The original value of the tithes preparatory to the preceding calculation is the full gross value of them as they stand in the fields after being severed and set out in kind, the tithe owner being subject to all the subsequent expenses of collecting, &c.; therefore when they shall be commuted for a rent-charge, the tithe owner will not be entitled to the deductions under the first head. But he will be fully and justly entitled to all the others, as clearly appears from Joddrell's case; the tithes of his parish, Yelling, in Huntingdonshire, having previously been extinguished, and the rector receiving a corn-rent or compensation in their stead, the cases will be exactly parallel. I remain, yours faithfully, A COUNTY MAGISTRATE. CONCERT FOR PRAYER.-REV. J. H. STEWART. MY DEAR FRIEND,-In common with a number of other clergy, I received a "Concert for Prayer, on the first Monday of the year, for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit: an invitation from the Rev. J. H. Stewart, Rector of St. Bride's, Liverpool." It is written in an earnest spirit, and such, of course, one must respect; still it gives rise to some thoughts in a churchman whether the end might not have been obtained more effectually, and without objection, if Mr. S. had looked to the resources of the church herself. The facts, as stated by Mr. S., are these:-Some individuals, six years ago, in Switzerland, proposed that such "a general concert should be held on the last Monday of the year; this was followed by some churches [who or what is meant by this term, whether congregations of the church or sects of Christians, happens to be unknown to me,] in the United States, who set apart the first. These meetings have since increased. Very lately an invitation has been sent [whence is not said,] "to unite in this concert on the first Monday of this year." To forward this is the object of Mr. S.'s invitation. The plan recommended by Mr. S. is-1. Private prayer before day-break. 2. Family prayer. 3. Private assemblage of members of the same communion for prayer, and to consult how the coming of the Lord's kingdom may best be hastened, and especially how such a general concert for prayer may be continued throughout the year. 4. Public worship, with an "appropriate discourse in the evening." Now one cannot but rejoice at any feeling for the value of united intercessory prayer, especially coming from those who, by their practice and words at least, have seemed to set preaching so much above prayer, and have habitually disparaged the intercessory prayers of the church, (the so-called state prayers,) so that, while the sermon has been lengthened, the prayer for the church militant has been almost universally omitted. There is manifested a feeling of or for catholicity, which is also gladdening. Since, however, this plan did not originate in the church, but among some foreign protestants, a churchman may be excused for thinking that, however useful for them, the case of the church is different. Like many other attempts and practices which have emanated, of late, from a portion of the church, it is a sort of awakening of nature, longing and feeling after "what the church has throughout possessed,” if haply they might find it; but having neglected it, they know not where to find it, and so fall upon making something "of their own mind" as well, and as like it, as they can. The church, I said, has it: she has provided for this as well as other wants of her children; and has,-not on one day in the year, but for every day,-furnished them with a service wherein they might ask, not this only, but for every other blessing upon themselves and the whole church. Her daily service leaves none unheeded; her extension and purity form part of the "Prayer for all Conditions of Men" and the Litany. Nor need it be said that this can be only through the manifold gifts of the Holy Ghost. This descent of the continual dew of the Holy Ghost on the whole church is especially the prayer of that "for the Clergy and People." The prayer enters again into the Te Deum, and the responses after the Creed; it is involved in the very "Gloria Patri," which is so often repeated; inculcated by the very frequent praying of the prayer of our Lord, ("Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth," &c.,) contained in so many of the Psalms, which the church provides as her children's daily food. For the Lord's day, there is, at all events, in addition, the "Prayer for the Church Militant," and, if men will, the holy Eucharist. What, then, foreign protestants have attempted in this new way once in the year, the church has every day. And what if, through the unfaithfulness of some of her ministers, past or present, prayer has grown cold, and daily service been often disused? the church has not been unfaithful; she, too, in her rubric and ordination vows, which she prescribes to her priests to take, that they should be " diligent in prayer," has been uttering her voice, whether men would hear or whether they would forbear; and so soon as her ministers keep their vows, these blessings, which negligence only suspends, will be realized day by day. Whatever may be the case with villages, if a call, much less loud than this now made, were made by each minister to his flock, there would be congregations, day by day, in every church of every town; but now, ministers often look coldly on, grudge the time occupied even on the Litany days, and themselves the privilege of praying with two or three, where "a Fourth is with them;" and fall in with the listlessness of their people, instead of drawing on their people so that one could scarce say which cared least about the privilege-minister or people. But "the church's prayers have become a form"! But to whom are they formalities," except to "formalists"? and do they not rather "form" those who will be "formed," after the heavenly pattern, and for heaven,-" form," through the "dew of God's Holy Spirit," "Christ within them," and them after the form and likeness of God? and, if they become formalities, whose fault is this? Again, this foreign "Concert for Prayer," is it not a form?