THE ENGLISH PULPIT.

"I, JOHN, by the grace of God King of England, etc., freely grant unto God, and the holy Apostles, Peter and Paul, AND TO THE HOLY ROMAN CHURCH, OUR MOTHER, AND UNTO THE LORD, POPE INNOCENT, AND TO HIS CATHOLIC SUCCESSORS, THE WHOLE KINGDOM OF ENGLAND, AND THE WHOLE KINGDOM OF IRELAND, with all the rights and all the appurtenances of the same, for the remission of our sins, and of all our generations, both for the living and the dead, that from this time forward we may receive and hold them of him, and of the Roman Church, as second after him, And for the sign of this our perpetual obligation and concession, we will and ordain that of our proper and especial revenue from the said kingdoms, for all our service and custom which we ought to render, THE ROMAN CHURCH RECEIVE A THOUSAND MARKS STERLING, YEARLY, without diminution of St. Peter's pence; AND IF WE, OR ANY OF OUR SUCCESSORS, PRESUME TO ATTEMPT AGAINST THESE THINGS, LET HIM FORFEIT HIS RIGHT TO THE KINGDOM, ETC."

etc.

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In our previous sketch we left the pulpit under a cloud. That that cloud had not yet been lifted, this act of formal submission to the papal power, by England's king, on the 12th day of May, in the year 1213, sufficiently attests. It is but an index of those unhappy times, when the meanest agents of the Pope insulted with impunity the greatest princes of the earth. But the hour of triumph is sometimes the hour of defeat. The successors of Innocent had not uniformly exacted the promised tribute, for the best of reasons; and when, at a later day, Pope Urban the Fifth demanded of Edward the Third the arrearages of many years, the king refused; for the heart of the better portion of the nation was stirred to the point of resistance. A century had passed, and now the opportune hour for giving a prodigious blow to the power of popery in England had come. And the blow was not wanting. The falling out between the King and the Pope had made Wickliffe royal chaplain; and boldly did he enter the lists. He asserted the sufficiency of the Scriptures, and the liability of the Pope to err, and even commit mortal sin. Vast was the influence of this noble champion for the truth; but his death occurred just when a continuance of his efforts only seemed needful to emancipate the nation. Let us pass over a century, during which the Reforma tion, for the reason indicated, made but comparatively little progress.

We have quoted one famous passage. Let us cite another of a very different nature. If the ship of the Church is to be saved from being swallowed up by the tempest, there is only one anchor that can save it ; it is the HEAVENLY WORD, which, issuing from the bosom of the Father, lives, speaks, and works still in the GOSPEL." These were the noble words of Erasmus, who, in the year 1467, first saw the light. And, as, he uttered them, he sent forth from the press at Basle, his New Testament in Greek, published now for the first time, with a new Latin translation.

It was a bold push for reform, and gave a wonderful advance move. ment in the direction of Wickliffe's efforts the century previous. Those fresh volumes, crossing the Channel, found their way to the private chambers of praying men and women, to the marts of business, to the lecture-rooms, and the ancient halls of Oxford and Cambridge. The religious reformation was rapidly progressing. The people were reading God's Word, and discussing the great principles of justification by faith and its kindred themes. Ridley, and Latimer, and Cranmer, and Jewell, and Bradford, and Tyndale are seen in the field, doing battle for the truth. They are mighty preachers, and have evoked an influence which no degree of opposition can allay. The Reformers of England are striking hands with those of other countries. The seeds of the Reformation, scattered by Luther's predecessors along the Rhine, have sprung up and come to fruitage; while the labors of Wishart and Knox, in Scotland, are yielding a plentiful harvest. In every province of Christendom, strange as it may appear, there is a simultaneous, yet independent action of the Divine word—and thus the glorious work goes on.

