THE GENUINE BELIEVER NO LAWLESS CHARACTER.

To every enlightened reader of the New Testament it must be as clear as noonday, that there is a particular kind of conduct which springs from the genuine belief of the gospel, and which is fully described in the apostolic epistles. True believers in Christ cannot live as they did in their nature state, because the love of Christ which is shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Ghost, constrains them that they should not live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again (2 Cor. v. 14, 15). This faith in Jesus manifests them to be in him, as the branches are in the vine, and therefore new creatures; hence old things with them are passed away, and all things are become new. Faith goes before the manifestation of our sonship, but not before our sonship itself; the adoption of sons is what we were predestinated to before the foundation of the world (Eph. i. 4, 5). It is the fruit and evidence of our election of God the Father, being peculiar to the chosen ones in Christ, and therefore called the faith of God's elect (1 Thess. i. 4, 5, 6; John x. 26-28-47; Titus i. 1). It is never alone in the heart, being accompanied with the bright train of the graces of the Holy Spirit. It is the grand source of all holy obedience, and is there. fore styled by Paul the fulfilling of the law (Rom. xiii. 8-10). The apostle in his epistle to the churches of Galatia (Rom. v. 19, 20), enumerates the works of the flesh or of natural men, and contrasts them with the fruits of the Spirit, or the graces that adorn the Christian character. It is most important to observe, that the apostle there speaks of the graces and virtues which are descriptive of the genuine believer, as being the fruits of the Spirit; plainly implying that they are not of a man's self, but of God. The believer being the temple of the Holy Ghost, which dwelleth in him, is beautified with his (the Spirit's) graces, and adorned with every rare and costly device (1 Cor. vi. 19, and iii. 16). He is not left to regulate his own deportment by his own creature counsel and strength; but the Spirit which dwelleth in him quickens him, and sweetly constrains him to walk according to the law of love-the law of the spirit of life (Ezek. xxxvi. 26, 27; Heb. viii. 10). Hence he knows that his inward tempers and outward deportment are of the last importance, as showing his real condition in the sight of God. He is therefore most anxious to realize the fruits of believing unto life-namely, the choicest love to God in his Trinity of Persons, to the Father for his unspeakable gift, to the Son for dying for his sins, and rising again for his justification; to the Spirit for quickening and assuring him of his eternal adoption into the family of God, and consequent heirship of all things through Christ; and also the choicest love to his brethren in Christ, as the precious offspring of his Father, and fellow heirs with him of the grace of life.

In short, he cannot rest satisfied concerning his state and character before God, till he finds the words of John the Evangelist verified in his own experience, "He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him." "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren." "If any man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar; for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?" "Every one that lovoth him that begat, loveth him also that is begotten of him" (1 John ii. 10: iii. 14; iv. 20; v. 1). The Evangelist John expressly teaches it as an unmis takable sign and evidence of our being genuine children of God, and loving him in sincerity and truth, when we really love the faithful brethren in Christ, and communicate to their necessity according to the ability which God giveth.

The questions with which the believer often probes himself are such as follows:-Am I really what I profess to be, a genuine child of God? If so, where is my love to the brethren? Love is no dead sentiment, but a living operative principle, which influences the conduct, and constrains us to find our choicest delights in communion with Jesus and his people. Do I then act upon the apostolic injunction of doing good to all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith? If I do, then am 1 manifestly a child of God, and walk in love, as Christ hath loved me, proving what is acceptable unto the Lord.

Harewood, October, 1845.

J. LAYCOCK.

INQUIRY.

DEAR SIR,

To the Editor of the Gospel Magazine.

Will you or any of your correspondents oblige by informing me whether apostolical succession is an authorized doctrine of the Church of England, and also an explanation of the following texts:-Acts viii. 17; xiii. 3; 1 Tim. iv. 14; 2 Tim. i. 6.

I am led to make this request in consequence of a new vicar being appointed to the parish church I attend, preaching for his first sermon on Sunday last the above doctrine, with baptismal regeneration, which two things I have considered as Popish figments, and the starting-point of Puseyism. On reference to the above texts, with others similar, I feel in difficulty, as I do not think I can ever embrace those doctrines. Praying that it may please our Triune Jehovah to lead you to be an instrument to clear up the matter, and establish my mind, and that you may long be blessed to us in your present position as Editor,

Birmingham, Septemher, 1845.

I am, most faithfully yours,
A WEAKLING.

Please refer me to the best and clearest books upon these points, also to any tracts you may know of for distribution amonst the poor of the parish.

