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And as our station in life adds a dignity to our character, so let it inspire us with holiness, and a zeal for the salvation of souls, in which alone consists the real dignity of a Christian Bishop. Lift up your heads, therefore, my Lords, look round and examine what things want reformation in the Church of England. . If the priest is remiss, what can be expected from the people? Imagine you hear at the last day the Almighty Judge thus rebuking us. A cry against you cometh up into my ears-a cry against your avarice, your exactions, your tyranny. I commanded you with industry and painstaking to feed my sheep; instead of which, you do nothing but gluttonize from day to day, wallowing in indolence and pleasure. I commanded you to preach my commandments, and seek my glory; instead of which you preach your own phantasies, and seek your own profit.

What can be interpreted, beating our

fellows in our case, if not allowing their corruptions? What can be interpreted, eating and drinking with the drunken, if not spending our lives in indolence and pleasure? But God will come on a day when we look not for him; and in an hour when we are not aware. He will call us to a severe account, and all our worldly policy will end in despair.”*

*Latimer's Sermons.

This language of Latimer is indeed strong; but not too strong for the overwhelming importance of the subject. Alas! where, where is the man, in these our days, having access to the King and Nobles of his country, who is so penetrated with the interests of eternity, and lifted above the fear of man, as faithfully, with true Christian affection, to remind the King of his awful responsibility in the appointment of Bishops; and the Bishops of the solemn account which they must render of the examining and ordaining, and subsequent treatment of their clergy-to point out to the King the supineness of the bishops, and to the bishops the want of discipline in the church? * Is

*This want of discipline shews itself in many ways, but especially in the administration of the sacraments. Where is the clergyman who adheres strictly to his instructions, admitting no one to be a sponsor at the baptismal font, who has not previously been a communicant, and no one to be a communicant who has not been confirmed, who is not living a moral life, and who does not signify before-hand his intention of coming to the Lord's Table? These watchful and wise regulations are wholly neglected. Nay, it is avowedly argued, that their observance would drive our people out of the church, that our formulas are only tolerated as obsolete, and that if we were rigidly to observe them according to their original intention, all our intelligent people would forsake us and join the Dissenters. Thus to avoid the charge of priestcraft and popish superstition, we are embracing that fiend, intelligent infidelity. Would our people indeed desert us, if we were true to our church? And has the age we live in

there a chaplain or court preacher who will do it? Is there a prelate who will do it? Is there a cabinet minister who will do it? Is there a judge who will do it? Alas! no, my brethren, not one; not one perhaps with such a sense of eternal things upon his own soul, as to make him feel the urgency of the case, or arraign him before the court of his own conscience for unfaithful silence.

And what is the consequence? As with the fountain, so with the streams. The fear of God, as the actuating principle of human conduct, is well nigh banished from our land; and what remains to supply its place? The fear of death cannot do it, the fear of exile cannot do it, the fear of imprisonment, even with the appendage of our modern inventions for hard labour, cannot do it. Nothing can do it, and therefore our

become indeed too Sadducean to endure our establishment? And must all that belongs to faith be laid aside, and that only retained which commends itself to reason? Let this be remembered by those who, for other reasons, are so anxious to make it appear, that true religion has increased in our land. I do not exhort to any thing popish. I hate priestcraft. I hate the whole system (not the people) of the great harlot with a perfect hatred: but I do exhort both myself and others to more faithfulness in the performance of our engagements to our own Protestant Establishment. The particulars above mentioned are selected as the most tangible; but many invaluable details are inseparably connected with them.

land is deluged with crime, and our prisons are too small for our abounding culprits. The cause lies not in the severity of our codes, neither in the increase of our population; but the cause lies in this, that while knowledge has advanced, true religion has not advanced in the nation.

The nation (considered as such, and excepting the remnant, which even now at this time also remaineth according to the election of grace) has forsaken the Lord God of Hosts, and gone after idols. Covetousness is idolatry, and covetousness is the ruling sin of England.

Our manufacturing classes, rich and poor, have forsaken God. Gain is their god. They will be rich. The masters among them, instead of using the poor man as a fellow-creature, remembering that they also have a Master in heaven, use him as a machine, to be driven while driving it is a gain to them, and stopped and discarded when there is no more demand for its produce: a system which may answer with a machine, that ceases to consume when it ceases to produce; but cannot answer with man, who must continue to consume whether he produce or not, and will not lie quietly awaiting his master's convenience, like a house full of wheels and pullies. The workmen, on the other hand, instead of serving their masters for conscience sake, in the sight and

fear of God, are mere eye-servants, combining to get as much wages and do as little work as they possibly can: extravagant and improvident; watching for every opportunity when they can harass their employers; rebelling against their engagements, and insultingly demanding an increase of wages-then, by a reverse of circumstances, thrown upon the public as actually starving paupers.

Similar is the condition of our agricultural classes. They, too, have forsaken God. The landlord's object is not the real good of his tenantry, in the fear of God who gave him his estate and entrusted those people to his care. His object is his rent. The farmer aims not at the real good of his labourers, in the fear of God who gave him his farm, and put the la bourer under him; but he aims at his own profit, and the education and embellishment (to an absurd excess) of his own family. The labourer's object is not the conscientious service of the steward or farmer who hires him, in the fear of God who has given him strength to labour, and provided him with a master: his object is merely his bodily subsistence; and his wages not being sufficient to purchase provisions for himself and his children, he is forced to give up all spirit of independent industry, and become a pensioner upon the parish, a sort of legalized beggar; and then, finding the extra

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