If we examine now the writings of the founders of the English churches, we shall find strong indications of what Fuller calls a "twilight religion." The nation was just emerging from the depths of Romish superstition, and even the foremost of the Reformers could not have been wholly free from error, and in all respects model preachers. It was not till the remarkable reign of Edward the Sixth, when Protestantism made such immense progress, that any great degree of accuracy and clearness of statement on doctrines generally, was arrived at, and somewhat of method and harmonious arrangement in the manner of public discourse. But for all, the Reformers must have been powerful preachers. The subjects selected were those that excited public attention, and in their treatment they were briefly touched, and rapidly varied. In reading these early productions, we see not, at the best, the men, and are liable to lose sight of the times. Though the structure of the sentences is oftentimes uncouth, and modern taste is offended at the trivial allusions and wearisome digressions, yet in many respects these preachers excelled those of the next century; certainly in downright earnestness, and a direct and pungent method of presenting truth. In respect to the matter of their discourses, as might have been anticipated, they at first dis

coursed much upon the abuses and enormities of Popery, especially in regard to the Christian ordinances, a belief in whose efficacy had nullified the doctrine of justification by faith. Soon, however, the plain and essential doctrines of the Bible formed the staple of their sermons. They insisted upon the sole authority of the Scriptures, as the rule of faith and practice, and called back the public mind from tradition and speculation to the positive" Thus saith the Lord." With Wickliffe, they declared that impertinent "which is not plainly declared in Scripture." As a consequence piety revived, and the power of religion was widely felt and exemplified. The leading truths of revelation having been disengaged, by means of the Reformation, from the errors with which they had hitherto been intermingled, were incorporated as the basis of the national creed in the year 1562.

But, by the close of the reign of James the First (1625), preaching had begun to degenerate from its former simplicity. In the discourses of these times, we find again, to some extent, the subtle distinctions and vague speculations of the early ages, and appeals to the “Fathers” in matters of faith, as well as, and oftentimes instead of, the Scriptures. This tendency so rapidly progressed, that before the termination of the seventeenth century, the sermons of the state clergy generally breathed little or nothing of the evangelical spirit. Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, whose discourses seem to have been designed to flatter the pride of King Charles, rather than save the souls of those whom he addressed, was a strenuons advocate of the crown and the miter, and it would appear that he considered it his special vocation to denounce the Nonconformists, and defend the prerogatives of the throne. His example could not but be widely followed. Sermons became political harangues, and exhortations to unity. A lax theology obtained, and with it a general corruption of manners and life. Neal, in his History of the Puritans, says of these times, "There was hardly a sermon preached by the inferior clergy within the king's quarters, wherein the Parliament divines (those who sided against the king) were not severely exposed and ridiculed, under the character of Puritans,* Precisians, Formalists, Sabbatarians, canting hypocrites, etc." Indeed, the clergy were neither fitted nor inclined to preach the pure Gospel. It can not be denied that many of them were absolutely dissolute. Dr. Walker, when referring to them,

As early as the time of Queen Elizabeth, this term was applied, in derision, to those who insisted on the pure word of God, in opposition to all traditions and human constitutions. Hume gave this name to three parties, the political Puritans, maintaining the highest principles of civil liberty; the Puritans in discipline, who were averse to the ceremonies and government of the Episcopal Church; and the doctrinal Puritans, who rigidly defended the system held by the first Reformers. At the beginning of the seventeenth century some of the Puritans were Conformists, and some were Non-conformists. Very soon after the Synod of Dort, the court clergy were distinguished for their Armin. ianism; and those of the opposite view were branded by the title of DOCTRINAT PURITANS. Vol. i. p. 427.

admits that "there were men of wicked lives, and such as were a reproach and scandal to their functions; the particulars of which had better have been buried than left upon record."*

There arose, also, at this time, a set of divines who, as Robert Hall says, "partly in compliance with the popular humor, partly to keep at a distance from the Puritans, and partly to gain the infidels who began to make their appearance, introduced a new sort of preaching, in which the doctrines of the Reformation, as they are usually styled, were supplanted by copious and elaborate disquisitions on points of morality. Their fame and ability emboldened their successors to improve upon this pattern, by consigning the Articles of the Church to a still more perfect oblivion, by losing sight still more entirely of the peculiarities of the Gospel, guarding more anxiously against every sentiment or expression that could agitate or alarm, and by shortening the length and adding as much as possible to the dryness of their moral lucubrations.