A GENTLE WORD OF REPROOF FROM "CRISPIN" TO HENRY, BISHOP OF EXETER.

MOST DISTINGUISHED PRELATE,

Whose exalted station I do not covet, nor yet envy the vacillation of that mind which render you an object of pity to every man of feeling, and a source of disquietude to yourself, because unable to drag to your chariot wheels those who claim the privilege of acting and thinking for themselves. Little did I think, when your unwarrantable endeavour to enforce the tyrauny of another Star Chamber upon us, in concert with your brother of London, and a few more of the noble bench, who, had not the thrones of Canterbury and York been so much in the ascendant before their eyes, would readily have joined you. And who ever heard of bishops having thrones, until the Pope opposed and exalted himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped, sitting in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God? The bosom of his dear Lord and Master was the only throne sought after by him who well sustained the character of a bishop, exhorting those amongst whom (not over) he had ruled with much affection, as “Little children, to keep themselves from idols."

Little did I think that necessity would be laid upon me to address you once and again, to the exclusion of your brother of London, whom I have long felt desirous of paying my respects unto, and for whom a few SHREDS are laid by in the STALL, upon that bishops' salvo called confirmation, the farce of which I was called to witness in the church of Mary le Bow, as upon those occasions the clergy of the diocese are expected to be present; and scarcely any charity boy but could tell you Amen Corner is near St. Paul's. However you may be at ease respecting the unpleasantness attendant upon translation, evident it is that you have brought the See of Exeter into that notoriety that will always run parallel with the name of "Bishop Philpotts." Well would it be if bishops in general paid a little more attention to what an apostle hath said of the high and dignified character, when entered upon with a single eye to the glory of God and a real concern for the good of souls: "He must rule well his own house; for if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the Church of God?"

But a blameless bishop in our day is as rare an occurrence as the poet's idea of an angel's visit-"Few and far between." Think me not desirous of wishing to bring these dignities into contempt; it would ill become a man upon whom the scythe of time has so past as to leave few of those which are said to constitute the beauty of old men. Amongst them there are those who possess the milk of human kindness in all its loveliness; but where shall we look for one of them who has renounced the pomps and vanities of this wicked world? There is, as I have somewhere read, what the fathers of the church called (not those fathers whose tenets the Bishop of Exeter would make the orthodox standard of the land) the finis cujus, the end for whom, and there is the finis cui, the end for which, in all things, and the more so in those things pertaining to a bishop of the church; and if the glory of God be "the end for whom" the office be assumed, and the salvation of souls ("the end for which") the sole acting principle, all must be well: and the bishop with his clergy and people, of any diocese, thus united to their great Head and to one another, as was said of Augustine and Alipphs, so of them it may be said, Sanguine Christi conglutinati, They are glued together in the blood of Christ. Picture to yourself, in your thoughtful moments at Bishopstowe (if you

have any) the peaceful state of such a diocese, and contrast it with the agitated and continual fermentation of the one over which political interest has placed you, and where it appears you are determined to keep in motion the waters of strife. Was it not enough that you should be taught the humbling lesson of being compelled to withdraw your surplice mandate, but you must now seek revenge in the technicalities of a barbarous law? On that point of "pew rents," or "church rates," the Bishop of Exeter and myself will not tarry, I have a more momentous and grave topic to direct your attention unto; and most sincerely do I wish that the worthy vicar and the parishioners of St. Andrew's, Plymouth, will, by way of a second edition, teach you, that "A bishop must be blameless, as the steward of God, not self-willed [pray observe this], not soon angry [nor yet bearing anger], not given to wine, no striker; not given to filthy lucre; but a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate, holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine [not by prelatical authority] both to exhort and convince the gainsayers." (Titus i. 7.)

Conversant as the Bishop of Exeter must be with the history of his country, and of the church belonging to the same, he need not me to inform him that one of the greatest blots attached to that church's history was the issuing of a proclamation by the imbecile and weak-headed monarch, Charles, viz. in June, 1626, commanding every clergyman, under a degree of a bishop or a dean, not to preach on what was called high doctrines, namely, "free grace;" and so far as regarded the seventeenth article of our church, this prohibition extended to bishops and deans: that there were men in those days who paid no attention to what was wrongly called the royal mandate, need not to be observed, nor the just retribution of an offended God which overtook the king and his abettor in this unholy warfare against the truth of Gcd.

