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toral Visits, in the second volume of his Selected Sermons, and inserted in our ninth volume, pages 52 and 122. We could have multiplied our quotations from the pamphlet before us with great satisfaction to ourselves, and with undoubted profit to our readers, but we rather wish to recommend the perusal of the entire work. The extracts we have made will sufficiently prove the value and importance of the whole; and the impression made by it upon our own minds excites an anxious wish that it may have a circulation proportioned to the magnitude of its subject and the solidity of its reasoning.

The Origin of Sovereign Power and the Lawfulness of Defensive War, a Sermon preached in the Church of All Saints, Wainfleet, in the County of Lincoln, on Tuesday, June 4th, 1805, to the Wainfleet Corps of Volunteer Infantry. By the Rev. PETER BULMER, A. B. Vicar of Thorpe, Chaplain to the Right Hon. Lord Muncaster, and to the Wainfleet Corps of Volunteer Infantry. 8vo. pp. 29.

TH

HE text of this Discourse is very appropriate. It is Ezekiel, xxxiiii. 2, 3, 4, 5, "Son of man, speak to the children of thy people, and say unto them, When I bring the sword upon a land, if the people of the land take a man of their coasts, and set him for their watchman: if when he seeth the sword come upon the land, he blow the trumpet, and warn the people; then who oever heareth the sound of the trumpet, and taketh not warning; if the sword come and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head, He heard the sound of the trumpet, and took not warning, his blood shall be upon him; but he that taketh warning, shall deliver his soul." We do not remember to have seen in so short a compass, and upon such an occasion, so clear and judicious a view of the origin of Civil Power, as is given in the Sermon before us. It is a scriptural view of the subject; and what other can rationally be given? The author traces it up to the flood in the following manner:

Vol. X. Churchm. Mag. for March 1806. Gg "The

"The licentiousness of the preceding age, had abundantly demonstrated the necessity of Civil Government; and, it is highly probable, that the survivors of the deluge, from a consciousness of the evils which the want of it had occasioned, most willingly acquiesced in its appointment. The Almighty, therefore, when he renewed the Covenant with Noah, did solemnly invest him with the power of life and death; in the punishment which he was, thenceforth, directed to inflict upon the murderer; which authority was delegated to him, in the following remarkable words: "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God made he man*." As this power had, hitherto, been exclusively possessed by God, the only "Lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy; in whose hand is the soul of every living creature, and the breath of all mankind t;" so none but God could possibly confer so distinguished a prerogative on man. And I am inclined to consider this Divine grant of it to Noah, as the primary investiture of the Magistrate with the power of the sword, and supreme earthly dominion."

On the subject of Defensive War we meet with many excellent and impressive arguments. And here the preacher takes occasion to censure, though in a Christian spirit, the futile and preposterous objections of some sectaries to the lawfulness of all war, however just and indispensible. He shews by numerous examples and passages in sacred writ, that the military character is not repugnant to the principles of revealed religion, but that it has been honourably approved and commended both in the Old and New Testament, by prophets and apostles, and even by the Redeemer of the world himself,

The following observations are deserving the most serious attention of every person who has any spark of pa triotism in his bosom, or who possesses the slightest regard for his own welfare as an inhabitant of this independent island.

"War, when rightfully undertaken, has, we find, been sanctioned by express declarations from God; and by the united testimony of men who acted and spoke under the immediate guidance of the Holy Spirit. In the age of the Patriarchs, during the theocracy of the Jews, and under the latter dispensation of the Gospel, the sword has been necessarily employed to counteract the ferociousness and hostility of man. son, therefore, have we to conclude with our Holy Church, that it is lawful for Christian men, at the command of the Magistrate, to wear weapons and serve in the wars*.

* Gen. ix. 6.

