happy man, who did not communicate from the overflowing of his happiness and goodness. All other means of doing moral good, are, at the very best, uncertain and equivocal. But in this course, there can be neither deception nor disappointment; there is a moral certainty of benefiting others, in addition to the home-felt happiness of improving ourselves."- Sermons on Subjects chiefly Practical: by John Jebb, D.D., Bishop of Limerick, Ardfert and Aghadoe, pp. 192, 193.

"Be diligent," says the martyred Bishop of Carthage, "be diligent in prayer, and in the reading of God's Word. Sometimes you must speak you must speak to God; at other times he must speak with you. Let him instruct you with his precepts, and form your mind by the guidance of his counsel; the man who is thence enriched, no one can impoverish; he who is filled with the fulness of God, cannot be empty. All the pomp of this life will become to you insipid and jejune, when once you are convinced, that your care should rather be employed upon yourself, and your soul be adorned with the graces of the Gospel; that the house, which God has vouchsafed to make his temple, and in which his Holy Spirit is pleased to abide, should be fitted to receive him, with a care proportioned to the dignity of the guest expected. Let innocence and righteousness adorn this habitation for him; these are ornaments which no length of time will decay, no accidents of weather tarnish. The embellishments of human art, will be soiled and withered by age; nor can any man depend upon the continuance of things, which are, in their own nature, so obnoxious to change; but the beauty, the ornament, the splendour, of the house of which I have been speaking, is permanent;

time and accident can make no disadvantageous impressions on it; only the time will come, when it shall be renewed with great advantage, and be clothed with a more dur able and better covering."-St. Cyprian. Epist. to Donatus, towards the conclusion.

NOTE (6), page 108.

"The short rule for improving our knowledge of Scripture is, to get, as nearly as possible, into the place of those whom it was most immediately intended to suit: to give ourselves their ideas and feelings. It is these, which must enable us to limit and apply expressions, such as, from the imperfection of human language, are too general and extensive to be taken literally. In order to get into the situation of others, and learn their ideas and feelings, we must acquaint ourselves with the history of their customs and opinions; and with all the objects, natural and artificial, which most usually engaged their attention. Fresh travels, undertaken by good antiquaries, naturalists, artists, with due encouragement, might continually promote this purpose.

And, when we could not investigate immediately the ideas and feelings of those, for whom Scripture was first intended, we might find them out, in some degree, by their effects; which are to be understood, by means of ecclesiastical history."-Hey's Lectures. Book iv. art. vi. sect. 34.

Our duty on this point is beautifully expressed by the poet, when he exhorts us,.

"To look on truth unbroken and entire ;

Truth in the system, the full orb; where truths,

By truths enlightened and sustained, afford
An arch-like, strong foundation, to support
The incumbent weight of absolute, complete
Conviction. Here, the more we press, we stand
More firm; who most examine, most believe.
Parts, like half sentences, confound; the whole
Conveys the sense, and God is understood;
Who not in fragments writes to human peace :
Read his whole volume, sceptic, then reply!"

YOUNG. Night Thoughts, vii.

NOTE (7), p. 109.

"But some one will, perhaps, demand, why, (since the canon of Scripture is perfect, and in itself sufficient, and more than sufficient, in every respect,) why we should wish to add to it the Authority of the Church? The answer is, because all persons do not receive the Scriptures, in one and the same sense. One man interprets its sublime discourses, in this manner, and another in that. So that there are almost as many diverse opinions, to be gathered from the Sacred Volume, as there are men to read it. Novatian receives it in one sense, Photinus in another; Sabellius, Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius, Apollinaris, Priscillian, Jovian, Pelagius, Celestius, all adopt different modes of expounding it. And, therefore, on account of the various ins and outs of error, it is very necessary to apply, as a rule to a line, the sense of the Catholic Church to the prophetic and apostolical writings."-Vincentius Lirinensis. Advers. Prophan. Hæres. Commonitor. lib. i. cap. ii. Thus wrote Vincent of Lerins, A. D. 434. And we find the same rational method of interpreting disputed points of Scripture, in use, so early as the second

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century. "If there should arise a dispute," says St. Irenæus, on any trivial matter, ought not recourse to be had to the most ancient churches, in which the apostles themselves were conversant? And ought we not to learn from them, what is clear and certain, upon the question moved?"-Advers. Hæres. lib.iii. сар. iv. near the beginning.

We may, indeed, proceed yet further back, and trace this rule of interpretation almost up to the first century: see Bp. Kay's Tertullian, p. 290-300.

"At the present day," says the Bishop of Limerick, "it is by no means sufficiently considered, that the Church of England occupies a very peculiar station in the Christian world: constituting, as it were, a species in herself.

Her specific temperament, indeed, has, during the last century, been most inadequately recognized at home. But it has not failed to attract the notice of foreign observers. The sagacious Mosheim, for example, and he is not singular in his statement, describes the English Church, as that correction of the old religion, which separates the Britons equally, from the Roman Catholics, and from the other communities who have renounced the domination of the Pope.'

We can feel no difficulty, either in adopting or justifying, this acute and compendious definition. The Church of Rome fetters the judgment, by implicit submission to authority. Foreign branches of the Reformation give unbounded licence to the fancy, by the unrestricted exercise of private interpretation. But our National Church inculcates a liberal, discriminative, yet undeviating reverence, for pious antiquity: a reverence, alike sanctioned by reason, inspired by feeling,

and recommended by authority. This principle, is, in truth, our special characteristic: a principle, which has ever enabled our Church to combine, discursiveness with consistency; freedom of inquiry, with orthodoxy of belief; and vigorous good sense, with primitive and elevated piety.

This happy temperament is guarded, by the most safe and sober limitations. The Church of England, in the first instance, and as her grand foundation, derives all obligatory matter of faith, that is, to use her own expression, all that is to be believed for necessity of salvation,' from Scripture alone; and herein she differs from the Church of Rome. But, she systematically resorts to the concurrent sense of the Church Catholic, both for assistance in the interpretation of the Sacred Text, and for guidance in those matters of religion, which the text has left at large: and herein she differs from every other reformed communion."- Ap pendix to Bp. Jebb's Sermons, p. 358.

For proof of the above assertions, I must refer the reader to the treatise itself; which is published, as a separate discourse, in his Lordship's Pastoral Instructions.

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NOTE (8), page 109.

Dr. Lightfoot informs us, that, to prevent impurities, propter fœtorem, ab herbis malis," no gardens were allowed within the walls of the sacred city. They, consequently, abounded in the suburbs, especially at the foot of the Mount of Olives. - Hora Hebraicæ, p. 483. What became of these gardens, which witnessed both the agony of the Son of God, and the guilt of the Jewish