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is contained in the Old and New Testament; and that he expected them to be assiduous in reading the Scriptures, and the works of some of the Fathers, is clear. This species of study, and this only, he enjoined upon them; and as to their practice in this respect I hope to speak hereafter. In the meantime, I just observe that thus to read (or to be read to, if he could not read) was all that was required of a monk.

It may, however, be said, that supposing the monks to have kept to their original state, and to have lived in all things according to their Rules, they might not, perhaps, have been so much to blame for the want of learning, but that, by the times with which we are concerned, most of them were priests, and that the clergy -well, I fully admit that as clergy they were bound to be more learned than other men; but at present, as Jerome says, "quod loquor, non de episcopis, non de presbyteris, non de clericis loquor; sed de monacho." I desire, first, to place the question on its right footing, and trust that I shall not be found reluctant to acknowledge that the clergy ought to be the most learned class in the community. In fact, they always were so, and this I hope to shew.

CHAPEL AT LEAVENHEATH, SUFFOLK..
(ADDRESS CIRCULATED WITH THE ENGRAVING.)

THE parishes of Stoke-by-Nayland, Nayland, Assington, Wiston, and Polstead, in the county of Suffolk, diocese of Norwich, border on each other in a district known by the name of Leavenheath, where, owing to a late enclosure, a population, already amounting to 300, has sprung up, and is rapidly increasing.

The inhabitants of this district being distant from their respective parish churches and schools, some two, some three, some four miles, are necessarily in a great measure deprived of the means hitherto provided for their instruction.

A convenient site having been offered for sale, the ground has been purchased, and, under the sanction of the Bishop of the diocese, a building has been erected thereon, suitable to the double purpose of a chapel and school-house.+

In the education of the children admitted into the schools, the system of the national school and of the schools of industry will be united.

The population of this district consisting almost entirely of agricultural labourers, no pecuniary assistance can be obtained from them.

"Quæ enim pagina, aut quis sermo divinæ auctoritatis veteris ac novi Testamenti, non est rectissima norma vitæ humanæ." Cap. lxxiii; which is entitled "De eo quod non omnis observatio justitiæ in hac sit Regula constituta." † Ad Paulin.

For this arrangement it need hardly be said, that the absolute necessity of the case is the defence.-FD.

It is calculated that the sum of 1600l. will be required for the purchase of the ground, the building and endowment of the chapel, and support of the schools in connexion with it.

We confidently hope, that your charitable aid will be afforded in furtherance of so desirable an object; and your hearty prayers to God be offered for the success of our undertaking.

[As it is of consequence to persons anxious about the erection of new churches to know at what expence it can be done, the following particulars have been obtained :-]

The estimate for the building was 2687., but in this sum was included an outer furnace, and flue through the building covered with flag stones. Without a gallery, the building will hold 180 persons. The building is, at present, used only as a school-room, in consequence of not having raised a sufficient sum for endowment; 4007. is wanted to complete the plan, and we should be glad to make an appeal to the public. The building, I should have stated, is, internally, 36-ft. by 18-ft., 12-ft high to the wall plate; the chancel end is 10-ft. by 12-ft. The foundation and walls are of brick on edge, and the roof of tiles.

HISTORICAL NOTICES CONCERNING SOME OF THE PECULIAR TENETS OF THE CHURCH OF ROME; USEFUL AT THE PRESENT TIME.*

THE following notices of the dates of the authoritative adoption of some of the most remarkable of the doctrines which are peculiar to the church of Rome, may, it is hoped, not be without their use at the present time. It is reported that some of the emissaries of the Bishop of Rome have been endeavouring to abuse the confidence of the Christians of the English church, by telling them that the Roman religion is older than theirs. If the English Christians shall have at hand some brief memoranda of the dates of the peculiarities of the Roman doctrine, the Romans will hardly venture upon so manifest and barefaced a falsehood.

The Roman emissaries, upon this false foundation, are reported to have endeavoured to raise, as a superstructure, a claim to the English endowments, as having formerly belonged to them. These notices will serve to shew how entirely free, at the first, the English church was from the Roman corruptions, many of which, for a time, she afterwards adopted; and therefore at what entire liberty to release herself from them, as she did in the sixteenth century. If the temporary adoption of doctrines which had not been contemplated by her ancient founders did not weaken her title to her endowments, certainly that title could not be injured by a return to that ancient purity of faith in which she was at the first endowed.

