cause. A Review of a Sermon, by the Rev. W. Jay, on the English Reformation, with an Appendix, containing Strictures on the Dissenters' Catechism; on some recent numbers of the Eclectic Review; and on an Article in the CXXIXth Number of the Edinburgh Review; illustrative of the Calumnies and Misrepresentations, by which the English Church is at present assailed. London: Longman and Co. 1837. Ir is not surprising that Mr. Jay should have preached and published this sermon, nor that the Eclectic and Edinburgh Reviews should have eructated their pestilential venom against our Church; but we regret that, by this writer's review, either Mr. Jay's sermon or the objectionable articles should have been advanced to notice and consequence. We admit the writer's good intentions and zeal; but we doubt his judgment, in giving to himself the easy task of breaking a fly upon the wheel. For many years Argyll Chapel and Mr. Jay have not been unknown to us, though we have never entered the threshold; and we have long been persuaded of Mr. Jay's enmity to the Church. But, as we do not appreciate Mr. Jay's talents as the reviewer appreciates them, and have never given to him credit for any learning, that is critical, without which a man must enter the controversial field of theology, unprovided with arms, we account his sarcasms and his revilings as the mere expressions of disappointed ambition, as the ebullitions of a hatred, which teaches us the standard by which we should measure his so-called christian principles. We therefore consign both the preacher and his sermon to the obscurity in which we imagine they should be rightfully placed, and we trust that this writer will not again disturb their repose, in the silence and ignorance, in which they should lie. Letters to a Member of the Society of Friends. By a Clergyman of the Church of England Nos. 1, 2, 3. London: W. Darton and Son, Holborn-hill. THESE tracts are written with great moderation, and abound with good sense: they prove the author to be capable of more extended undertakings, and to have a mind as well stored with original, as with acquired, materials. But the expediency of these essays, at the present time, when every effort of every Protestant should be directed against the attempts of the Roman Catholic faction in the state, and the Roman Catholic apostasy in the church of God, to obtain the dominant ascendency, may very reasonably be called into question; for, whatever errors may be in the dogmata of Quakerism, the Quakers hold none so dangerous, as those of that insidiously hostile power, which only succumbs to rise, and which rises only to destroy. That is not a time for desultory skirmish, when a general action is at hand. Such is our opinion; we seldom, indeed, find the Quakers assailing our Church; and this is not a crisis in which we should throw down the controversial gauntlet. Now, although the tracts on Baptism and the Lord's Supper display evident proofs that the writer is a master of his subject, and exhibit much which is adduced in a novel light, and which, in an easy and polished style, betrays depth of thought, not mean scholarship and conclusive reasoning, we cannot discard our opinion, that the subjects of his discussion will rather lead to controversial operations, than to that unity of Protestant action, which the times require. We, however, indulge the hope, that in his forthcoming numbers, the author will rather direct his energies to the exposure of that blasphemous hierarchy, which profanes the temple of God and wallows in the blood of his saints, which differs not from us in the rejection of ordinances, like the Quakers, but differs from us, in an accumulation of human ordinances, which are absolute idolatry. Judgment and Mercy for afflicted Souls; or, Meditations, Soliloquies, and Prayers. By FRANCIS QUARLES. To which is prefixed, an Account of his Life and Writings. London: Simpkin, Marshall, and Co. 1837. THE name of Quarles is a sufficient apology for our notice of his book. It was first published by his widow in 1646, and was reprinted in 1807, under the care of Dr. Dibdin, who assumed the name of Reginalde Wolfe, one of the early English printers, and equally celebrated for learning and research in his time. The present is a cheap edition of Dr. Dibdin's revision, in which the modern orthography is also adopted, and the short extracts from the fathers, which he omitted, are inserted. Quarles' maxims and aphorisms, from their pithy, terse, and concise style, have long been properly estimated; and his great ingenuity and clear conception of every thesis, which he proposed for discussion, have been universally acknowledged. The benevolent spirit of his writings is coextensive with his acquaintance with the human heart, which he every where displays; his is a deep and affecting piety, free from fanaticism and moroseness, convincing us by every page, that the lessons, which he inculcates, are the subjects of his own practice. Of all his productions, this appears to be the most exempt from quaintness, and it is excellently suited to be the manual of devotion which he intended it to be. His epithets are sui generis: they are as forcible as they are original, and the whole train of his ideas is removed from that hackneyed and much-worn