Clergy of the Church of England, that we are wanting in our duty; let us spend and be spent, if need be, for our flocks 1!

The Clergy, as a body, must ever have weight; as a responsible body, under local authority, they may safely have it; as a religious body, they will use it for the temporal and spiritual benefit of all classes of their people. They will not step out of their province; but there are many cases, strictly within their province, where their public admonitions, private intreaties, and faithful remonstrances will be of great avail. Law itself without the sanction of religion, is powerless; but where religion and the civil power mutually receive and impart weight to each other, the Church has its honour, and the State its security'.

1

May the

Opus est non tantùm sedulitate nostrâ, sed etiam prudentiâ et fide. Quare quicquid à naturâ, quicquid à consilio, quicquid ab ingenio possumus, id omne ad Christi Ecclesiam conferamus. Nos sumus dispensatores domûs Dei: ne Domini familiam dissipemus. Si Apostoli Dei sumus, præstemus animos apostolicos. Si fratres Christi sumus, Christum audiamus; pascamus agnos; pascamus oves; eamus, prædicemus, doceamus." Vide Juelli Episc. Sarisb. Vita à Laur. Humfredo, p. 65.

2 It was well said by the present Dean of Winchester, (Dr. Rennell,) in language since adopted by others, and become almost proverbial amongst us, that "the intention of our forefathers, in the intimate connection of Church and State, which inseparably knit and compacted them together at the Reformation, was not to render the Church political, but the State religious. It was a solemn recognition of God's Providence in the civil affairs of man; it was to rest the obedience of the subject,

time be far distant when these be severed! At the present moment of fearful political suspense, the Clergy are more especially called upon to preach by word and example the scriptural doctrine of submission to "every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake." Existing ordinances may, in many cases, be be open to improvement; and this improvement may justly exercise the wisdom of successive Legislatures but whilst an ordinance legally exists, it is binding, and must be respected and obeyed. Let it not be forgotten, however, that change is not necessarily improvement; and experience still subscribes to the prudential maxim of the wise Solomon, 66 My son, fear God and honour the king; and medale not with them that are given to change."

An age of general knowledge demands the countervailing influence of a learned, pious, and moral Clergy for where knowledge is much diffused, there is danger of its being often superficial; and a little philosophy is unfavourable to the reception of divine wisdom. Be it ours, then, my Brethren, to show ourselves "workmen that need not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth; in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of Christ;" in piety ardent; in morals irreproachable; in charity unbounded; in learn

and the duties of the magistrate, on their steadiest and broadest basis." Fast-sermon, preached at the Temple, 23d February, 1801, and printed during the same year.

ing well "

furnished;" in doctrine uncorrupt; "instant" in preaching; in action discreet; in zeal unwearied; in success, through the grace of God, abounding to the salvation of many.

APPENDIX.

(A.)

EXTRACT FROM A SERMON, PREACHED BY THE BISHOP, IN THE PARISH CHURCH OF ST. JOHN'S, IN THE ISLAND or Barbados, ON THE OCCASION OF THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE PAROCHIAL SCHOOLS OF THAT PARISH, IN 1827; AND PRINTED FOR CIRCULATION IN THE DIOCESE.

"To prove still farther the necessity of instruction, with a view of securing an adequate notion of these several points of a Christian's duty, and a correspondent obedience to them, bear with me, I beseech you, whilst, in affectionate regard for your souls, I revert to the history and present state of this island. More than two hundred years have now passed away, since our forefathers first settled themselves in it. Your early laws still exhibit many salutary regulations for the promoting of the knowledge and practice of religion. Have these been duly observed? Can every master of a family appeal to his past practice, and say, As for me, and my house, we have served " the Lord?' Is family prayer, thus enjoined, common in the land? Is that day, which God has claimed for his own, and set apart to be an everlasting memorial till time shall be no more, of the great works of creation, redemption, and sanctification; and to be a season of holy and beneficial instruction to the soul, and of rest to the body; and of public acknowledgment from every reasonable creature, of Him, the Lord of heaven and earth, ́ in whom we live, and move, and have our being,'-is this day, indeed, set apart, as God has commanded? Are our Churches, on this day, crowded with His worshippers? Is there a stop

put on this day to the business, and labours, and amusements of the week, and nought but the sound of prayer and praise heard in the land? Is there, in a word, that observance of the Lord's day, which might reasonably be expected under a Christian Government, and among a Christian people? It is with much sorrow of heart, but with earnest supplication to the Almighty in behalf of this land, that I thus publicly state, that out of a population of more than one hundred thousand souls, not onetwenty-fifth, at the highest computation, is seen on the Sabbath within the walls of their respective Churches, assembled with one accord to offer up their common supplications to the Maker and Redeemer of us all. It is a painful and alarming fact, which may well make every thoughtful person, and above all others, the Ministers of God's word to tremble within themselves, lest that other denunciation of the Prophet Hosea be fulfilled on the inhabitants of our land, and There should be, like people, like 'priest; and I will punish them for their ways, and reward them 'their doings.' Have we closed the painful review? Alas! how are those thousands, and tens of thousands, who absent themselves from the Lord's house, employed on His holy day? Are they engaged in prayer, and in reading the Holy Scriptures by themselves, and in the bosom of their families? Yet this were but to perform on the Lord's day the business of every day in the week. As individuals, and members of a family, we should daily implore God's blessing on ourselves and upon them: but on the Sabbath, we are to appear before the Lord, as members of the world which He has made, and, as creatures amid our fellow-creatures, publicly to worship and magnify Him who ' giveth to all life and breath and all things, and hath made of one 'blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth.' Still it were much, if removed from public notice, they were devoutly engaged in their own dwellings; but, we know by how many, God's expressly-appointed day of holy rest is spent in worldly business, in hardened indifference (as if religion were no concern of theirs), in listless indulgence, in riotous pleasures, in laborious occupation? My brethren, these things ought not so