"It must needs look indecently that all men and women should come and make the priest's ear a common sewer, to empty all their filthiness." So much for Bishop Taylor. Bishop Morton also, in his Catholic Appeal, only goes the length of sanctioning proper and scriptural pastoral intercourse and advice, and has written fully and strongly against auricular confession and its "absolute impossibility;" and it would be easy, but for the want of space and time, to show that every other authority quoted has been perverted, except Thorndike, whose leanings towards Rome were such as to deprive his testimony of any authority whatever.

In forming a right estimate of the merits of this question,—the renewal of auricular confession in the English Church,-we must not allow ourselves to be misled for a moment by any statements of our Protestant divines in favour of an open, full, and friendly intercourse on the state of the soul, or of the occasional communication on the bed of death of weighty matters burdening the conscience. All this, which finds an advocate among our great writers, is quite understood and approved among us, and differs, poles asunder, from a compulsory or even voluntary search into all the material circumstances of every sinful act of life, the quis, quod, propter quid, quomodo, quibus auxiliis, ubi, quando! involving a mass of such evil that their own casuists admit the probability that the confessor, dum audit confessiones in tales incideret pollutiones, and are consequently compelled to discuss what is the man's duty in such circumstances. This is the abomination which the British Critic labours to introduce among us, affirming towards the close of the paper, " that nothing short of this (the Romish) ordinance, with its sacramental character (i.e. its absolute necessity for communion), and all its humiliating avowals and confidential intercourse, can be allowed (by him and the Catholic Church) to be complete." In fact, as he explains himself in different pages of the same publication, the regular orders of monkery are to be restored, the whole clergy are to be compelled to celibacy, and then, with a bachelor clergy, the whole unreserved practice of Rome may be again introduced, and become downright, explicit, confiding, comforting, and safe! That is, in fact, -reduce the probabilities of purity to the lowest possible fraction, and then leave the scheme, like Thames water upon a long voyage, to work itself pure! But will it? Let history speak!

We do not deem it necessary to enter upon the general argument against auricular confession, which has for three hundred years been held by Protestants as conclusive against the practice. And we shall not follow the shallow attempt at its vindication by the reviewer, in respect to "such difficulties about the practice of

auricular confession as even a Catholic may feel incolumi fide." We will only here notice the slip which the reviewer has made in this latter part of the paper. He starts in page 323, with a purpose of advancing certain objections which he and other Catholics are disposed to entertain as yet against confession, and says, "We state this difficulty because it haunts us, and we wish to be open!" But in the course of two pages he forgets that he was pretending to urge his own objections, as if not yet quite convinced of the propriety of introducing the scheme among us; and his hostility to Protestant objections rising rampant and impatient of control, we find him, in the true spirit of the party, crying out of one argument, "It comes with a bad grace from Protestants;" of another, "We own ourselves more intolerant;" and of a third, "We will not concede that this objection lies;" and finally, he who commenced with great "openness," as advancing objections, concludes, "Granting the truth of all, and more than all, which is said of the confessional, we can see in it no argument against confession!" What is it that is really wanting here? Is it more honesty or more consistency? Let the general character of the school, for morality and simplicity, decide!

We cannot, in conclusion, withhold the expression of our belief, that the whole scheme of auricular confession arises, as a sort of necessity or makeshift, out of a previous violation of God's order for the "instruction and correction of the soul in righteousness;" and we commend this thought to the Romanists, and to their Tractarian allies. It is because they have taken away the key of knowledge, the rule of right and wrong-the divine standard of moral perfection and Christian propriety-that they have been driven, by the practical difficulty resulting from the previous error, to devise a human system of moral police over the heart, and one which, as a paltry substitute for the direct surveillance of the living God and his truth, must necessarily be imperfect. The wondrous and lovely scheme of moral dominion over fallen man and all the countless corruptions of his heart, is found in the silent, solitary application of revealed Christian truth to the soul. Infinite wisdom has dictated a volume of principle, precept, and example, adapted to the real and thoroughly-known state of the fallen and corrupted creature. The amount of minuteness with which each several evil tendency is treated, the mode in which the overt act is exhibited, and in which the great principle of divine morals is brought to bear on the detail of evil in the interior man, is meted out and specified by a wisdom which cannot err; and at times the concentrated principle is applied in a few words to the whole range of duty; as, "The first commandment is, 'Thou shalt

love the Lord thy God;' and the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," "with a power equally irresistible to enlightened minds, and convincing to the wicked. It at once practically vindicates the honour of God and the rights of man, and scatters to the winds, as vapid and powerless, all the trash of casuistry which self-denying, or seemingly self-denying, monks have concocted as their panacea against corruption.

This blessed volume of infinite wisdom, love, and purity, is the proper superintendent and director of the heart. Here the worshipper or the enquirer really meets his God in the heavenly school of morals. Here every thought is involuntarily brought up for investigation and for judgment. "The word of God is quick and powerful, sharper than a two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." Here, without the utterance for a moment, between man and man, of that which in utterance can only be pollution, the power of redeeming love, carrying its own lucid explanation to every casuistical difficulty, strikes down, like the lightning's blast, upon the latent evil of the heart, and melts or withers it in its native bed. Here all the evil of the heart is brought up in its form of most concentrated virulence -the true culprit and ringleader-the mistrust of divine benevolence; and the manifestation of eternal love in Christ Jesus, silencing and subduing it at the centre of rebellion, overcomes at once the endless variety of corruption, and leads the returning prodigal thankfully to abandon the protracted struggle for each petty privilege of questionable propriety-to fling up with disgust the paltry barter of the confessional, and to live in all holy obedience, because he lives in love and gratitude.