-What is a stricter "form"? The very order of the whole day is pointed out. Not that this is objectionable, : if it came from authority; only it is a strict form; and so they who adopt it must not object to forms. 2. But since this is a form, and, to all purposes, an actual yearly or (as it is intimated) more frequent festival, from whom comes it? From those who have authority? No, but from a simple presbyter, (however respectable and earnest,) echoing the invitation of those who are not of our church. Yet we are not to think the authorities backward: we have had oftentimes days of fasting or rejoicing, or new forms of prayer, as the occasions of the church might be; and if the clergy, seeing the peril wherein the church now is placed, that now is perhaps one of the last assaults upon her for many a year, if Satan be but now baffled,-were to apply, in the usual way, to the bishops, they might again obtain it. The church thought it expedient that her ministers should not "hold even private fasts," of their own mind, with their flocks: how much less, then, should a single presbyter institute (as is here virtually done) a solemn assembly for the whole church? If one does, why not another? Why, since what are termed highchurch doctrines are true, might not another issue another "invitation" for thanksgiving for their late extension, and prayer for their further promotion; another for the diminution of schism; another against the increase of popery; and so on, as to each man seemed good? and then, where would all the good order of our church be? Because a thing is good and desirable, it follows not that it is good for us to do it; it is often a part of Christian discipline and self-denial to leave undone that which one would fain do, if one might, and which one should have thought, if done, would be a blessing. 3. The above and other defects arise, in part, probably, from an anxiety to blend in this self-adopted festival a portion of those who are not of the church,* (though but a portion,- for the Romanists among us seem expressly excluded, as persons who could not join.) And thus an individual is virtually legislating, and appointing one holy day, not for the church only, but for the different bodies of schismatics. This is implied throughout. Thence, it may be, that, whereas this first week of the year has two festivals relating to our Lord, one which, in better days, ranked with Whitsunday, and Christmas-day, and Good Friday, and Ascension, and Easter, the Manifestation of our Lord to us Gentiles,-no notice is taken of either of these; the Epiphany is passed by as a common day, and the first Monday of the year chosen in its stead. "And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth Mr. S. says, "Let the Lord's servants meet privately with those of their own communion," and speaks of it as an "harmonious concert," as "free from the interminable jarring of sects and parties," and that because, "having but one object, the advancement of the kingdom of their Lord, there is no place for difference." (p. 7.) But how more than all prayers? Is not the church performing a charitable act when she prays that God would be pleased to bring into the way of truth all such as have "erred and are deceived;" that God would "have mercy upon all Jews, Turks, infidels, and heretics, and fetch them home to his flock"? The reference to sects does not injure the harmony of devotion: surely it is more charitable to pray for them, as the church does, than to gloss over their error, by speaking of the interminable jarring of sects and parties, (as if all were sects alike,) and then leave them to their error. month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like unto the feast in Judah." (1 Kings, xii. 32.) For the holy days of the church were, as in the schism of Judah, forsaken, together with the church, so that it will even escape the memory * of presbyterians on what day our Lord died. On the same ground, perhaps, all reference to the holy Eucharist is omitted, although it, especially, as the highest service of the church, is well-pleasing to God, and applies the merits and all the benefits of his precious death to the whole church. "We desire thy Fatherly goodness mercifully to accept this our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, humbly beseeching Thee to grant, and that by the merits and death of thy Son Jesus Christ, and through faith in his blood, we, and all thy whole church, may obtain remission of our sins, and all other benefits of his passion." In like manner, all reference to fasting and alms, "the wings of prayer," is omitted; since