ence to this volume. If so, those who use them are quite welcome to them. To guard, however, as much as possible against misconception, or misrepresentation, I would affirm, once for all, that I think professors of all denominations are much below their privileges, their principles, and their obligations; and that I have not addressed the contents of these chapters to my own flock, because I think they are behind others in piety, but because I wish them to be above and beyond the average religion of the day. It will be expected, perhaps, that I ought to take some public notice of a volume of letters addressed to me by Mr. BEVERLEY. I do not know that the circumstance of my name being placed in the title page of that book, lays me under any obligation to notice its contents at all, much less to reply to them. I can have no hesitation, however, in briefly adverting to that singular production. My own opinion of it, and of the author's other works, accords in some measure with those which have been already expressed from other quarters. It is a book which can please none, and yet may improve all, if indeed they are in a mood to receive and profit by what is administered in no very gentle manner. It may be called, to use an artist's phrase, a study in church polity, in which among some things to commend, there are more to condemn. There are some truths, but many fallacies. As a writer, Mr. BEVERLEY is more of a caricaturist than a portrait painter; and a satirist, rather than a censor. His great fault lies in speaking too dogmatically upon subjects, with which he can be from his situation but imperfectly acquainted, and in drawing general conclusions from too narrow a range of facts. I trust we shall never adopt his views on the subject of a learned ministry; and on the other hand, never be induced to put learning in the place of piety, as the only or first qualification for the sacred office. Our ordination services admit, perhaps, of improvement, but cannot be dispensed with, intended as they are, to introduce a minister to pastoral functions, but not to consecrate a priest for sacerdotal offices. It is difficult to believe that Mr. BEVERLEY wishes to be the founder of a new sect; I would rather charitably hope that his desire is to bring back those which already exist, to what he conceives to be the primitive simplicity of apostolic Christianity. Yet, why has he placed himself in the situation of a voluntary outlaw from the Christian church? More of a destructive than a reformer, he is skilful in demolition, but is prepared with no scheme for reconstructing the ruin he has occasioned. He is capable of doing something better than he has yet achieved. He can write with effect, and will write with good effect, when he will allow pious earnestness, and courteous fidelity, to gain the ascendant in his composition, over caustic severity, and an exaggerated representation of the faults both of systems and their supporters. Passages of considerable beauty might be selected from all his productions, but there has been in most of them a want of seriousness, which makes them more adapted to please the scoffer, than to improve the believer. Still, however, I wish his last work, nominally addressed to myself, to be widely circulated and attentively read. Even his sarcasms may do good; and his fierce, and almost lawless severity may be turned to account. He has told us some faults of which we are guilty, though not perhaps in the degree he has represented; and he has accused us of others, from which, I think, we are clear; the former let us amend, the latter avoid. His gravest accusation is, that we have too little spiritual piety and brotherly love. Whether he be thought the fittest man to tell us so, or whether he has told us of it in the best manner, let us not stay to ask, but bow to the rebuke, which, in common with all other denominations, and perhaps not more than they, we deserve, and endeavour by God's grace to improve. I hesitate not to express my conviction that he wishes to do us good, though it may be doubted whether he has chosen the best method of demonstrating his respect, or promoting our edification. EDGBASTON, April 21, 1837. J. A. J. |