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[Religious falling off.]

MARY MAGUIRE.

Ir cannot be denied, but in this last age in most of our memories, our nation has manifestly degenerated from the practice of former times, in many moral virtues and spiritual graces, which should teach us to render to God the things that are God's, and to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's. Where is that integrity of manners, that truth of conversation, that dutiful observance of order, that modesty of private life, that charity towards men, that humble devotion towards God, in which we can only say we have heard our nation once excelled? "Twould be a melancholy employment to search into the causes of this unhappy change; but whatever other occasions may have contributed to the continuance and increase of it, certainly the chief cause of the beginning of it was spiritual pride,the want, nay the contempt of an humble and docile spirit. The different effects of this disposition, and of that which is contrary to it, have been abundantly tried in all histories, in all states, civil and ecclesiastical. Those countries and societies of men have ever most flourished where men have been kept longest under a reasonable discipline, those where the number of teachers have been few in comparison to the number of learners. There was never yet any wise nation, or happy church, at least never any that continue long so, where all have thought themselves equally fit, and have been promiscuously admitted to be teachers or lawgivers. What can be the consequence of such a headstrong, stiffnecked, overweening unmanageable spirit? Can anything be more destructive to church and state than such a perverse humour, as is unteachable, ungovernable itself, and yet overhasty to govern and teach others? Where children get too soon out of the government of their parents and masters, where men think it a duty of religion to strive to get out of the government of their magistrates and princes,-where Christians shall think themselves not at all bound to

be under the government of the church,— must not all domestic and politic and spiritual relations soon be dissolved? must not all order be speedily overthrown, where all the true ways to make and keep men orderly are confounded? And what in time would be the issue of such a confusion? what, but either gross ignorance, or false knowledge, which is as bad, or worse? what, but a contempt of virtue and prudence, under the disgraceful titles of pedantry and formality? what, but a looseness of tongues and lives, and at last men taking pride in, and valuing themselves on such looseness? what but a disobedience to the laws of man,-in truth a neglect of all the laws both of God and man ?-Query?

[Papal Darkness.]

"I THEN thought I would go to confession and get my sins pardoned, and thereby be enabled to serve God acceptably. And lest my confession should be imperfect, I wrote down every sin I could remember or think of, which I had committed for five years and gave it to the priest, which he read and I acknowledged. I returned home with a guilty conscience. I was ordered to fast every Friday for a year, and to read three pages in the manual every day during that time. But this penance was labour in vain: I found that instead of finding ease to my mind, the remembrance of my sins became more grievous, and the load more intolerable than ever. I attended the sacrifice of the mass on Sunday, and sometimes two masses, and continued fasting in the interim. Then I got on the scapular of the blessed Virgin. The duties of this order are, to say seven Paters, seven Aves, seven Gloria Paters, and a Creed, every day, and go to the sacrament five times in the year. I attended the stations that are performed in the chapels on Sunday evenings: but I found all there to be physicians of no value! I then resolved to go to Lough- Derg, and get my sins washed

MARY MAGUIRE - LATIMER - WALTON.

away, and then, I thought, I will devote the remainder of my days to God. I went to the Lough, and performed the station according to order, but found no ease to my troubled mind thereby; on the contrary, my sins became more and more intolerable! Oh, thought I, all this will not do! I must apply to something else; and immediately I went under the order of St. Francis. The duties of this order are to repeat daily six Paters, six Aves, and six Gloria Paters, and a Creed, and attend the sacrament twice a-year. But this device was as unprofitable as the former.

"To these orders I added that of St. Joseph, which required the same obligation as the former; and those duties I strove to perform with all my heart, and they were not toilsome to me, because I hoped to profit by them. About this time all my wilful sins were set as in battle array before me, and the sight of them caused me to fear and tremble. The spirit of a man may sustain his infirmity, but a wounded spirit who can bear?

"All this time I had never heard that we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous! I had been told there are three persons in one God, the Glory equal and the Majesty Co-eternal; but of the offices of the second and third Persons in the Godhead I was quite ignorant. I knew of no advocate but the Virgin Mary and the rest of the saints."-Account of Mary Maguire.

[Homely Homilies.]

"HOMILIES,—some call them homelies, and indeed so they may be well called, for they are homely handled. For though the priest read them never so well, yet if the parish like them not, there is such talking and babbling in the church that nothing can be heard. And if the parish be good and the priest naught, he will so hack and chop it, that it were as good for them to be without it, for any word that shall be understood. And yet the more pity, that is suf

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fered of your grace's Bishops in their dioceses unpunished."-LATIMER'S Second Sermon before King Edward VI.

[Bishop Sanderson, and his House at
Buckden.]