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"Were it not so, were we of the united kingdom, at this present moment, to lay down our arms, and to declare the use of them to be no longer lawful, a more welcome doctrine to our enemies could not possibly be advanced. Precluded from opposing by force of arms their ambitious and depredatory projects on our country, soon, alas! would this the land of our nativity, become the spoil of the invader; soon would the enemy come and take away our place and nation †; and the blessings of a just and equal Government, of a wide and extended Commerce, and of a pure and reformed Religion, all of which we are taught to look upon as the inestimable gifts of God, would, without a special interposition of Providence in our favour, at once be wrested from us; and on a people, by whom they were holden in so little estimation, that not an arm would be uplifted in their defence, the chains of a base and ignominious slavery would be forcibly and durably rivetted. To the unhappy survivors of this catastrophe nothing would remain, when they saw the evil which had been brought upon their country, and calling to remembrance its former glory, but to lament and weep over its ruins. Gracious God! are all the public and private blessings which we have hitherto derived from Thee, to be conceived as nothing worth, so that we may lawfully abandon them without having made a single effort for their preservation! Religion forbids the thought, and directs us to regard that war, which has for its object the defence of our just rights, and the prevention of great and impending evils, as 'expedient, necessary, and lawful.

"It is not to satiate the lust of pride, of avarice, and of ambition, that you, my brethren, now appear clad in the habiliments of war. No! the glorious cause in which you have embarked, combines every motive that can possibly tend to stimulate your exertions, and to enkindle in your bosoms the sacred flame of Patriotism and of Piety. The blessings for which now contend are those without which life would be no longer desirable. Our existence, as a free and independent people, and our own individual existence, depend upon the issue of the contest."

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We cannot close our notice of this sound and animated discourse, without expressing our earnest wish that it may meet with a very extensive circulation.

↑ John xi. 48.

The Prophecy of Isaiah, concerning the Humiliation, Sufferings, Death, Burial, and consequent Exaltation of the Messiah, paraphrased; or an Exposition of Part of the Fifty-second and Fifty-third Chapter; designed as a serious Meditation on Good Friday. By the Rev. EDWARD BRACKENBURY, A. B. l'icar of Skendleby. Rivingtons,

PP. 30.

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HIS judicious publication was undertaken, the author informs us," solely with a view of drawing the attention of the public to the recollection of the awful circumstances of a day which is justly marked in our calendar, beyond all others, for pious solemnity and devout meditation." He laments the general disregard of this solemn day, and hopes," that a brief elucidation of this prophetic part of holy writ may tend, through God's blessing, to convince the careless of their error, to enlighten the eyes of the ignorant, and make their hearts glow with a generous and grateful sensibility of the unspeakable mercies wrought out for their salvation as on this day, and to which they may be entitled through the sufferings and mediation of the crucified Redeemer of the world."

We cannot but commend the piety of the design, and we cordially approve of the execution. The paraphrase of this illustrious and affecting prophecy is sound and perspicuous as the following specimen will evince:

Verse 11," He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be "satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities."

He shall reap the fruit, and enjoy the benefit of all his sufferings both in body and soul, as well in his own personal glorification as in the conversion and salvation of all his members; and this purchased possession will he accept as a full satisfaction and recompence for all his tribulations and afflictions, for " ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?" And hath he not promised that "he is gone to prepare a place for us in his Father's house; that where he is, there we may be also." And by such a knowledge of Christ as produces that" faith which worketh by love," shall God's righteous servant, as man and mediator, justify many through his own blood, whom Moses, with all the solemnity of the sanguinary sacrifices under the law, could not justify; "for as by one man's disobe

dience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous: for he shall bear their iniquities" by removing their sins from them and transferring them upon himself; having purchased this inestimable benefit, and procured, by the sacrifice of himself, this unspeakable gift at the hand of God for all, that Gentiles as well as Jews, who walk before him in faith and obedience, should not only be judicially acquitted from the guilt of their sins, and accounted righteous, but actually obtain present peace and reconciliation with God, and the blessed hope of a future and final redemption.".

The author has fallen iuto a small mistake in terming Mr. Cruden, the laborious compiler of the Concordance, a learned divine;" whereas he was a bookseller. Mr. Brackenbury announces at the end of this pamphlet, that he has it in contemplation to publish" a connected System of doctrinal and practical Christianity, in fifty-four Discourses, as professed and maintained by the Church of England."

POETRY.

Meditatio vetusta ac venusta, quæ Mantuæ in ade D. Francisci, sub pictura extremi judicii legitur.

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