may be represented. There seem to be objections to the use of figures in glass, as there are to that of statues or images in the interior or exterior of our sacred edifices.

The third volume which we have mentioned at the head of this article, affords evidence of the success which has attended the institution of the Exeter Architectural Society. It is probably known to our readers, that the excellent Bishop Medley took an active part in organizing this Society, and in the earlier parts of its career. We have already had, on more than one occasion, to express our sense of the value of the papers comprised in the Transactions of this Society. The Quarterly Report contains a description of two churches, near and at Exeter, which have been recently erected, but one of which remains unfinished for want of sufficient means. The Report of the Visiting Committee is particularly interesting; and we should be glad to see such visitations take place in all parts of the country, for the clergy would frequently derive much assistance and encouragement in the work of church restoration from communicating with persons well qualified to advise them. The engravings accompanying this volume comprise several coloured representations of decorated windows in Exeter cathedral, and are very beautifully executed.

VIII.-1. The Pastor in his Closet; or a Help to the Devotions of the Clergy. By the Rev. JOHN ARMSTRONG, B.A., Vicar of Tidenham. Oxford: Parker.

2. Enchiridion Juvenile, &c. Bathonia: S. Sims.

THOSE who are acquainted with Mr. Armstrong's Sermons on the Festivals will readily acknowledge his fitness for the composition of such a work as he here offers to his fellow-labourers. From what we have seen of this little volume we can most cordially recommend it as a manual of devotions to the clergy. They will find in it the expression of all those wants and feelings, and the remembrance of all those duties, which their high and sacred calling demands. There are prayers or meditations (for they comprise both characters) for every day of the week, besides general devotions. We have derived much edification from this little manual.

The Enchiridion Juvenile" is a collection of religious rules and devotions for young persons, in the Latin language, and is borrowed, with some alterations, from Neumayr's "Methodus Vitæ Christianæ." The arrangement of this pleasing manual is such as to impress its principal moral lessons clearly and forcibly on the mind. The prayers which are at the conclusion, are

chiefly derived from our approved English divines, such as Patrick, Sherlock, Nowell, &c. Altogether we have not observed any thing objectionable in this manual, and have seen much to approve.

(Third

IX.-Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction. Parochial Lectures.
Series.) With a Preliminary Essay on the Teaching and Priestly
Offices. By WILLIAM J. IRONS, B.D., Incumbent of the Holy
Trinity, Brompton, Middlesex. London: Masters.

No one can rise from the perusal of this work of Mr. Irons without feeling that he has been made to think on some of the most vital questions affecting the Church of Christ. We must confess that Mr. Iron's style appears to us occasionally somewhat too ambitious, and that in his writings there are obscurities which might have been avoided. His tone also is not always what we should have recommended. And yet we feel that there is so much with which we can sympathize in his writings-there is so earnest a mind-a spirit of such faithful and sincere attachment to the Church of which he is a minister, so much independence in the formation of his opinions, and consistency in maintaining them, -that, notwithstanding any minor points in which we may be unable to follow him, we cannot rise from the perusal of his work without expressing those feelings of respect which appear to us to be his due. Mr. Irons, in the work before us, (which we should scarcely have deemed suited for Parochial Lectures,) is engaged in developing all the features of the parochial system, as represented in the formularies and canons of the Church Universal, and as it is derived from the institutions of the Apostles. The pastoral duties of the episcopate in the first ages is described with great truth and accuracy in the following

passage: :

"One rule, with probably few exceptions in those days, was, that the head of each large apoikia, or parish, should be a consecrated bishop. The primitive Christians believed in the blessing of the Apostolic guidance and presence of the bishop with his flock. A bishop was not regarded merely as the channel of holy orders, but as the constant guide, adviser, and friend of the whole Christian flock. This was the episcopacy of St. Ignatius's epistles, and the apostolic canons; a kind of episcopacy worth believing in. There was nothing merely technical or formal in this: it was the life-blood of the primitive system. The bishop was the spiritual monarch of the Christian people; he reigned in their hearts. . . . Take all the circumstances, and the Church did all that was possible then, to carry out the idea of a sacred government of men on earth. She taught them obediently to rally round their centre, or bishop, and conform their practice to the laws of the Divine Spirit

speaking in her holy apostles. To the bishop alone, the watching for their souls' was given: he alone was (so to say) the 'parish priest,' having the sole spiritual 'cure.' To him, having indeed no earthly lands, or legally secured possession for the Church, the Christian people sent their offerings, which they laid by on the first day of the week ;' and he gave alms to Christ's poor, and supported his presbyters. All the sacred jurisdiction of the society of Christians, in each place, was thus administered by the bishop, acting often in council, but at times also delegating authority to others for special works. The sacraments were to be administered in the Church as far as possible by the bishop himself. . . . Behold then, ere we pass on to far other times, a bishop of the second and third centuries! He is the ruler, the parish priest, the confessor and adviser of all the Christians within his reach; whose names he knows, and whose families he baptizes, whose sins he corrects, whose sorrows he shares, whose missionary teachers he pays, to whose wants, if they are poor, he ministers, from the common fund in his charge."-pp. 28-30.

