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come out from it. Let them leave this novel, everchanging, strife-begetting, and inconsistent Phantom, and seek the Gospel from the Church to whose charge Jesus and His Apostles have committed it.

CHEAP BREAD.

A Scene of the French Revolution by Cobbett; worth the consideration of those, who hire the Anti-corn-law League Lecturers.

'The magistrates in the different municipalities, chosen from the scum of the nation, distributed these infernal writings among the people in their precincts, and particularly among the young people. If, by chance, some magistrate was found, too scrupulous to execute their will, means were soon invented to get rid of him. Some pretext or other was never wanting to excite the mob to put an end to him and his resistance. Chatel, Mayor of St. Denis, was one of this description. The mob were told that this man was the cause of the dearness of bread. They flew to his house, and obliged him to reduce the price according to their will, though it was well known, that he had not the power to reduce it at all unless at his own expense. The rabble were dispersing; but they had not fulfilled the bloody wishes of the revolutionary agents, who had nothing less in view than the lowering of the price of bread. They were instigated to return to the unfortunate magistrate. First, they attempted to hang him; but wearied with his resistance, one of them took out his knife, and cut his head partly off, while several others pricked him with their bayonets. The unhappy victim was still alive after the back of his neck was cut asunder, and was heard to groan out: "for heaven's sake kill me! kill me! you make me suffer

too long!"The sanguinary villain, who had begun to cut his head off, now threw away his knife, and borrowed that of his comrade, with which he finished his work. When he found that his own knife was not sufficient, he said, with a cool indifference, "lend me your knife, for mine is not worth a curse." That which was lent him was a little twopenny knife with a wooden handle. During this time, other assassins gave him several stabs, with their knives, in the belly and stomach; one of them turned his knife slowly in the flank of the dying man, and said to him, laughing: "Does that enter well? Don't you feel the day-light peep into you?" -He at last expired, after the most inconceivable torments. His body was dragged along the streets of St. Denis with his head tied to his feet. A resolution of the town has since declared him innocent of any offence whatever: he had given abundant assistance to the poor the winter before: the diminution he had just made in the price of the bread was at his own expense; and this barbarous punishment was his recompense. His wife went distracted, and has ever since been in a mad-house. His assas

sins obtained pardon from the Assembly, a circumstance much less surprising, than that they should think it necessary to ask it.”

THE BATH CHURCH OF ENGLAND LAY ASSOCIATION.

When we had occasion to mention the Birming ham Lay Association for the defence of the Church, and its members as tried and acting, not merely professing, Churchmen, we also spoke of the Bath Association as a sister to it. And sister too it is, (not half sister, but) in the spirit which animates it. The more the tide of battle raged against the Church, the more firmly did these true and good men fix their foot, for her defence. We have now, by the kindness of one of these her tried and faithful soldiers, the Bath Chronicle before us, with an account of the

proceedings of the annual meeting of this Associa tion, held on the 21st of November, 1842, and we wish that our limits would permit the transfer of the whole into our pages. Though we are denied this we think we shall do good service by giving an extract from the able report read to the meeting. It conveys an admonition well worthy of those, who profess themselves attached members of the Church, and yet confine their efforts for her defence, to sitting by their own firesides bemoaning the shameful outrages heaped upon her by dissenters, or pronouncing in a news-room a censure upon the base and violent means, by which the banded conspirators of schism, revolution, and atheism terrify quiet men from using their lawful privileges for her protection. Is this the mark of true attachment, to stand aloof from its object in the hour of trial? No, God be praised, all have not so reasoned. The Bath Lay Association has been among the foremost in acting upon the principle, that "when the bad conspire, the good must combine." And let those, who have not heretofore joined them in their rally for the Church, consider well their energetic appeal, and beware lest, forsaking the Church on earth, they find themselves, at their greatest need, forsaken by the Lord of the Church in Heaven. We beg every Churchman to weigh attentively the following extract from the Report.

