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Granville Sharp, he applied to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Moore, for consecration. The primate expressing a desire to consider the proposal, Dr. Tenbury abruptly left the room, saying: If your grace will not grant me consecration, I know where to obtain it ;" and immediately set off to Aberdeen. He was consecrated, Nov. 14, 1784, by Bishops Kilgour, Petrie, and Skinner. Three years later, the English Church affixed her own seal to the American episcopate; on the 4th of Feb. 1787, the Rev. W. White and the Rev. S. Provoost, who had been duly elected to the sees of Pennsylvania and New York, were consecrated in the chapel of Lambeth Palace.

"Thus, at last (are the words of Mr. Hawkins), after nearly two centuries of struggle, the Church was perfected in America, and from this moment her course has been actively progressive. The Church in the colonies, at the period of their independence, was indeed in a great strait. Unorganized and imperfect, it was little able to meet and triumph over the persecution to which on all sides it was exposed; for while without were fightings, within were fears.' Yet these troubles, threatening as they seemed, were overruled by a merciful Providence for the ultimate benefit of the Church, and were, perhaps, even necessary for its restoration. At the time when it seemed almost in danger of dissolution, it was providentially empowered to renew its strength and to mount up. That Church which, in 1784, ran the risk of being betrayed into some modification of Presbyterianism, now numbers twenty-six bishops, and twelve. hundred and thirty-one clergymen, within its proper borders."

Nor is this energy of spiritual life altogether confined to home cultivation other lands and other nations may hope to share in its warmth and fruitfulness. Two bishops, we learn, have been consecrated for the superintendence of foreign Missions-one for China and the other for Turkey. In closing this book, with the highest feelings of respect and gratitude towards the author, we have written in its last leaf the lines of Keble

"Apostles, prophets, pastors, all

Shall feel the shower of mercy fall,
And, starting at th' Almighty's call,
Give what He gave ;

Till their high deeds the world appal,
And sinners save."

VOL. XX.-N

178

ART. IX.-The Real Danger of the Church of England. By the Rev. W. GRESLEY, M.A., Prebendary of Lichfield. Third Edition: London, Burns, 1846.

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2. An Apology for the Evangelical Party; being a Reply to the Pamphlet of the Rev. W. Gresley, A.M., on "The Real Danger of the Church." By the Rev. F. CLOSE, A.M., Perpetual Curate of Cheltenham. London: Hatchards; and Hamilton and Co. 1846.

OUR readers have, doubtless, remarked many articles in our pages upon the leading points of the great controversy that has agitated the Church during the last few years, and at the same time observed that the tendency of the arguments that have been put forward in them has uniformly been in arrest of the extreme movement we had to notice. No opportunity, however, has been allowed us until now of speaking upon the subject with perfect freedom. We have been obliged to use strong language-too often, indeed, without the admission of mitigating topics-simply because there were in the cases before us no extenuating circumstances to allow of our coming to more favourable conclusions; or because the circumstances that were depended upon to produce that effect were put forth by the parties immediately concerned with too much confidence, and urged upon us with too much pertinacity. The opportunity, however, is at length afforded us ; and we avail ourselves of it to show that, though we have been obliged to speak as we have alluded to, views directly opposite to those we condemned are not necessarily correct or supposed to be so by us-that something short of the opposite extreme must be taken up by those who would read us right.

No two works could possibly be better adapted for this purpose than those which we have placed at the head of this arti cle, as they are the productions of moderate men of the two opposite parties in the Church, and are therefore best suited for the examination of their respective merits. We are not, indeed, about to say that there is nothing in the manner of these writers to call for disapproval: it is not in that sense that we speak of moderation; but the theology they profess is not carried to those extremes that some, who are to be ranked as their friends, would advocate, whether we look to the right or to the left. Ultra indiscretions are repudiated by both gentlemen: the one will not admit that he is a Romanizer;

the other that he is a Puritan: they are short of these extremes, yet opposed to each other.

Mr. Gresley comes forward in defence of Church principles, and mourns that their influence is giving way under a reaction produced by the evangelical party, which he asserts is at issue with the Church as to what the true Gospel really is; and Mr. Close comes forward to remove the impression that has been made on men's minds by Mr. Gresley, by showing that the evangelical party are not what Mr. Gresley has said of them, and that he is proud to belong to them and ever shall be so, notwithstanding the urgency of the arguments of his opponent. Of course we are directed to fundamentals by Mr. Close as well as by Mr. Gresley, and upon the correctness of these fundamentals all the controversy turns. If Mr. Gresley be right, the evangelicals are doing much mischief; if Mr. Close be right, the Anglicans are making demands that ought not for a moment to be listened to. The great thing, then, that we have to do is to settle the fundamentals: the corollaries that spring out of their settlement will follow as a matter of course.