"From that time," he continues, "the idea commonly entertained in England of a perfect sermon was that of a discourse upon some moral topic, clear, correct, and argumentative, in the delivery of which the preacher must be free from all suspicion of being moved himself, or of intending to produce emotion in his hearers. This idea was successfully realized, this singular model of pulpit eloquence carried to the utmost perfection. The consequence was that the creed established by law had no sort of influence in forming the sentiments of the people; the pulpit completely vanquished the desk; piety and puritanism were confounded in one common reproach; an almost pagan darkness in the concerns of salvation prevailed; and the English became the most irreligious people upon earth."

Far different had it been with the men of a preceding age, who had been trained under Puritan influences, and who were spared the sight of the corruptions even now setting in. Here the true doctrines were insisted upon, and, in many instances, with eminent learning and ability. For to these times belong Leighton, and Baxter, and Bates, and Bunyan, and Owen, and Flavel, and Beveridge, and Howe, and Charnock, and others deserving of honorable mention. These men were earnest preachers, the more so as they were pained at the inactivity of the majority of those who filled the sacred office. This was characteristic of the Puritans as a class. While the day lasted they labored with their might, rebuking the prevailing wickedness and "pulling sinners out of the fire." It is also to be observed that their preaching was, in the highest sense, biblical. They were "mighty in the Scriptures." They insisted particularly upon the more humiliating truths of revelation, and those which are accounted hard to receive; perhaps carrying the matter, in some instances, to an extreme.

It is difficult to determine which trait predominated in the master *Sufferings of Clergy, p. 72. See Hall's Works, ii. 272.

spirits that figured during the turbulent times preceding the Restoration of Charles the Second; whether their devotion, or their love of freedom, or their attachment to the doctrines of grace. Certain it is that most of their opponents, the firm supporters of arbitrary power, held sentiments directly at variance with the tenets which they had adopted. This fact presents a strange anomaly; the adherents of the established religion virtually departing from their own articles of faith, in substance the doctrinal views of the Reformers, and the Puritans supporting the creed which its friends had abandoned. It was mainly by means of the Nonconformists, therefore, that the spirit of the Reformation was kept alive.

And for much besides this are we indebted to these stanch old Puritans of the seventeenth century. They were men of prodigious power. We are not to judge of them by their pulpit productions only; for they have bequeathed to us fewer of these than have their churchly oppressors. Their treatises on religion and religious experience are very voluminous, and constitute a proud monument to early sacred learning. Witness, to mention no others, those of Owen, and Baxter, and Bunyan. But saying nothing of the rich legacy of their writings, how great is our indebtedness to their influence while living! We may judge of our obligations and of their real ability by the impress which their preaching and discussions left upon their own and subsequent ages. Had they not been the most powerful of preachers, the most learned of divines, and the most able of disputants, they could not have wielded so prodigious an influence. No one will deny that they contributed more than any and all others to set limits to the power of the Crown, to define the rights of subjects, and to secure to the people their liberties. Their strong hand it was that wrested the rod of iron from the grasp of the ruling power, and substituted in its stead a scepter of righteousness and mercy. But for the penetrating minds and the earnest purpose of these men, the distinct provinces of divine and human legis lation might have long remained unacknowledged and undefined, and no one can tell how much time would have elapsed before scriptural sentiments had come to be held respecting the unsecular nature of Christ's kingdom, and its true resources of maintenance and extension. And having said thus much of the Puritan pulpit, justice demands that we add, that among the established clergy in the last half of the seventeenth century, were men of elegant letters and profound erudition, who magnified their offices especially in their noble defense of the truth against the free-thinkers, and Unitarians, and Papists.

But by the close of this century, the pulpit, as intimated above, had ceased to exert the full measure of its power. Few, indeed, were they who "held out the lamp of evangelical instruction," at that darkened period. Not the general style, alone, but the doctrine of the pulpit became sadly vitiated. Infidel sentiments, about this time, began to prevail, and before the expiration of the first half of the following cen