"If the prosperity of this Society is any proof that Church principles are not on the decline in the city of Bath, it may be gratifying for us to announce that forty-seven new members have joined it within the last year.

"The communications which we have received from the Church Societies with whom we are in correspondence have been of the most satisfactory character; their exertions have tended materially to augment the number of petitions in support of the Church, and to the defence of church-rates-that precise point of attack to which the aggressive warfare of the enemies of the Church is mainly and unceasingly directed; and here we have peculiar pleasure in recording an instance of success which has resulted from the activity of the Lay Association, at Shepton

Mallet; that Society, (the second that was formed in the kingdom,) was establised in 1838, on the rules of this Association, and by a report lately received, we find that 'the town had not been able to obtain a church rate for the last six years, during which time the agitation had been great; the members of the Lay Society exerted themselves very much, and through them alone (as acknowledged by a leader of the opposition, who declared they had done their work manfully) a rate was at last carried by 31 voters, and 91 votes. This (it is added) is a great victory, and will, it is hoped, restore tranquillity to the town.' Here, then, is encouragement, if any were wanting, to establish societies of a similar kind elsewhere. Had such been embodied, and had such exertions been exhibited at Wakefield, Halifax, Bradford, Worcestor, and other towns, church rates could not have been successfully and unjustly refused as they have been; but we lament to say, that churchmen who will go on the platform at meetings of a religious character, where no opposition is expected will too frequently betray the most shameful apathy when the Church calls for that particular description of support which these days of strife require. In the terse language of an able weekly publication, we say of such persons, 'Let the men of ease who shelter themselves under the faithless, hollow, and transparent pretence of being men of peace, remember that, as Christians, they are not members of a church quiecent, or of the Church triumphant, but of the Church militant' here in earth. What can induce such men of ease' thus to forsake the Church in such moments of peculiar difficulty, it is impossible to divine,"

CHRISTIAN PRIESTHOOD.

"From a volume of Sermons."

"By preaching the Gospel, we make it the word of reconciliation to all true believers; by Baptism, we convey the spirit of regeneration, and admit men into the covenant of grace "for remission of sins;" by the Eucharist, we nurse them up from one degree of grace to another, and administer to them the "blood of the covenant shed for many for the remission of sins;" by excommunicating notorious offenders, and absolving them when penitent, we restore them to the way of salvation; and by our "prayers of faith," God is en treated for his people.

"Now these being the only means whereby to obtain forgiveness of sins, and these means being

committed only to Christ's ministers, they are said to remit and retain sins, because they alone administer the means by which they are remitted, and without which they are retained for ever; but yet so, that the administration is only theirs, the power entirely from God. It is Christ who gives absolution by his ministers, when they proceed according to his will. 'To us,' emphatically saith St. Paul, 'is given the ministry of reconciliation;' we are the persons commissioned by Christ to administer the means of salvation. Why, then, all this outcry of late, against authoritative sacraments, authoritative blessing, authoritative absolution, &c.? Will these men speak out, and tell us plainly, that every part of the priesthood may be performed authoritatively without a commission; or will they produce their strong reasons, why a person unauthorized may validly perform one ministerial act and not another? Will they stand by the Racovian* Catechism, that since there is no new doctrine to be revealed, the preacher has no need of a mission?-that since Baptism implies no more than an open profession of Christianity, one may as well profess himself to be Christ's disciple without Baptism, as with it?-and since the Eucharist confers no grace, but is only a bare commemoration of Christ's death and passion, we may as effectually remember Christ without bread and wine, as with it; and consequently every man may be a priest to himself?

"How shall they preach except they be sent?' was a question St. Paul could not solve, though many preachers now-a-days have found a solution for him. In the undertakers of an office, abilities to perform it are supposed, but the office itself is conveyed by an authoritative commission. Corah, and many of his confederates, no doubt concluded, that they understood the way of sacrificing and ordering the incense, as well as Aaron and his sons; but not being called

* Socinian.

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