Miserable indeed is the lot of the so-called Christian community, which has abandoned this talisman of sanctifying truth-the daily and nightly watch of the word of God over the heart; and in the consciousness of the tremendous amount of evil which human sagacity found must be encountered, has sought refuge, as a better expedient, in the unrestrained communications of the chair, in the ponderous folios of hair-splitting casuists, and the compensations of a compulsory and heartless penance! And miserable indeed would be the lot of that community, which, after the happy experience of centuries, should now once more reject as its people's guide the word of the living God, and invite back the powerless expedient of human device; only to be with Rome, at every point of her line, baffled, confounded, and dishonoured; and to find herself and her sons, like the prisoners of a felon-penitentiary, washed in the skin and in the outward garments, but fettered with an iron that "enters into the soul."

A THEOLOGICAL ENQUIRY INTO THE SACRAMENT OF BAPTISM, and the Nature of Baptismal Regeneration. By CHRISTOPHER BENSON, M.A., Master of the Temple. Second Edition. London: Parker. 1843.

AN ESSAY ON BAPTISM, with some Remarks on the Doctrines of the Nicene Church. By THOMAS CLARKSON, M.A. London: Simpkin. 1843.

REMARKS ON THE REV. G. S. FABER'S "PRIMITIVE DOCTRINE OF REGENERATION." By the Rev. T. K.

ARNOLD, M.A., Rector of Lyndon. London: Rivingtons. 1843. AN EXPOSITION OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE UNITED CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND IRELAND concerning Regeneration and Baptism. By the Rev. W. NAPPER. Dublin: Curry. 1843.

FOUR more tracts, or rather treatises, on this one topic, and all by men of rank and note in the Church, and all issued in a single month! Could anything show with more distinctness the deep and serious interest which the subject is exciting in the public mind?

Correct and just views of the sacraments are important; and among other and higher causes for this also,-that it is chiefly by means of exaggerated views of their efficacy that the Romish superstition gains its hold on the people. It was when the Lord's Supper was transformed into "the dreadful and unbloody sacrifice;" and the washing of baptism held to render every recipient fit for instant reception into heaven,-it was when these extravagant notions of sacramental grace obtained, that Rome, by their means, gained her ecclesiastical sovereignty. In each instance of resistance to her tyranny, the constant charge brought by her against the disciples of Christ was, they despise the holy sacraments.” And, in our own day, when a conspiracy was to be formed, with the avowed purpose of " unprotestantizing" the Church of England;-the leading mode of action recommended to the partisans of this revived Romanism was, "Preach the sacraments!"

There is, however, a possibility of taking too short a road to truth in this matter. Divers of the evangelical clergy, in modern times, and those some of the soundest of their number, laying fast hold on the great scriptural verities of Conviction of Sin, Justification by Faith, Conversion of Heart, and Sanctification by

the Holy Spirit, have brushed away the figments of "baptismal justification,' "no entire cleansing but in baptism and the day of judgment," &c. &c., like so many cobwebs. But in so doing they have left behind them all the real difficulties of the question, and thus have failed to quiet the consciences of the hesitating, or remove the doubts of the scrupulous.

It is idle to deny, or to undervalue, the strength of the testimony on which A doctrine of baptismal regeneration is founded. In Scripture, in the writings of the early Christians, in the standards of our own Church, and in the works of our own Reformers, we constantly find baptism spoken of in a tone quite irreconcileable with the hasty dismissal of the subject, by which many modern writers attempt to settle the question.

The Scripture evidence of itself is sufficient to cause deep thought, and to raise a question of no easy solution. Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." (John iii. 5.) "According to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost." (Titus iii. 5.) "By one Spirit are we all baptized into one body-and have been all made to drink unto one Spirit." (1 Cor. xii. 13.) "As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ." (Gal. iii. 27.) "The like figure whereunto, even baptism, doth also now save us, (not the putting away the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience towards God.)" (1 Pet. iii. 21.) Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord." (Acts xxii. 16.) "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins." (Acts ii. 38.) "Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word." (Ephes. v. 26.) But we need not run through the whole series of texts on this subject which are commonly cited. Every candid man will feel that any one of the above passages would suffice to throw a doubt on that low and popular view of baptism, which merely regards it as a ceremonial rite of admission into the visible church.

We are cautious of admitting to too great authority, the sentiments of the early Christian writers. Still, no rational man will wish to shut his eyes to the fact, that with them the terms "baptism," and "regeneration were almost if not quite synonymous. An instance or two we may take from Mr. Arnold's tract, though, as Mr. Arnold himself remarks, "no selection of a very few can do justice to this point, because no such selection can convey a notion of the frequency with which the thing is done."-(p. 47.)