from a small evening-collection of half-pence at the churchdoors, from a worshipping assembly of poor people, altogether distinct from the wealthier congregation which assembled in the morning from all parts of the town: it fell short of £100 a year. The grand difficulty, it is obvious, must have been in the disposal of the new cases, but the success of the trial was triumphant. At the end of four years, in a population at that time of about ten thousand, the whole of the new pauperism, in this the poorest parish, never exceeded in expense, £66 6s., or, deducting cases of lunacy, disease and the like, never exceeded £32. The number of new paupers was thirteen. And what is far more extraordinary was the facility of the operation, as discovered when an inquiry was made by circular of the deacons themselves, the answers to which are given, at length, in the sixteenth volume. The time spent by each deacon in this matter did not average more than three hours a month. The system was by far the most popular among the indigent classes. The enemies daily predicted failure: but it did not fail. When, in 1823, Dr. Chalmers left Glasgow, they predicted that the loss of his personal influence would be fatal to the system; but the recorded testimony of his successors, Dr. M'Farlane and Dr. Brown, shows that its vitality was undiminished and effective. Surely we do not wonder at the enthusiasm of Dr. Chalmers, nor at his repugnance to a change of the Presbyterian method. If England,' says he, will so idolize her own institutions, as to be unwilling to part even with their worst vices, she must be let alone since she will have it so. But let her not inoculate with the vices of her own moral gangrene, those countries which have the misfortune to border on her territory, and be subject to her sway and, more especially, let not the simple and venerated parochial system of our own land lie open to the crudities, or be placed at the disposal of a few cockney legislators.'

We have gone into these statements, notwithstanding our clear apprehension of the disregard with which details so foreign and so dry will be treated by some even of our own readers; but with the encouraging hope that the number of Christian economists is perpetually on the increase, and that to such as merit the appellation, discussions of this kind will never be unwelcome.

ART. III. The Kingdom of Christ delineated, in two Essays on our Lord's own account of his person and of the nature of his Kingdom, and on the Constitution, Powers and Ministry of a Christian Church, as appointed by himself. By Richard Whately, D. D. Archbishop of Dublin. New York: Wiley and Putnam, 161 Broadway. 1842.

THIS volume comes commended to our diligent attention by the previous reputation of the writer, by his high official standing in the Church of England, and by the eagerness with which some have done their best to prepossess the public mind against it. It is worthy of remark, that the same class of persons, who would make the Presbyterian system of Church Government responsible for all the inconsistent views of individual Presbyterians, are forward to disclaim the work before us as possessing an episcopal authority. The earnestness with which this disavowal has been made is well adapted to excite curiosity, and to suggest the question, what could a bishop or archbishop write, to throw his own camp into such confusion? This curiosity, so far as it exists upon the part of our own readers, we shall now proceed to satisfy by stating, as briefly and as clearly as we can, the main points of Archbishop Whately's doctrine as to the "constitution, powers and ministry of the Christian church." The first of the two essays, " on Christ's own account of his person and of the nature of his kingdom as set forth at his two trials," we shall leave unnoticed, as less interesting to our readers.

In the second essay, the Archbishop first attempts to show that Christianity was designed to be a social religion, and the Christian church an organized society, as such possessing officers by whom the church itself was represented, bye-laws obligatory on its members as to matters in themselves indifferent, and a power of determining the qualifications of its members. These, he maintains, are essential attributes of every voluntary organized society, expressly recognized by Christ himself, in the appointment of the first church officers, and in the grant of the power of the keys and of remission. His language on these subjects would of course be understood by his disciples in accordance with that system under which they lived, and in which

there were not only ordained officers, but powers analogous to those conferred on Christian rulers. The legitimate authority of these Jewish rulers our Lord recognized, while he condemned their abuse of it in putting tradition on a level with the law. Judging by this analogy, the apostles would understand our Lord's commission as empowering them to make regulations for the internal government of the church, and to inflict or remit the punishments of all offending against such regulations. In this sense only would they understand him as empowering them to bind and loose, to forgive sins, and to hold the keys of the "kingdom of heaven," i. e. of the church, which is the meaning of that phrase in the New Testament. This view of our Lord's meaning is confirmed, as the archbishop thinks, by the actual course pursued by the apostles in the execution of their great commission. And here we are met by the first of those original and novel views of a familiar subject, by which the work is specially distinguished. From the very scantiness and absence of detail in the scriptural account of the primitive churches, the archbishop argues that the matters thus omitted were expressly intended to be made the subject of discretionary regulation. In connection with this argument he animadverts upon the error of neglecting to observe the omissions of scripture in interpretation, upon which point he refers to a former publication of his own, in which, it seems, he has endeavoured to show that "that these omissions present a complete moral demonstration, that the apostles and their followers must have been supernaturally withheld from recording great part of the institutions, instructions, and regulations, which must in point of fact, have proceeded from them-withheld on purpose that other churches, in other ages and regions, might not be led to consider themselves bound to adhere to general formularies, customs and rules, that were of local and temporary appointment, but might be left to their own discretion in matters in which it seemed best to divine wisdom that they should be so left." He then proceeds to state as highly probable, if not morally certain, that wherever a Jewish synagogue was broughtthe whole or the chief part of it-to embrace the gospel, the apostles did not there so much form a Christian church or congregation, as make an existing congregation Christian, by introducing the Christian sacraments and worship, and establishing whatever regulations were requisite for the newly adopted faith, leaving the machinery of government