fasting finds little favour in this day. How miserably cramped one is, then, when we would discover a service which might produce unity, not by each submitting his own will to the authority of the church, but each doing that which is right in his own eyes. Harmony is thus produced by leaving out all which would jar, not by subduing each discordant sound, so that every note of the diapason should find its appropriate place in the full melody which swells with our Redeemer's praise. Far better were it if the sons and sworn ministers of the church, whom "if we pity, to see her in the dust," were, each in their assigned place, to "bend all their care and study [as they have vowed] this one way," reinvigorate, each in themselves, the old forms, which are forms only, because so few use them, restore daily morning and evening prayer, which they are bound to use "privately or openly," (our reformers choosing + that the ministers of the church should be "as diligent in using the English liturgy as the papists were the Latin,") either in the church or in private, "when not by sickness" or "otherwise reasonably hindered," - exhort their people (such, at least, as can,) to be diligent in coming,recollect their own priestly office, as intercessors, under and through the merits of the Great Intercessor, for the heritage of the Lord: then should we indeed have (as we yet have every Lord's day) prayer with one heart and one voice, and God might again behold the threatenings of the enemy, when his people turned to him, as they yearly profess, "with weeping, and with fasting, and with praying," and (Acts, iv. 29,) again "shake the place wherein they were assembled," (Ibid.) not visibly as then, but by the invisible power of the Holy Spirit through the whole church. The above is written, not to criticise Mr. Stewart,§ who is, I believe, "It really escaped my memory what day it was"!-words of an American presbyterian minister with regard to Good Friday. † Dr. Nicholls on the Rubrics prefixed to the Common Prayer. Commination Service. I would then only suggest that our church does not class "Romish superstition" with "Mahometan imposture, heathen idolatry, open infidelity, and Jewish unbelief.” We pray for "Jews, Turks, infidels, and heretics;" but Romanists are not the only nor the worst heretics: our forefathers distinguished between the pope of Rome and the church under his tyranny. an earnest and well-meaning man, but to warn people how they take up at once plans which have in them a portion of truth, without considering their bearings on their own church, and that they should look how much larger resources the church has in store, if they would but not neglect them. Perhaps even Mr. Stewart himself might hereafter look to these also, and then his energetic mind must find full employ in his own sphere, not in one which, however bright, crosses the track of the church, and which, therefore, belongs rather to "wandering stars." Ever yours, CANONICUS. JUDAS ISCARIOT. SIR,-In none of the commentators on the New Testament, that I have had an opportunity of consulting, have I found the two accounts respecting the traitor Judas (in St. Matthew, xxvii. 5, and the Acts of the Apostles, i. 18,) satisfactorily reconciled. For this reason I take the liberty of offering to your notice a different interpretation from that generally received, which I have found in an old MS. on the subject that came into my possession a short time ago, written by a divine of the seventeenth century, thinking that if the point is still considered "sub judice," you may be willing to insert it in your valuable publication, not perhaps for its own merit, but with a view of directing the attention of some abler correspondent to the question. I am not aware of this mode of making St. Matthew harmonize with St. Luke having ever appeared in print, or of course I should not have troubled you. If such be the case, I can only apologize for my ignorance having caused me to trespass so uselessly on your welloccupied time. Some have endeavoured to reconcile these two verses, expressive of such different kinds of death, by supposing that Judas first hanged himself on the edge of some precipice, and that the fatal knot slipping or breaking, he fell headlong, and his bowels gushed out with the fall. It is needless to take up time in pointing out the evident harshness and improbability of such a supposition. Heinsius (and, after him, De Dieu and others,) translated ȧryžaro "he was choaked with grief," considering the expressions used by St. Luke to refer to the effect of this kind of death. To this interpretation there are several objections: 1. Though it is not to be denied that a man may die from very anguish of spirit, yet it is surely no natural or probable effect of such a death, that he should burst asunder, and all his bowels gush out. 2. It plainly appears that the words ρηvns yevóμevos are used by St. Luke to express the cause of what follows, λáknoɛ μéooç, “he fell headlong, and so "burst asunder;" whereas, if mere grief and vexation had been the immediate cause, it would rather have been said awayx0ELS ¿λákŋoe μéoos, “ he was stifled with inward anxiety of mind, and so burst asunder." As, then, neither of these usual interpretations can be considered as entirely satisfactory, the following is proposed, as a more probable VOL. XI.-March, 1837. 20 |