Statements such as these which have been alluded to, notoriously and palpably false, are evidences of a weak cause, and it seems likely (if indeed the report is true which represents them to have been made) that they who have put them forward have done so with the hope of thereby diverting the attention of an inquiring age from their own questionable and schismatical position in this kingdom, and also from the very modern character of most of the opinions in matters of religion which distinguish them from us. As to the second of these points, the modern character of

The notice given in Church Matters in a late number as to an intention of publishing Tracts against the Romanists, has induced a learned friend to send this valuable and original Tract, which will be most acceptable to churchmen.-ED.

the Roman peculiarities of belief, it will, I hope, be fully made out in the following notices; but in regard to the first, i. e., the schismatical position of the Roman Christians in England, I would take this opportunity of offering some observations.

The adherents to the Bishop of Rome, in this country, are simply and merely schismatics; being separatists or seceders from the church of England. From the foundation of the Christian religion in this country till after 1570, there was no pretence for a Roman communion in England distinct from that under the bishops and metropolitans of the English church. During the reign of Henry the Eighth, Edward the Sixth, and the early part of Queen Elizabeth, that is to say, for many years after the English church had rejected the Roman usurpations and corruptions, all used our liturgy, communicated in our churches, and were part and parcel of the church of England. About the twelfth year of Queen Elizabeth's reign, the Bishop of Rome conceived that it would serve his purpose to foment a schism here; accordingly, jesuit priests and others were sent over to intrude into the folds of the parochial clergy, and deprive them of their flocks. But it was long before the stronger and more flagrant step was taken of violating ecclesiastical order, and setting aside the canons of the church in the persons of its chief officers. It was not till 1623 that a foreign bishop (of Chalcedon) ventured to commit so gross an act of schism as to enter into other bishops' dioceses, to take charge of the schismatical presbyters whom Rome had sent over before. Is it possible that a body of dissenters, whose schism has not assumed a definite shape for more than two hundred years, can have the hardihood to talk of the antiquity of their church!

It should be known that the bishops who superintend the Roman schism in England, Scotland, and Ireland have no connection whatever with, and can trace no descent whatever from the bishops of the ancient churches of these islands. They have derived their orders, since the commencement of the seventeenth century, from the churches of Spain and Italy. The protestant bishops of the three kingdoms are the representatives by episcopal succession of the ancient Celtic and Anglo-Saxon churches,

If the very existence of the Roman schism in these countries is thus proved to be a thing of yesterday, equally novel and superinduced will their peculiar doctrines be likewise found to be when subjected to the test of examination. Many of these will be considered in detail presently. But it may not be amiss to suggest in this place one test which may be immediately applied by the most unlearned person. Let any Roman be asked what constitutes the shibboleth of his church? What is that, by subscribing to which, the Christians of the English church may receive Roman communion, but without which it is denied them? and he must answer, if he speak the truth, "The Creed of Pope Pius the Fifth."* Let him again be asked what is the date of this "middle wall of partition" which has been built up to destroy Christian unity, and interrupt the communion of the faithful? and he must answer again, "1568." Thus will his pretence of antiquity be set aside, and he will stand convicted, by his own mouth, of belonging to a body of men who have dared to add to catholic doctrine and to require as necessary to salvation an assent to speculations in theology which were not so required for nearly the first one thousand six hundred years of Christianity.

As this presumptuous and unwarrantable creed deserves to be more generally known than it is, I take the liberty of subjoining the English translation of it which has the approbation of the leaders of the Roman schism in England.

It is appended to the Nicene or Constantinopolitan creed, which the reader will find in the communion service of the English Church. After the "Amen" with which that creed closes, then follow these articles:

1. "I most stedfastly admit and embrace apostolical and ecclesiastical traditions, and all other observances and constitutions of the same church.

2. "I also admit the holy scriptures according to that sense which our holy mother, the church, has held and does hold, to which it belongs to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the scriptures. Neither will I ever take and interpret them otherwise than according to the unanimous consent of the fathers.

* In the "Order for the administration of the sacraments and rightly performing other ecclesiastical offices in the English mission," (London, Keating and Brown,) put forth in 1831, with the sanction of the foreign bishops who act in England under the direction of the Bishop of Rome, there is, among other things," The form of reconciling a convert." In this form, the profession of the creed of Pope Pius is the chief feature.

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