dignity and responsibility of our office, will be our vigilant care of those committed to our charge; and in nothing will our care and vigilance be more required, than in directing our efforts to drive away all erroneous and strange doctrines contrary to God's word". In order to this, we shall have to exert ourselves, both individually and by Diocesan combination, to impart to the rising generation, an education as extensive as our means will permit, but based on solid Scriptural foundations, and in strict conformity with the doctrines and discipline of our Church.

Who can look around, on the ignorance and impiety of the great bulk of mankind, without feelings of pain and distress, and a desire to ameliorate their condition? Yet experience proves how little can be done, by education merely, to elevate man's moral character. The learning, and elegance, and refinement of Greece and Rome did not emancipate them from the most senseless and degrading superstitions; and, to bring the subject nearer home, what, it may be asked, has education, separated from Scripture, effected on the more intelligent portion of the Roman Catholic community? Nothing, as it respects their emancipation from spiritual ignorance and priestly despotism! Education may accomplish much in checking the evil actions to which men are prone, and in putting a restraint on the turbulent affections of the human mind; yea, the course of the life may be greatly changed by it. Yet, that change too frequently appears only in the somewhat more refined form which education gives

to selfishness and sensuality.—The disease of man's nature remains uncured; the soul continues in all the wretchedness of its moral disorder, unless the Gospel of Christ, accompanied by the gracious influences of the Holy Ghost, changes the heart, reforms the conduct, and gradually weakens all those corrupt inclinations from whence outward evils proceed. A solid Scriptural education is the best and only sure friend of social and national happiness. Other principles may produce occasional acts which look like virtues; but it is true religion alone that can inspire men with an uniform love of their duty, and render them good neighbours and good citizens. "These words," said the Lord to Israel," which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up: and thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and upon thy gates," in order that, as the Psalmist declares, "the generations to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children that they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments; and might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation; a generation

* Deut. vi. 6-9.

that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not steadfast with God."*

Nor, in this education, must the constitution of the Church of England be overlooked, in its orders and government. This has been too long neglected by us; and from this cause, amongst many others, have our opponents gained great advantages. We have not inculcated, on the minds of our young people, the Scriptural character of our Church, and the Divine authority of our Ministry : we have not instructed them, in the Scriptural fact, that the first teachers of the New Testament Church consisted of three orders; and that to the highest of these three orders exclusively belonged the powers of ordination, mission, and of clerical discipline: we have not pointed out to them, that though there were, in the Church of Jerusalem, holy men, filled with the Holy Ghost and endued with wisdom, yet that not one of them ventured to serve tables till they were appointed to that office, by the Apostles, with prayer, and the imposition of hands:† we have omitted to shew them that the principle of independency is not recognized in the New Testament, but that the Church of Jerusalem claimed jurisdiction, both in matters of doctrine and discipline, over the Churches of the Gentiles. We have failed to remind them that the overseers of the seven Churches of Asia, men who were not themselves

*Psa. lxxviii. 5-9.

Acts vi. 2-6.

Acts xvi. 4.

amongst the number of the Apostles so called, are, nevertheless, declared to be stars in the right hand of the Eternal God. We have not impressed on their minds that, previous to the sixteenth century, the historical fact of the Divine appointment of Episcopacy had never been disputed by any Church or by any community bearing the Christian namefor it is a remarkable fact that not only in the eastern and western Churches, in the patriarchates of Antioch, Byzantium, and Alexandria, but also amongst the numerous societies who rejected their doctrine, and disowned their authority, the three orders, of Bishop, Priest, and Deacon, were established and maintained. We have not informed them, that Calvin and Luther, though ejected from the Church of Rome, became Presbyterians not by choice, but from a supposed invincible necessity. We have not informed them that the opponents of episcopacy, even in the present day, are constrained, in defence of their own systems, without proof or hint from Scripture, to take for granted that the whole apostolic function, as distinguished from that of Presbyters, was transient; to assume that because the term Bishops is applied, in the New Testament, to the second order of the Ministry, there is no higher order mentioned; and to assert that no individuals but the proper Apostles had such authority over Churches and their Clergy after their affairs were settled; and yet that both the epistles to Timothy were meant for all the Clergy in Ephesus:- so that, by their admissions on the one hand, and their restrict

* Rev, i. 16-20. ii. 1.

ions on the other, we have the advantage of knowing that our Ministry has, at least, an Apostolic model.

Thus, from our carelessness and indifference, respecting these matters, and their ignorance, many it is to be feared, have left our communion, under the conviction that they were leaving a corrupt and unscriptural Church for a pure and holy brotherhood.-Not, indeed, that the neglect of a christian and scriptural education has been confined to the Church of England. A late eminent Dissenting Minister was constrained to confess, with "a degree of warmth," as he declared, " bordering on bitterness, grief, and indignation, that out of above five hundred young persons, of all ages, that had come under his care, he had never had one youth who had been instructed in the solid evidences of the Christian Religion, by his parents or tutors ;" and "after above half a century," adds a writer of the present day, who quotes the above declaration, "the evil complained of is but partially remedied."*

We are, however, encouraged, on another ground, to direct our attention to the education of the rising generation, namely, from the results that, as our adversaries confess, have followed our exertions. “ Many parents," say they, "who admit the Establishment to be exceedingly wrong, who have themselves practically forsaken its worship, and who, in con

*The late Mr. Ryland of Northampton: see Library of Ecclesiastical Knowledge, Vol. I. Tract on the present state of Religion, &c. p. 41.