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their guilt and danger, is he to bid them "repent and be converted?" No, in no wise! The system we are now describing recognizes not the idea of conversion in a baptized, regenerate Christian. This would be a confusion of the classes: "primary" repentance is not for Christians, but the heathen. What then is the remedy for their plague? Why truly "they are in evil case." We must no longer talk of pardon for the vilest of the vile, of grace for the foulest of the foul. Our Church indeed has ruled that "the grace of repentance is not to be denied to such as fall into sin after baptism;" nay, in the zeal of her charity, she has uttered her single approach to an anathema against "those who deny the place of forgiveness to such as truly repent." To controvert this decision, it is admitted, would be "heresy;" for it would involve " a denial of God's presence in his Church." But "it does not perhaps amount to heresy to deny the doctrine of repentance, apart from the discipline." And so we come, according to this Augustinian theory, to the tertiary class, which is thus characterized :

"It is no trifling duty; no easy or unpainful task that such penitents have to perform; by which, if it please God, their soul shall come again to them, as it were the soul of a little child."—(p. 62.)

Again :

"Call it repentance-but it is a heavy and a grievous repentance. We dare not confound its nature, or give it a name which is not its own. It is written indeed but written in characters not for him that reads to run on still in his wickedness, but to shrink and tremble. Pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee.-Pray ye to the Lord for me,- were it even so with us, this were a fearful case; how much more when many have need to pray, and fast, and give alms, and confess, and mourn, and humble, and judge, and afflict, and abhor themselves, if perhaps the gall of bitterness of ALL the thoughts of a corrupt heart, the bond of iniquity of YEARS mis-spent, or spent in sin, may be forgiven them; with no prayers of the Church to intercede in their behalf; and still remembering, first and last, that repentance is the gift of God: that it is no ordinary grace for which they must now look to Him only, whom they have pierced; no momentary change which they may expect from him, who alone can even yet turn them, and they shall be turned." (pp. 63-65.)

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And that the penance is really meant to be "something substantial," and no "child's play of peas or paternosters, may be gathered from the following extract :—

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"True it is, the Church has mercifully declared that 'the grant of repentance is not to be denied.' But when is it so much as asked for? "Knock (she has said) and it shall be opened unto you.' But there is no knocking at the gate. Each individual amongst us, if I may so speak, has his private key; or the door, which righteous men of old with the utmost importunity and violence could scarcely enter, now flies open at the sinner's approach. How little do we regard, or rather (for the most part) how lightly do we forego "the word of reconciliation," committed unto them that are ambassadors for Christ ! We "prophecy in Christ's name, and in Christ's name cast out devils," each for himself out of his own bosom. "Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are

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ye?" True it is, as our Church again speaks, they are to be condemned which deny the place of forgiveness to such as truly repent.' Is there then no cause to fear-I ask fearfully, and with all due deference and humility-lest we be condemned out of our own mouth? May it not be said-and not indeed without reason-that we ourselves do in a manner deny the place of forgiveness, which we have so long discontinued? Where are now appointed stations of "the mourners or of "the prostrate?" Where is now "the rod of discipline, the robe of shame?" As Penitents, though our "sins be as scarlet," when do we "turn to God with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning!" When are we of the "blessed that weep now? When do we open our grief to God's minister, that we may receive the benefit of absolution, together with ghostly counsel and advice? When do we confess and bewail openly and solemnly the offences, which, not only against God, but against the Church, and against the brethren, we have openly and scandalously committed? When do we feel that earnest, fervent desire, which in sinners of old overcame all thoughts of disgrace, contempt, or obloquy,--the desire to be guided by the Church in the offices of our repentance-to be assisted by her prayers, and much-availing intercession-to be confirmed, by her frequent benediction, in the “laying on of hands?" Or when we do feel that safe and godly fear, in which sinners of old might hail the best assurance of their restoration and forgiveness-the fear to receive with other Christian men the mysteries of heavenly grace, till God's appointed stewards and ministers shall declare us worthy?”—(pp. 40—43.)

