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SENSE of our Readers to tell us what is. We shall conclude this article with the words of that blessed Jesus, who came once to save, and "visit us in great Humility", and will "come again in His glorious Majesty to judge both the quick and dead". We commend these words to the "Common Sense" of all our Readers, and especially to those really pious dissenters, who may have been led by hasty views, party prejudice, or want of consideration into a course so inconsistent with "Common Sense," common honesty, and real religion. If they have done wrong let them repent, and return. Let them obey the Law and the Bible, and not "strain at a gnat and and swallow a camel."

"Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple; he is a debtor !

Ye fools and blind; for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold?

And, whosoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever sweareth by the gift that is upon the altar, he is guilty.

Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctified the gift?

Whoso therefore, shall swear by the altar, sweareth by it, and by all things thereon.

And whoso shall swear by the temple, sweareth by it, and by him that dwelleth therein.

And he that sweareth by heaven, sweareth by the throne of God, and by him that sitteth thereon.

Woe unto you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judg ment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.

Ye blind guides, which STRAIN AT A GNAT, AND SWALLOW A CAMEL."*

* Matthew XXIII., 16.—24.

CHRISTIAN TRAINING.

(From the Rev. Dr. Hook's Sermons -Sermon VIII.)

"There is, we learn from Scripture, a way in which a child ought to be trained; and to those who are trained in it a blessing is vouchsafed. Surely it becomes each parent, with deliberation, deep thought, and earnest prayer, to enquire for this way, that his child may be made to walk in it; and, surely, in addressing Churchmen, it is not to much to ask them to defer on this point to the authority of the Church, and to permit her, under the guidance of Scripture, to point out that path. Let a man educate his children consistently, not according to his self-devised theories, but according to the discipline of the Church; and I will venture to say the exceptions to the rule will be comparatively few.

The system of the Church is in these days attended to by, alas! too few of those who profess to be its members. Were it otherwise, the state of religion in this country would be different from that which it now is. At the same time it is more attended to than it was; and hence we account that religion is now in a more healthy state than it was half a century ago.

Let us picture to ourselves a man training up his child as he should be trained—that is, as a Churchman. Soon after his birth he brings him to the Sacrament of Holy Baptism to be born again-that is, to be received of God as His adopted child, to be rescued from his natural state of condemnation, and to be placed in a state of grace. But he knows that baptismal grace will be lost unless it be cultivated. As, therefore, he provides for the healthy body of his child, so he provides for his spiritual aliment, by praying that the fruits of the Spirit may ripen in him. As the child begins to speak, he teaches him to pray;

prayer,

not because he can understand the utility of but to form him to a habit of prayer. As reason dawns, he speaks to him of his FATHER, bis SAVIOUR, his SANCTIFIER, so that faith enters his soul as imperceptibly as his reasoning powers; and then begins that study which is to be pursued till his dying day, the study of the Scriptures; not as they are too often studied, in these times, in detached texts brought forward for the support of some theory, but the study of the whole Bible, the Old Testament and the New ; the study of all that has been given by God, that most delightful of all studies, when GOD by HIS Scriptures is speaking to us, and by HIS SPIRIT (if we approach the study with prayerful and with thoughtful hearts) operates in us, that we may be capacitated for such high and holy communion. And then, too, commences a course of discipline, tempered by love, which induces him to yield obedience to parental authority; that obedience which is afterwards to be evinced towards the Providential power of God. Taught early to seek grace by "the means of grace," ," the child is brought to the house of GOD; not because he understands the service, but because CHRIST in His exceeding mercy permits little children to come unto HIM. The Christian Parent is further sustained in this course by the hope that the same HOLY SPIRIT who received him in the Sacrament of baptism, may shed afresh His gracious influence upon him; not to speak of the holy discipline to which by his proper deportment in the Church the child is subjected. Nor is the young Churchman allowed to consider prayer merely as a wholesome exercise; he is taught to regard it as a means to an end: a means to which he is to resort when he has any good object at heart, and especially when struggling with those evil tempers which it is his duty to overcome. And in this he is soon instructed, since he learns in his Catechism what are

the spiritual privileges to which as a Christian child. he is for CHRIST's sake entitled: what the commandments of GOD are, which he is not to question, but to obey: what the mysteries of religion, which he is not to reason on, but with humility to receive. As his passions begin to burst forth, he is subject to stricter discipline; he is taught to watch as well as to pray; to submit to acts of occasional mortification, and to "keep his body under" by fasting. He begins to see that religion is not a mere romantic sentiment, but the business as well as the happiness of life; and thus he is prepared for confirmation, which he seeks with meekness, as the means of conveying that grace which a Christian warrior especially needs for going forward in his warfare against "the world, the flesh, and the devil." And thus, blessed by the Bishop, whom he has been taught to respect as the successor of the Apostles, he seeks a closer union with CHRIST, and, through HIM, with GOD, in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, which, from his earliest years, he has been accustomed to regard as the highest blessing and privilege of a Christian man. So will the Christian parent with joy behold the germ unfolding into the bud, this into the flower; and this again into the fruit."

MORNING DUTIES.

At your first awakening in the Morning spend half an hour on five things. 1, Return thanks for the mercies of the past night. 2, Pray for a blessing on the new day. 3, Examine the state of your heart. 4, Meditate on some spiritual subject. 5, Lay a plan for your employment of the day.

Rev. W. Grimshaw, Curate of Todmorden, 1730.

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When the returning "Common Sense" of an abused, indignant, and half ruined people, drove from the conduct of its affairs, that shifting faction which had so long mismanaged and divided the nation; and which, by its feebleness, and unscrupulous pandering for popularity, enabled agitators, revolutionists, infidels, and political dissenters, to carry on their schemes of hostility against the Church; Peter Plain, Esq., of Manchester, walked into a celebrated meeting of what were called "Ministers of all denominations." Their professed object was to cram down the throats of the legislature, of the cabinet formed by Sir Robert Peel, and of the people at large, the adoption of a certain Quack nostrum on the repeal of the Corn Laws. But nobody was deceived by this. It was clear, that the real object was, to encourage prejudice and agitation, to blind "COMMON SENSE," and

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