unchanged, the rulers of synagogues, elders, and other officers, being already provided in the existing institutions. In this way the archbishop thinks that several of the earliest Christian churches did originate; that is, they were converted synagogues; the attempt at this conversion being made wherever synagogues existed. The course pursued in the formation of Christian churches is not minutely stated, though the fact of their formation is distinctly recorded, and the principles on which they must be governed clearly stated, while the precise mode in which they shall be carried out is studiously left undefined. In Paul's Epistles, the archbishop thinks he has observed, that the apostle was left unrestrained in recording particular directions in those cases where there was no danger of his directions being applied in all ages and countries, as binding on every church forever. He also adverts to the remarkable fact, that there is no such description on record of the first appointment of the higher orders of Christian ministers, as there is of the ordination of the deacons; from which he infers that the mention of the latter is merely incidental, and designed to introduce the account of Stephen's martyrdom. In connexion with this part of the subject, he expresses an opinion that the deacons. mentioned in the sixth of Acts were only the first Grecian deacons, and that there were Hebrew deacons before. In confirmation of this opinion he quotes an argument of some length from the article on Ecclesiastical History in the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana. From the latter part of this quotation we extract an ingenious theory as to the scriptural use of the word deacon and primitive nature of the office so entitled.

"After all, it is most likely that the word deacon was originally applied, as its etymology suggests, to all the ministers of the gospel establishment. But the Apostles having from the first a a specific title, it more properly denoted any minister inferior to them,-any, however employed in the service of the Church. Between these, also, there soon obtained a distinction. If we suppose, then, that the seniors, or superior class, were distinguished by the obvious title of elder deacons, (gerBurego diúxovor) the generic and unappropriated term "deacon" would devolve on the remaining class. And thus the present order in the Church, to which that name is applied, may be truly asserted to be deacons in the apostolical and primitive sense of the word; and yet, nevertheless, much may be said about deacons, both in the New Testament and in the writings of the early fathers, which will not apply to them."

The use made by Whately of the alleged fact that the deacons mentioned in the sixth of Acts, were not the first who held that office, is to illustrate the intentional silence of the sacred volume as to the details of church organization.

"Thus," says he, "a further confirmation is furnished of the view that has been taken, viz. that it was the plan of the sacred writers to lay down clearly the principles on which Christian churches were to be formed and governed, leaving the application of these principles undetermined and discretionary." From this fact, thus established, the archbishop derives, first, an incidental proof of the inspiration of the sacred books, and secondly, the inference that whatever is essential in church government is clearly revealed in scripture, and of course that whatever is not so revealed, must be left to discretionary regulation. According to this view of the matter all points relating to church government may be divided into three classes, 1st, things essential and enjoined as universally requisite; 2d, those left to the discretion of the rulers of each church; 3d, those excluded as inconsistent with the gospel. Under the last head are included temporal sanctions to enforce spiritual laws, the use of sacrifices, altars, and temples, and a human priesthood. These things, according to Archbishop Whately, are expressly excluded from the Christian church by Christ himself, as inconsistent with the gospel.

"It is not a little remarkable, therefore, though in other matters also experience shows the liability of men to maintain at once opposite errors,—that the very persons who are for restricting within the narrowest limits, or rather, indeed, annulling altogether,—the natural right of a community to make and alter bye-laws in matters not determined by a superior authority, and who deny that any Church is at liberty to depart, even in matters left wholly undecided in Scripture, from the supposed, or even conjectured-practice of the Apostles, these very persons are found advocating the introduction into Christianity of practices and institutions not only unauthorized, but plainly excluded, by its inspired promulgators;-such as Sacrifices and sacrificing Priests; thus, at once, denying the rights which do belong to a Christian Community, and asserting those which do not; at once fettering the Church by a supposed obligation to conform strictly to some supposed precedents of antiquity, and boldly casting off the obligation to adhere to the plainest injunctions of God's written Word. Full well do ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.""

Another thing excluded, according to our author, from the Christian system, is a Spiritual Head of the Church on earth. Another is the claim to apostolical power without the possession of miraculous gifts, the "signs of an apostle." A universal church, possessing authority over all the parts, and exercising that authority by means of general councils, he regards as an unscriptural figment. The meeting at Jerusalem recorded in the fifteenth of Acts, he treats as an assembly of the clergy of that church, to determine the question whether that church had sanctioned a certain doctrine,