tolic succession of the Irish church clearly pointed out.. 'St. John the evangelist; Ignatius, the immediate disciple of St. John; Polycarp the disciple of Ignatius; Pothinus, Irenæus and others, the disciples of Polycarp, who preached the gospel with great success in Gaul: through whose means flourishing churches were established in Lyons and Vienne, of which Pothinus was the first bishop. From hence the gospel sounded forth throughout all that country. Bishops Lupus and German, the descendants of these holy men, ordained St. Patrick, and made him chief bishop of their school among the Irish; and from St. Patrick to the present day, we have our regular succession of bishops, NOT FROM ROME, NOR THROUGH ROME, BUT THROUGH THE SUCCESSORS OF THE APOSTLE JOHN, THE PATRON OF THE IRISH CHURCH.'

offered as a specimen of the most economical class, but it may, without hesitation, be given as an instance of good taste and correct architecture. Mr. H. E. Kendal of Suffolk Street is the architect.

It will seat one hundred and eighty persons on the floor, and one hundred and four in a gallery at the west end. The contract was taken for £1240. The cost of the site, fence, &c. will raise the whole expence to about £1500. leaving the deficiency we have above described.

We have the pleasure to state that His Royal Highness Prince Albert has sent a donation of £25; Her Majesty the Queen Dowager has given £10. The Bishop of Winchester £25.

The consecration will take place early in the ensuing month.

BULLINGER, one of the most judicious of the Reformers, was a Presbyterian, rather through the force of circumstances than from choice; since it appears, that he would gladly have introduced the English form of ecclesiastical go vernment into the churches on the continent, had it been practicable. His works were held in the highest esteem by the most celebrated and learned men in our own country. His Catechism became a sort of Class-book in the university of Oxford; and his Fiftie godly and learned Sermons, divided into Five Decades, containing the chief and principal points of Christian religion,' were translated out of Latin into English, for the avowed purpose of instructing the younger and less learned portion of the clergy in sound divinity.

From these Decades, the publisher of the present volume has selected Four Sermons, (which are however Treatises under the name of Sermons,) on the subject of the Sacraments. The first, with more prolixity perhaps than suits the rail-road velocity of thinking in the present age, treats of signs and sacraments generally; the second is a full and convincing discussion of the nature and efficacy of Sacraments; the third treats especially of Baptism; the fourth of the Lord's Supper.

We regard the publication as a very seasonable one. For though it will not exactly suit the popular taste, and is somewhat too abstract for the illiterate reader; still to the clergy and to thinking persons generally, it will appear a valuable treasury of conclusive argument, on many points which, at the present moment, are disturbing the peace and harmony of the church.

It is truly refreshing to turn from the ingenious quibbling, and the subtle special pleading of Pusey, for instance, on Baptism, to the manly and close reasoning of Bullinger. And we are happy to see printed at our Cambridge University press, so excellent au antidote to the revived heresy of the anglopopish sectaries.

To attempt an analysis of such a work would suit neither our design nor our limits. A few extracts selected because of their bearing on matters of importance, must suffice.

In speaking on the words used by the Saviour at the institution of the Lord's Supper, he says,—

Because many wrest these words of the Lord, "This is my body; this is my blood; to prove a corporal presence of the Lord's body in the Supper, I answer that these words of the Lord; are not roughly to be expounded according to the letter, as though bread and wine were the body and blood of Christ substantially and corporally; but mystically, and sacramentally; so that the body and blood of Christ do abide in their substance and nature, and in their place; I mean in some certain place in heaven: but the bread and wine are a sign or sacrament; a witness or sealing; and a lively memory of his body given and his blood shed for us. By these things which we have spoken of, it appeareth sufficiently how sacraments consist of two things, the sign, and the thing signified; of the word of God, and the rite or holy ceremony.-Page 30.

There are some notwithstanding, which think there is such force grafted of God into the words, that if they be pronounced over the signs, they sanctify, change, and in a manner, bring with them, or make present the thing signified; and plant, or include them within the signs; or at the least join them with the signs. For hereupon are these kind of speeches heard, that the water of baptism by the virtue of the words doth regenerate; and that by the efficacy of the words, the bread itself and the wine in the Supper, are made the natural flesh and blood of the Lord.

On this statement of the case, he reasons forcibly, and concludes that in speaking of the words' there is no power or virtue, either to call down the things signified; or to change the things present.'

These imaginations,' he adds, 'do rather seem to maintain superstition, than religion.'-p. 38.

In his second sermon, which unfolds the true nature and design of sacraments, he has many judicious observations tending to point out the true medium between indifference to the rite and an undue estimate of its worth. We quote the following remarks.

When we are partakers of the sacraments He (God) proceedeth to communicate himself unto us after a special manner; that is to say, proper unto sacraments; and so we which before were made partakers of Christ, do continue and strengthen that communion or fellowship spiritually and by faith, in the celebration of the sacraments; outwardly sealing the same unto ourselves by the signs. Now, who will hereafter say that they which think thus of the sacraments, and are by this faith partakers of them, have nothing but empty shows; and receive nothing in them; albeit, we neither include grace in the signs, neither derive it from them.-P. 99.

As they decline too much to the left hand, which are persuaded that sacraments, yea without faith, do profit the receivers; so they go too far wide on the right hand, who think that the sacraments are superfluous to them that have faith. Christ (he argues) joineth together both faith and baptism, in the command Matt. xxviii. 19. which he would not have done, if sacra

ments were superfluous where faith is. Whereby it manifestly appeareth, that they are wrong, as far as heaven is wide, which think that sacraments are indifferent; that is to say, a thing put to our own will and choice, either to use or not to use. For as we have heard already a flat commandment concerning baptism, so the Lord, instituting and celebrating the supper saith, Do this in remembrance of He therefore that despiseth these commandments of God, I see not how he can have faith, whereby he should be invisibly sanctified.-P. 137.

me.

On the efficacy of sacraments even when administered by unholy men, he thus speaks—

Truly we must do what we can to have holy and unblameable ministers, so far forth as by our care and diligence we are able to procure and bring to pass: yea, let us deprive and degrade them whom we shall find to behave themselves unworthy of their function but in the mean time let us not doubt at all of the pureness of the sacraments, which they, while they were in their office, ministered unto us, that is to say, after the same manner and form as the Lord instituted. And verily as the faithful do not fasten their minds on the elements, so neither do they on the ministers. They, in all things, look only up to God, the author of all goodness, and to the end of those things which the Lord ordained-P. 139.

We do not pledge ourselves to every sentiment contained in this volume. There are indeed some minor points to which, had we space, we might have produced our objections. But, as a whole, we repeat, the work is worthy of a serious perusal, and may be read and studied with great advantage.

THIS simple and succinct view of the early history of the church in Ireland, is calculated to be very useful. We have always been at a loss to understand, why it was, that in their controversy with the Papists, the Irish clergy did not make larger and more constant use of the undoubted fact,-that the early Christianity of Ireland was decidedly anti-Romish, and that

NOVEMBER, 1840.

the people of that country were only brought under the yoke of Rome by the arms of Henry II. To our minds, nothing could be more important than to keep constantly before the minds of the Irish such facts as those which we have given, from Dean Murray's volume, in a former page of this Magazine.

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