To this descriptive outline of its theology we may just add that the Sermon was preached for the joint benefit of the two venerable Societies, for the Propagation of the Gospel, and the Promotion of Christian Knowledge. (These very societies, by the way, are eventually characterized as "tokens of the Church's disgrace.") The object of advocacy being thus two-fold, the author selected two texts for the occasion, designed to indicate the peculiar province of each institution. The first is from Mark i. 15: "Repent ye, and believe the Gospel." This is properly stated to be the embassy of the Propagation Society to the heathen, but a pretty significant caveat is urged against the meddling with this "primary and Catholic repentance," by the sister incorporation. The office of the Christian Knowledge Society is in like manner to preach repentance; "but repentance, be it observed, to different persons, and in widely different measures and degrees, respects and circumstances." The secondary and tertiary orders are allotted to the ministration of this body, and the text apportioned as its memento is Rev. iii. 3: "Remember how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent." The Sardian Church, it is observed, had incurred the implied "rebuke for laxity of discipline;" and we suppose that the promoters of Christian Knowledge should seek to obviate like condemnation, by the revival of "appointed stations of the mourners or of the prostrate."

Such is our general view of the scope of Mr. Wordsworth's Sermon. It is unquestionably a production that demands, even as it challenges, full investigation. It is the elaborate treatise of

an author of undoubted talent, attainments and diligence. Nor have we any reason to question his sincerity. All this, however, only aggravates the evil of the case. If, therefore, in our remarks we have used any thing approaching to lightness of manner, it has not been because we think lightly of the mischief of such theology; we used it as the milder form of indignation against the introduction of "another gospel;" and accordingly it is assuredly in no light mood that we bring in the following charges against this pseudo-Catholic divine. In one single discourse, on one elementary point of doctrine, he has bewrayed a disposition

1. To mutilate the word of God, by unwarrantably limiting its application.

2. To disparage the constitution and the formularies of the Church of England.

3. To exalt repentance, to the prejudice of faith.

4. To pervert the notion of repentance itself, by making penance a constituent part.

5. To overrate baptism, by representing it as the grand preservative from sin.

6. As the practical result of the whole, to re-establish the most iniquitous of all tyrannies, that over the conscience; to foster self-righteousness in many, and superstition in all.

Besides all this, in the exposition of his "Evangelical Repentance," there is more of false criticism, and false interpretation of the Evangelical writings, than we ever remember to have met with in the same limits, or than we could have believed possible in a person of similar pretensions.

The author is now put on his defence; he shall answer for himself; and whilst he opens his own case, we will endeavour incidentally to establish, from his own statements, the justice of our indictment.

"It may be well to state," says the author, in his Preface, "the leading positions upon which the argument proceeds. They are the following:"1. That the inspired Epistles, which the Apostles addressed respectively to the primitive Churches, are the main standard to which we should refer for guidance in addressing a Christian congregation upon the doctrine of repent

ance.

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"2. That the application of the rest of holy Scripture upon the same point is liable to such restrictions (and no other) as arise from these two propositions." "(a) That increased spiritual gifts (entailing increased responsibilities) are vouchsafed to Christians since the day of Pentecost.

"(b) That our blessed Lord himself referred to the teaching of the Holy Spirit, to descend after his ascension, for the full developement of all truth. "3. That (these propositions admitted) the direct testimony of holy Scripture is much less full, and less definite upon the doctrine of the forgiveness of deadly sins after baptism, than (to judge from the tone and language of much of our modern preaching) is often imagined;-that, in fact, it is scanty;

and no more than sufficient to prove what our Church teaches in her 16th Article.

"I earnestly hope that any who may attempt to impugn the general doctrine of the Sermon, will direct their attention especially to these three first positions; because if they are shewn to be unfounded, or can be, in any degree, materially invalidated, I freely confess that, though the doctrine itself, in all the main and essential features of it, will still be true; the balance of the truth, and of the testimony of Scripture, will not indeed be such as I have represented it.

"4. That the safe, and divinely-appointed way for the recovery of fallen Christians, would seem to be by Ecclesiastical discipline, ending in Ministerial absolution—both from the testimony of Scripture and the practice of the primitive Church.