Well would it have been, had it pleased the Lord, that with the death of these men had also died those errors they had with so much zeal propagated, which, like a gangrene, hath spread itself over the whole church, leaving but a skeleton of what was once beautiful and comely. And such has been the advancement made since the Laudean precept was issued, that a bishop of the reformed and protestant church scruples not to send forth, as the assumed successor of the apostles, what he calls a "Pastoral Letter," in which he dares to forbid the Holy Ghost the exercise of his own gifts in his own church, wherein he stands engaged to glorify the Lord Jesus. Were it not for the great solemnity of the subject of prayer, one might be induced to smile at the caprice and fancies shown by Henry of Exeter on that matter. When I consider that we have both passed the rubicon of life, and must soon "give an account of the deeds done in the body," it is not a trifling thing with me to hear a bishop, who is placed over an extensive diocese, in the presence of several of his clergy and one of the judges of the land, when met for the furtherance of a cause closely allied with his own church, restrain prayer, wholly on the ground of the assembly being convened in a ball-room. Could the Bishop of Exeter be justified in being in any place where it would be unlawful to supplicate the Most High? And seeing the ball-room was a barrier in your view, of which you was aware before you went thither, why did you not throw open the doors of your cathedral, and hold the meeting there? it could not have been a greater desecration than the verger's taking money during the time of service, for showing strangers through it. Or rather than be so irreverent as to discard prayer, was there no the library, or some other room in the desolated palace, already hallowed by the breathings of the holy Hall, and others who were praying bishops, in which you might have met, and not in a ball-room, the atmosphere of which was destructive to a bishop's prayer?

Humble as is the sphere in which I move, though only the inmate of a stall the bishop would scarcely look at, and much less offer prayer in it, still must I take upon myself to give the bishop a little information upon the real nature and design of prayer, of which he hath shown himself so perfectly ignorant, or he must have known that the room itself could not invalidate the prayers any more than the speeches delivered by the non-praying clergy then present. And my heart sickens at the thought, that in the full exercise of the judgment of charity, there does not appear a shadow of ground to say of him as was said of Saul of Tarsus, "Behold, he prayeth!" Let not the bishop be angry, for it is unseemly for old men to be displeased with one another; for it truly fills me with grief when beholding the spirit of deep sleep that is poured out upon the prophets, the rulers, and seers of our land.

I have not the vanity to suppose that anything I could say would avail the Bishop of Exeter to throw aside that childish toy, so pleasing to the flesh of all carnal men, whether bishops or deacons-I mean immediate succession from the apostles-it is of too puerile a nature for common sense to entertain; but I will take upon myself to show you they were not so careful of their prayers as the Bishop of Exeter, for they, of necessity, knew the value of letting their requests be made known unto God, and the whole bench of bishops must feel degraded, when understanding the fact that one of their number attaches more honour to the place where prayer might be offered, than the Divine Being to whom it is presented. Are we to suppose the Bishop of Exeter carries this strange and unscriptural rule out in all things, if so, we have the unpleasantness of knowing that when this father of the church sojourns at any of the royal hotels as he visits his diocese, or attends unto his parliamentary duties, he cannot invoke a blessing upon them or himself, forsooth, the splendid apartments were last occupied by a danseuse from the Italian Opera. Well is it for the conscience of our scrupulous bishop, he is not "clerk of the closet" to the Queen, which would subject him to the pain of reading prayers to the royal household immediately after the palace had been honoured with a ball.

Verily, Henry, thy zeal was without knowledge, and gives ground for us to conclude, thou art, though a bishop, yet a stranger to what real prayer is; for Solomon, when in the full exercise of that wisdom with which he was endued, speaks of it as being the act of those who know "the plague of their own heart;" nor did he confine it to the splendid temple he was then in, although it could boast, what no cathedral of our land cau, the true worship of God, the looking-toward, or acknowledging, the God of the temple, who, as a spirit, must be worshipped "in spirit and in truth." And David, his father, enters into its true import, when declaring the "Lord heard the groaning of the prisoner, and loosed those that were the children of death." Think ye not when the master of Naaman leaned upon his hand, and bowed in the house of Rimmon; think ye not he prayed in his heart. Look, for a moment, to that ancient record, now almost forgotten, which is in the library to which you have access, and read in the original the prophets language (Isa. xxvi. 16), and you will find the word we translate prayer is "secret speach," or the talking of the soul with God, which the hall-room cannot hinder. Do not think your aged and grey-headed reprover is advocating the existence of ball-rooms any more than he would justify the ball-going clergy of which there are a goodly number in your diocese; it is with the bishop who objected to prayer being offered in a room where the choristers of his own cathedral have not unfrequently been aiding and assisting the midnight carousal.

Werewe to admit the Bishop of Exeter right in his views regarding prayer, and that the place and not the act was the essence of it, it would entail endless