"BISHOP SANDERSON's chief house at Buckden, in the county of Huntington, the usual residence of his predecessors (for it stands about the midst of his diocese) having been, at his consecration, a great part of it demolished, and what was left standing under a visible decay, was by him undertaken to be repaired; and it was performed with great speed, care, and charge. And to this may be added that the king having by an injunction commended to the care of the Bishops, Deans, and Prebends of all Cathedral Churches, 'the repair of them, their houses, and an augmentation of the revenue of small vicarages," he, when he was repairing Buckden, did also augment the last, as fast as fines were paid for renewing leases: so fast, that a friend taking notice of his bounty, was so bold as to advise him to remember, 'he was under his first fruits, and that he was old, and had a wife and children that were yet but meanly provided for, especially if his dignity were considered.' To whom he made a mild and thankful answer, saying, 'It would not become a christian bishop to suffer those houses built by his predecessors to be ruined for want of repair; and less justifiable to suffer any of those poor vicars that were callo so high a calling as to sacrifice at God's altar, to eat the bread of sorrow constantly, when he had a power by a small augmentation to turn it into the bread of cheerfulness: and wished, that as this was, so it were also in his power to make all mankind happy, for he desired nothing

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always found enough to make and keep him | should be denied the benefit of their clergy, happy.""-IZAAK WALTON's Life.

[Unpreaching Prelates.]

two provisos were added to make the bill pass through the House of Lords, the one for excepting all such as were within the holy orders of bishop, priest, or deacon, and the other that the act should only be in force till the next parliament. Pursuant to this act many murderers and felons were denied their clergy, and the law passed on them to the great satisfaction of the nation, but this gave great offence to the clergy, and the Abbot of Winchelcont said in a sermon at Paul's Cross, that the act was contrary to the law of God, and to the liberties of the holy church, and that all who assented to it had by so doing in

NET'S Reformation, vol. 1, pp. 12-14.

[Moravian Pattern of Cheerfulness.]

"BUT now for the fault of unpreaching Prelates, methinks I could guess what might be said for excusing them. They are so troubled with lordly living, they be so placed in palaces, couched in courts, ruffling in their rents, dauncing in their dominions, burdened with embassages, pampering of their paunches like a monk that maketh his jubilee, mounching in their mangers, and moyling in their gay manors and mansions, and so troubled with loyter-curred the censures of the church."-Buring in their lordships, that they cannot attend it. They are otherwise occupied, some in king's matters, some are embassadors, some of the privy council, some to furnish the court, some are lords of the parliament, some are presidents, comptrollers of mints. Well-well-is this their duty? is this their office? is this their calling? Should we have ministers of the church to be comptrollers of the mints? Is this a meet office for a priest that hath care of souls? Is this his charge? I would here ask one question, I would fain know who comptrolleth the devil at home in his parish, while he comptrolleth the mint? If the apostles might not leave the office of preaching to the deacons, shall one leave it for minting? I cannot tell you, but the saying is, that since priests have been ministers, money hath been worse than it was before; and they say likewise that the evilness of money hath made all things dearer."-LATIMER'S Sermon of the Plough.

[Benefit of Clergy.]

"A LAW of Henry VII. for burning in the hand clerks convicted of felony did not prove a sufficient restraint. And when in the fourth year of the following reign it was enacted that all murderers and robbers

""Tis a pity, I say, in the least to sully or interrupt that easy and lovely cheerfulness of youth, (which may you long preserve) with any afflatus from darker and sourer minds. For this reason, I thought, when I wrote to you, I would however odly, turn a patron for cheerfulness, I would summon all the lightsome images I was master of, and recall, if possible, some of those agreeable sensations, which youth, soon blasted with grief and thought had produced in myself; the paradisiacal bloom that did then, to the fresh and innocent imagination, dwell on the whole face of things; the soft and solemn delight that even a balmy air, a sunny landskip, the beauties of the vegetable world, hills and vales, a brook or a pebble did then excite. And sure there is something mysteriously great and noble in the first years of our life (which being my notion, you will not be offended that I speak to you, a young man, more as young, than as man, for the former implies something very happy, and the latter something very miserable.) If the celestial spheres, by a regularity of their circulations, are said to make music;

GAMBOLD.

much better may we affirm it of the motions of animal nature within us, in those years of health and vivacity, when the tide of life keeps at its full height, nor alters its course for petty obstructions. The soul is not like an intelligence listening to his sphere; her harmony springs within her own being; and is but the comprising of all the inferior powers to give her pleasure, while she, by a soft enchantment, is tied down to her throne of sense, where she receives their homages. 'Tis true, indeed, to a brave mind, the grosser gratifications arising from the body, are not much. But youth has something, which even such minds must needs enjoy and cultivate, and can scarce support their heroism without, and that is, a fine state of our whole machine, suitable for all the delicacy and dignity both of thought and moral deportment.