road, on which many of his day delighted to travel. We subjoin as specimens, "Vain glory is a froth, which, blown off, discovers a great want of measure. .... "Dost thou glory in the favour of a prince? The frown of a prince determines it. Dost thou glory in thy strength? A poor ague betrays it. Dost thou glory in thy wealth? The hand of a thief extinguishes it. Dost thou glory in thy friends? One cloud of adversity darkens it. Dost thou glory in thy parts? Thy own pride obscures it. Behold, my soul, how like a bubble thou appearest, and with a sigh break into sorrow. The gate of heaven is strait; canst thou hope to enter without breaking? The bubble, that would pass the floodgates, must first dissolve." "Build not a house, whose posts are subject to be rotted with a curse.” "Think not that thy unpunished sin is hidden from the eye of Heaven, or that God's judgments will delay for ever; the stalled ox, that wallows in his plenty, and waxes wanton with ease, is not far from slaughter." More is not wanted to recommend the book. Cobbett's Legacies examined, and proved to be null and void to all good intents and purposes. Part Second. Addressed to the Industrious Classes. By A NORFOLK CLERGYMAN. London: Roake and Varty. THIS little tract is calculated to effect the writer's object among the classes to which he has addressed it, if they will read it with unprejudiced attention. Cobbett's allegation, that Christ and his apostles never called on the state for support, is placed in its proper absurdity by the simple fact, that there was no christian civil government in their days, and that it would have been unlawful for them to have sought support from a government, which only tolerated Judaism and Paganism. Many other spiteful, false, and frivolous charges against the Church, and against its connexion with the State, are not only happily refuted by argument and by authorities, but by Cobbett's own words delivered on other occasions; and he is not simply shown to have been inconsistent with himself, and to have been actuated by no upright principle, but to have been an uselessly malicious, and impotent calumniator of the very things, which he formerly advocated. For when a man chooses wilfully to pervert historic documents, and to be designedly blind to evidence lying before his eyes, it is only" by condemning him out of his own mouth," that his dupes can be awakened from their delusion, unless they have the ability to institute researches for themselves, and judgment to weigh facts in their just balance. The author has observed, that by Cobbett's own confession, tithes are the same as rent; adding, that the amount of tithes due on each estate is manifestly allowed in the sum paid to the landlord by the tenant; for who, affecting an unwillingness to pay tithes, on the plea of religious dissent, would, even if these tithes were excused, be found willing (as justice would dictate to him) to pay to the landlord the money remitted on account of his fictitious scruples? Such is the true view of this controverted question; and were tithes to be abolished, and the rent of lands proportionably to be raised, the same clamour, but directed to another object, would continue, and the same agitation of the public mind would be excited by unprincipled and democratic individuals. The tendency of Cobbett's writings, and the object of men like himself, will ever be found to make the poor dissatisfied, to degrade the governing powers, to foster a spirit of turbulence, innovation, and discontent; to propose to the ignorant and greedy, things unattainable; to abuse the aristocracy; to rouse the worst feelings and passions of the human heart, until order be utterly subverted, and a revolutionary scramble ensue, through which they hope to rise into authority, and act a tyrannic part, which would be found worse, than that which they had imputed to the subjects of their malignity. Of the pernicious nature of such writings this pamphlet has given many instances; let those, then, who have been infected by them, apply to it for the refutation. Look before you Leap; being a plain Consideration of what the By ONE 1837. THIS is an essay replete with powerful argument, which is adapted to every capacity. The question is dispassionately stated; and the reasonings, which elicit the answer, are not merely convincing, but unanswerable. There is no violence of political feeling, no acrimony in refutation, no exultation at the selfevident victory which is acquired; but a temperate spirit of disquisition pervades the whole; bringing prominently forwards incontrovertible facts, exposing the unavoidable results of democratic furor, and showing the constitution of the country to be established on the basis of just polity and sound reason. Rapidly criticising the present state of the House of Commons, and proving their responsibility to consist in little more than in their chance of re-election, the writer demonstrates, that the ruin of the country would follow the ruin of the peers; that the aristocracy would, by such an event, fall to a condition that might excite pity from the lowest of the people, whilst to the commoner other resources would remain open; that by sanctioning measures adverse to the real interest of the nation, the nobleman risks title, |