"5. That the absence of any such discipline, in effect and practice, among ourselves, i.e. in our own Church, as at present administered, is deeply to be regretted. And however the attempt at restoring it may now be unwise or impracticable, the bearing it in mind, and representing it as a loss, repeatedly, both to our own consciences, and in the ears of our congregations, is highly proper and salutary, and especially needful to make us cautious in preaching the momentous doctrines, and in describing the true measures of sin and of repentance.

6. That good works are a necessary part not only of our duty as Christians, but also of our discipline as penitents."—(pp. vii—ix.)

It seemed expedient to give the above propositions, notwithstanding the space they occupy, because they convey the preacher's own views in a digested and unsuspicious form. Our course shall be to shew the developement of some of these leading postulates and axioms, by a selection from the body of the sermon; and then to contrast them with what appear to us to be unsophisticated evangelical principles.

Many of our readers (is it presumption so to believe?) are by this time prepared to acknowledge that there is some colour for our first accusation. And others, perhaps, will side with us, when they observe how the plan of limitation is pursued in the argument itself:

"It is not enough that we zealously promote and propagate, unless we also rightly divide the word of truth. For instance, as regards the subject of which I speak, surely we should consider, that the examples and precepts of the Old Testament, and even of the Gospels in the New, are not always applicable to us in the same measure and degree as to those, whom they directly concerned, and for whose edification and comfort they were more immediately designed. The case of David, or even of St. Peter, who sinned, once and again, under the covenant of circumcision, cannot, I imagine, be (strictly speaking,) our case, if we trangress, once and again, the covenant of baptism; -how much less of those who, with the name and profession and privileges of Christians, live on day after day and year after year, in the habitual commission of known, deliberate, deadly sin! The invitations of the prophets(of Jonas to the Gentile Ninevites, or of Joel to the Jews)-indicative as they are of the goodness, and forbearance, and long-suffering of the Almighty, and as such wisely chosen by our Church to form part of her most solemn penitential service, still, it should seem, as addressed to ourselves, are at feast liable to the abatement implied in the words of Christ himself: That servant which knew his Lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did accord

ing to his will, shall be beaten with wany stripes.-For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required; and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.”—(pp. 15—18.)

As the author challenges special attention to his first three positions, we will now venture to state our objections and apprehensions, more particularly with respect to these.

1. It occurs as a very obvious, and possibly a superficial remark, that epistles addressed to the Churches of the "saints" and of the "faithful in Christ Jesus," do not present precisely the kind of document in which we should look for most copious instructions on the subject of repentance.

2. With regard to the principle of limitation-we entertain a rooted, and, as it appears, to us, a well-founded jealousy of the plan of thus dividing Scripture against itself. We deem the Old Testament doctrine of repentance to be vastly more "Evangelical" than that which is here promulged, though this last were fortified by all the Fathers that were ever canonized, or all the schoolmen who ever "darkened counsel." Furthermore, we cannot forget that this is the very refuge of those whom the Neo-Catholics themselves would designate as heretics and schismatics. For instance, seek to convince a non-conformist that it is the duty of the state, as a state, to provide a spiritual fold for all its subjects, and consequently to establish and to regulate the external administration of religionquote the examples of David, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, and othershow will you be answered? Why in the very words of the reverend author, "the New Testament is the standard to which we should refer for guidance" in constituting and ordering "a Christian Church"-Speak to the antipodo-baptist of the analogy between circumcision and baptism, remind him that by the former, infants were brought into covenant with God, and he immediately turns round upon you with, All this is beside the mark. We have nothing to do with the law in this matter,' "the New Testament is the standard, &c." Venture, as we suppose, Mr. Wordsworth would, to appeal to the different orders of the Levitical priesthood, as supplying some corroborative presumption in favour of the episcopal cause, the convenient reply is ready as before, "Not to the law, but to the gospel. The New Testament is the standard," &c. Urge the obligation of the Christian Sabbath from what is revealed respecting the Jewish, and the same answer is prepared to cut you short, "there is no one precept on the subject in the epistles;" and as for intimations, "the testimony of scripture (thus limited) is much less full and less definite upon the doctrine of the Sabbath, than is often imagined-in fact it is scanty."

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