"These blooming graces, these tender shoots of pure nature I was going to describe, but alas! the saturnine bias of my soul carries one another way. I must tell you, (what I am better acquainted with) how a chilling frost, called time and truth, experience and the circle of human life, will shortly kill or wither all these beauties, and with them our very brightest expectations in this world. For, will the loftiness of your speculations, the generosity of your spirit, the strength and lustre of your personal and social character be the same, when your blood ceases to flow as it now does, when the imagination is cold, and the wheels of nature move with harshness and pain? Will again the subordinate perfections to these, the gaiety and sweetness of temper, the significancy of aspect, the enforcement of wit, the inexplicable rays of soul that recommends all you do, abide with you, when the body begins to deceive you? But what am I doing? Have I begun to carry the charge of vanity even against those higher goods of life, knowledge, and friendship; which are the refuge

of the best and the veneration of all men? Friendship is a sacred enclosure in life, where the bravest souls meet together, to

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defy and repine upon the common lot. Disgust at this vain and sullen world, and the overflowings of a strong serene mind, lead them to this union. But how will it answer? To say nothing of our friends, will not the sinking of our own hearts below the generous tenor of friendship, blast the fruits of it to us? Did we use so little affectation, in making a friend, that we need none to keep him? Must not we be always upon the stretch in some minute cautions and industries, in order to content that tender affection we would have in our friend? Can we make our love to him visible, amidst the reserve and abstraction of a pensive mind? In our sanguine hours do we not assume too much, and in our melancholy, think ourselves despised? Naturally, the end and pleasure of friendship is, to have an admirer: will our friendship then lose nothing, when humility comes to search it? Knowledge is so great a good in the eyes of man, that it can rival friendship, and most other enjoyments at once. Some have sequestered themselves from all society in order to pursue it. But whosoever you be that are to be made happy by knowledge, reflect first on your changes of opinion. It was some casual encounter in life, or some turn of complexion, that bid you delight in such or such opinions. And they will both change together; you need but run the circle of all your several tempers, to see every notion, every view of things that now warms and transports you, cooled and reduced. This revolution in his sentiments, a man comes at last even to expect; is a fool to himself, and depends upon none of them. Reflect next upon the shortness of your discoveries. Some points of great importance to us, we despair of deciding. How little is the mind satisfied in the common road; yet how it trembles in leaving it; there seems to be a certain critical period or boundary set to every man's understanding, to which when it comes, it is struck back and recoils upon itself. As a bird, that has fled to the utmost of its strength, must drop down upon

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whatever ground is under it; so the mind henceforth will not be able to strike out any new thoughts but must subsist on the stock of former conclusions, and stand to them however defective. Reflect, lastly, on the impertinence of your thinking. Life is something else than thought, why then do we turn life into it? He that does so, shall feel the pain of breaking in upon nature; the mind will devour and consume itself for want of outward employment. It will also enlarge its capacity of prevarication and applying false colours to things. Little does the warm theorist think, that he is not to be perfected by any of his fine schemes, but by a coolness to them all. The utmost end he can attain by theory, is to revere and be resigned to God; and that a poor mechanic does as well, perhaps better than he."-GAMBOLD, p. 226.

[Drum Ecclesiastics.]

"Ir may not be amiss" says SOUTH, "to take occasion to utter a great truth, as both worthy to be now considered, and never to be forgot. Namely, that if we reflect upon the late times of confusion, which passed upon the ministry, we shall find, that the grand design of the fanatic crew was to persuade the world, that a standing settled ministry, was wholly useless. This, I say, was the main point which they then drove at. And the great engine to effect this was by engaging men of several callings (and those the meaner still the better) to hold forth, and harangue the multitude, sometimes in the streets, sometimes in churches, sometimes in barns, and sometimes from pulpits, and sometimes from tubs: and in a word, wheresoever, and howsoever, they could clock the senseless and unthinking babble about them. And with this practice well followed, they (and their friends the Jesuits) concluded, that in some time, it would be no hard matter to persuade the people, that if men of other professions were able to teach and preach the word,

then to what purpose should there be a company of men brought up to it and maintained in it at the charge of a public allowance? Especially when at the same time, the truly godly so greedily gaped and grasped at it for their self-denying selves. So that preaching, we see, was their prime engine. But now what was it, which encouraged these men to set up for a work, which (if duly managed) was so difficult in itself, and which they were never bred to? Why, no doubt it was, that low, cheap, illiterate way, then commonly used, and cried up for the only gospel soul-searching way, (as the word then went), and which the craftier sort of them saw well enough, that with a little exercise, and much confidence, they might in a short time come to equal, if not exceed; as it cannot be denied, but that some few of them (with the help of a few friends in masquerade) accordingly did. But on the contrary, had preaching been made, and reckoned a matter of solid and true learning, of theological knowledge and long and severe study, (as the nature of it required it to be) assuredly, no preaching cobler amongst them all, would ever have ventured so far beyond his last, as to undertake it. And consequently this their most powerful engine for supplanting the church and clergy, had never been attempted, not perhaps so much as thought on and therefore, of most singular benefit, no question, would it be to the public, if those, who have authority to second their advice, would counsel the ignorant and the forward, to consider what divinity is, and what they themselves are, and so to put up their preaching tools, their Medulla's notebooks, their melleficiums, concordances, and all, and betake themselves to some useful trade, which nature had most particularly fitted them for."-SOUTH's Sermons, vol. 4, p. 54.

[An Orthodox Man without Religion.]

"A MAN may be orthodox in every point; he may not only espouse right opinions, but

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