A challenge of a most spirited nature has been given by Mr. Gresley to the evangelical party, and Mr. Close seems fully aware of it; but, what is much more to the purpose, it is put into such a shape as hardly to permit of the evasion of an authoritative decision. It is not like Mr. Ward's challenge, which defeated itself by being mixed up with extraneous matter, and matter that was objectionable as well as extraneous: it is to the point, and wanders not from that point but to show the practical working of the doctrine which the author exposes. There is a great deal of matter besides that which is fundamental, but it is all relative: there is nothing which is not in subordination to the main position. One could not attend to the challenge of Mr. Ward, which amounted to this-that those who opposed him should state their opinions as unreservedly as he did his, and that he should take his chance of the comparison; because there was not only reserve upon the part of his extreme opponent, but no decision could be arrived at by that process. It is not by comparing one error with another that we come to an opinion of the faults of any, but by comparing their sayings and doings with a recognised standard; and it is precisely in this way that Mr. Gresley has brought his opponent to book. We are

much mistaken if it result not in the inconvenience of the evangelical party or their champion, Mr. Close, of Cheltenham; for that gentleman, in coming forward to defend his

party, is pleased to make an exposition of his views which is no less inconsistent with the doctrine of the Church than was the doctrine of Messrs. Ward and Oakeley; and we do most unhesitatingly say that, if it was right to punish those gentlemen, it must be right to punish him. Messrs. Ward and Oakeley were not punished merely for holding Roman doctrine, but for holding that which was disapproved by the Church while they held Church preferment or remained in office; and it is but right that Mr. Close, and those other gentlemen who avow doctrines that are equally disapproved by the Church, should be brought under the notice of the Church and be formally tried, even though the doctrines they hold spring out of different principles. We ought not to be satisfied with punishing only the men who stray from her paths on one side: we ought to look to the right hand and to the left, and repress the desire to wander wherever we find it in operation. This may appear harsh, but it is necessary in the present state of the Church: we do not see how it can possibly be avoided.

Mr. Close, indeed, says (p. 15) that the doctrine repudiated by the extreme section of his party is not the Church's doctrine, or the Scripture doctrine of baptismal regeneration; but only that view of it which Mr. Gresley and his friends adopt. But he afterwards admits that he has no means of judging whether the Church and Mr. Gresley agree-an admission which seems to us to strike at the root of this allegation. He certainly cannot say that the Church has not put forth her view of the doctrine in question. Any uncertainty, therefore, that he may have as to the agreement of that view with Mr. Gresley must arise from Mr. Gresley's silence-the strangest of all possible foundations for such a plea. How can they answer what has never been published? How can they repudiate what they do not know? It is a very pretty piece of special pleading this of Mr. Close's; but for the logic we will not answer. We give it as much for the amusement as the instruction of our readers, and very amusing they will find it. Quoting Mr. Gresley, he says:

"The denial of baptismal regeneration is THE LEADING DOCTRINE not only of Dissenters from the Church, but of the Evangelical or Puritan party within it.' (p 23). Were I to stigmatize this statement as both false and invidious I should do it justice. And upon what is this sweeping accusation based? Upon two or three solitary extracts from fugitive tracts, and from a few paragraphs from the Record newspaper! Are these sufficient to establish such a charge as this against the whole evangelical body? Besides, if we could see the context of these very passages, we should probably find that it was neither the Church's nor the Scripture doctrine of baptis

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mal regeneration, which even these writers abjure, but only that view of it which Mr. G. and his friends adopt. And this is the clue which leads us easily out of this difficult labyrinth in which Mr. G. would involve us. He uses this expression- THE doctrine of baptismal regeneration,' as if it were a term as well defined and understood as the first definition of Euclid; but he never stops to explain what he means by it. He wisely abstains from entering into the scriptural proof of the doctrine of baptismal regeneration;' that task he might have found a difficult one. If his view of baptismal regeneration be what I suspect, he would find more proofs multiplied to him in the writers of the middle ages than in the Scriptures. He attempts to show that the Church holds THE DOCTRINE of baptismal regeneration, while he only proves that she holds 'baptismal regeneration.' But whether she holds the doctrine' which Mr. G. espouses we have no means of judging."-(Close, pp. 15, 16.)

We

The evangelicals have no means of judging of Mr. Gresley's view of baptismal regeneration that shall authorize their repudiation of it, seeing that Mr. Gresley has not announced it sufficiently for that purpose: we have symptoms, however, in the pamphlet before us, and very gratifying they are. have, indeed, to thank Mr. Gresley that he has given us no more than these symptoms: had he gone farther, his statement would have been called an opinion, and put upon the shelf as Mr. Ward's very properly was: it is because he has confined himself to the statement of the doctrine of the Church that this pamphlet is valuable. We have just been quoting Mr. Close-now we will turn to Mr. Gresley :

"For the sake of those amongst my readers, if any there be, who may not be familiar with the subject, I will set down a few short passages from the baptismal service.

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Dearly beloved (it begins), forasmuch as all men are conceived and born in sin, and that our Saviour Christ saith, none can enter into the kingdom of God except he be regenerate, and born anew of water and of the Holy Ghost, I beseech you to call upon God the Father, through our Lord Jesus Christ, that, of His bounteous mercy, He will grant to this child that thing which by nature he cannot have; that he may be baptised with water and the Holy Ghost, and received into Christ's holy Church, and be made a lively member of the same.'

"The priest and people then pray on the child's behalf- Almighty and everlasting God, who.........didst sanctify water to the mystical washing away of sin, we beseech Thee, for Thine infinite mercies, that Thou wilt mercifully look upon this child, wash him, and sanctify him with the Holy Ghost.'

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"Again: We call upon Thee for this infant, that he, coming to Thy holy baptism, may receive remission of his sins by spiritual regenera

tion.'

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Again: the priest says-Sanctify this water to the mystical washing away of sin; and grant that this child, now to be baptised therein, may receive the fulness of Thy grace.'

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