Mr. Irons then traces the institution of the parochial system, as dioceses became too large for the care of the bishops and presbyters of the city, and the gradual alteration in the episcopal duties which ensued. And he remarks on the contrast between the bishop in primitive times, when he was the centre, soul, and life of the Christian system, and the bishop of the present day, when bishoprics have become large enough to be provinces, with archbishops at the head. All holy bishops, he observes, have for ages bewailed, as Bishop Wilson did, the difficulty of restoring discipline or enforcing the canons of the Church. And the reason of this is, the enormous size of modern dioceses, which render the bishop's influence altogether unknown to three persons out of four. The task, in fact, assigned to each prelate, however good he may be, is as impossible for him to fulfil as that which is intrusted to the presbyters under him.

"If any one pretends that the Christian hierarchy was intended by its Divine Founder to terminate in being one large bishopric on earth, embracing one whole mass of baptized, unsuperintended souls, he is asserting what the papists, practically at least, also assert; and making every bishop little more than we make the presbyter,-viz., the delegate of a higher earthly power. But for us, who believe that episcopacy is a reality, it remains that we cease not to strive to make it felt as such, and brought home as such, to every member of Christ. This can only be achieved by such a multiplication of dioceses as never yet entered the scheme of any Church reformer of this age."-pp. 43, 44.

The writer of this work is one of those who deeply feel the defects of discipline in the Church, and the want of communication between the people and their ministers. He draws a painful pic

ture of the danger besetting an earnest-minded person from the want of spiritual guidance and direction in the Church; and he speaks of the interference of some of the clergy in parishes which do not belong to them. We trust that if evils of this kind are occasionally found, they may be removed. The clergy are, in fact, in our larger parishes completely overburdened with duties, and they are unable to give that attention to the state of particular souls which they could desire. But it is our firm conviction, that if a clergyman has a parish of such dimensions as he can fairly manage, there is nothing to prevent him from holding spiritual intercourse with all those who are desirous of availing themselves of it, and of guiding and directing them in their religious duties. We believe that this is actually the case, to a greater or less extent, wherever the clergyman is really earnest in his desire to discharge the duties of his office, and where he is not charged with a parish of such dimensions as render it unmanageable.

Mr. Irons, in his appendix, takes notice of the Romish theory of the unity of the Church. He observes, that many persons have been entrapped into admitting a certain doctrine of unity, and then find themselves obliged to admit that the Greek Church and the English are in a state of schism. This doctrine is founded on the admission in the Creed, that the Church is ONE, and is a VISIBLE body. The oneness, or unity of the Church, Mr. Irons understands to mean its unity in reference to the SPIRIT which inhabits it. There is one Church, or one body; some of whose members are in the unseen world, some live, and some yet unborn. The militant Church is not Christ's one body, but a part of it. But how is a Christian to know that he is in this one body? Is there not a representative, or sign, or instrument of that unity, accessible to individuals of every age? Yes: the one continuous Church of apostolic and baptismal descent, is visible every where in its local head-its bishop. According to the Romanists, every part of the Church militant is bound to consider itself under one head-the pope. According to our theory, each part of the Church at one place is bound to have one head-the bishop. These are the two theories; and the same objection, he says, lies against both. The local Church is certainly but a part of the whole, but so is the living Church only a part of the whole. (pp. 88-94.)

Mr. Irons is of opinion, that the controversy with Rome hereafter will be decided, not by mere arguments on matters of jurisdiction, schism, &c., but by the question of doctrine-"vital, fundamental, Christian doctrine;" and to demonstrate the error of the papal theory ever so fully will not avail, if "ever the time comes that the Catholic doctrine is rooted out of the Church." That there is no peril of any such event we most firmly believe;

for assuredly there seems little prospect of the truth being without firm and determined defenders and advocates. We should be most inclined to fear if we saw any spirit of discontent or of despondency invading the defenders of the truth; and we trust that the Church will feel the value of their aid, and that they will be rewarded by a confidence and approbation, which they have merited by patient continuance in well-doing, and by faithful and undeviating adherence to sound principle, amidst the fluctuations of party and of the opinions of the day. In these days it behoves the Church to rally around her as many as possible, amongst her sons, who have evinced a spirit of fidelity and of attachment to her doctrines. To repel men otherwise meritorious for slight errors, would be a very mistaken course.

x.-Paradise of the Christian Soul, enriched with choicest delights of varied piety. By J. W. HORST. Adapted to the use of the English Church. London: Burns. 1847.

THE Paradise of the Christian Soul forms another, we hope the concluding, volume of a series of devotional works by Romanists, which, it is well known, Dr. Pusey has for some time past been translating and "adapting"-as he says-" to the use of the English Church." We have two objections to make to this "series." First, we object to the books themselves; secondly, we object to the principle.

Our notions do not quite accord with Dr. Pusey's as to the manner in which he has performed his task of adaptation. A comparison with the originals of Avrillon, Surin, and Horst, would show that he has done much in this line; but we wish he had done more. The volumes are not sufficiently Anglican for us; i. e. to meet our views of what devotional books ought to be, intended for the use of members of our reformed branch of the Church. It were an ungracious office to pick holes in a labour of love (such as all Dr. Pusey's works are), and it were an useless task to occupy the time of our readers by an enumeration of the little points which offend us in this translation of Horst. We will, therefore, merely direct attention to one or two, and pass on. Part 1. chapter IV., is headed "Rosary, Oblations, and Daily Exercises to the most Holy Trinity;" and after reciting the first four petitions of the litany, we find the following rubric :

"Then the rosary is said in three divisions of ten. At the beginning of each ten, or at the three larger beads of the rosary, the LORD's Prayer is said, and the angelic hymn from Revel. vii. . . At each of VOL. VIII. NO. XV.-SEPT. 1847.

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