cometh neither from the east, nor from the west: God is the judge; He putteth down one, and setteth up another." He prolongs or puts an end to governments; using statesmen as His instruments for the accomplishment of His purposes in the world, and their own glory or shame, as the case may be. "When He giveth quietness, who then can make trouble? and when He hideth His face, who then can behold Him? whether it be done against a nation, or against a man only."" The king of Assyria was the rod of Jehovah's anger. It did not indeed enter into his mind that he was fulfilling God's purposes. In the pride of his own ambition, his design was "to destroy and to cut off nations not a few." Arguing upon supposed general laws, without any real practical reference to Almighty God, and calculating, from former victories, upon the continued successes of his numerous armies, he said, “Are not my princes altogether kings? Is not Calno as Carchemish? Is not Hamath as Arpad? Is not Samaria as Damascus ?" -Are not my conquests as entirely mine as my own original territory? Is not Calcutta as London ?" As my hand hath found the kingdoms of the idols, whose graven images did excel them of Jerusalem, shall I not, as I have done unto Samaria and her idols, so do to Jerusalem and her idols? By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom, for I am prudent; and I have removed the bounds of the people, and have robbed their treasures, and I have put down the inhabitants like a valiant man; and my hand hath found, as a nest, the riches of the people; and as one gathereth eggs that are left, have I gathered all the earth; and there was none that moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or peeped." He had been successful far and wide, making fresh conquests in divers countries, scattering the inhabitants like frightened birds, and seizing upon their property, or, as he truly expressed it, robbing their treasures, as eggs are gathered out of a deserted nest; and all this he ascribed to his own wisdom, and prudence, and power.

The answer of the Lord of hosts to the king of Assyria is 1 Dan. iv. 32, 35; Psalm lxxv. 6, 7; Job xxxiv. 29.

worthy of your best attention. "Shall the axe boast itself against HIM that heweth therewith? or shall the saw magnify itself against HIM that shaketh it?" "Hast thou

not heard long ago, how I have done it; and of ancient times how I have formed it? Now have I brought it to pass, that thou shouldest be to lay waste defenced cities into ruinous heaps. Therefore their inhabitants were of small power, they were dismayed and confounded." And "it shall come to pass that when I have performed my whole work upon Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks.” 1

"God thundereth marvellously with His voice; great things doeth He, which we cannot comprehend. For He saith to the snow, Be thou on the earth; likewise to the small rain, and to the great rain of His strength. He sealeth up the hand of every man, that all men may know His work. Then the beasts go into dens, and remain in their places. Out of the south cometh the whirlwind, and cold out of the north. By the breath of God"-mark the personality of the sacred Word

By the breath of God frost is given: and the breadth of the waters is straitened. Also by watering HE wearieth the thick cloud: HE scattereth HIS bright cloud: and it is turned round about by His counsels: that they may do whatsoever HE commandeth them upon the face of the world in the earth, HE causeth it to come, whether for correction, or for His land, or for mercy. Hearken unto this, O Job," and ye also, ye rulers of England, rich in her conquests and proud of her successes :-"stand still and consider the wondrous works of God." 2

Realize all this; and let the revealed will of God be your guide-neither be afraid or ashamed to avow that it is so-in the nationalities of parliament and the cabinet, as truly as in the integrities of commercial, or the amenities of domestic life. If, in applying the revealed will of God to national questions, you and others differ in opinion, what then? You differ as it is, having no fixed standard for any one principle of honour, or

Isa. x. and xxxvii.

2 Job xxxvii. 5-14.

consistency, or truth. A real reference to the Word of God, honestly made on both sides, would narrow your grounds of difference into a question of interpretation only, the standard being one; and whatever differences might arise there, they could scarcely be so "utterly diverse as those which now exist in the absence of a standard altogether. Or if they were, and were found equally perplexing among men, still they would not be so dishonouring to God as the present system of deliberate neglect, avowed in the determination to raise no religious questions-to legislate, on professedly political grounds, in defiance of the very letter of God's law; and to stifle all reference to HIS authority by proclaiming your own incompetency to discuss religious differences.

He has raised you up, and caused you to bear rule over His people in this land. Know ye, and cause the people to know, whose ministers ye are educate the people in these sublime truths of Holy Scripture, not by any questionable instrumentality of your own, constructed in the vain hope of pleasing all parties; but by means of a divinely-appointed instrumentality ready at your hand; by making the Church, whose office it is to bear witness for God, commensurate with the wants of the people. Honour God's witness in the nation by an increase of its resources and its efficiency, corresponding to the increase of every other department of our polity. By so doing, you will confer the greatest attainable benefits on the nation, directly on those who will receive the teaching of the national Church, and indirectly on all the rest, by the prolonged peace, and good order, and prosperity of the whole realm.

APPENDIX.

A.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.1

THE first edition of this tract has disappeared in a few days. The importance of the subject cannot indeed be exaggerated. The Baptismal controversy has long agitated the Christian Church; and writers on all sides have acquired a habit of taking much for granted, that cannot be proved; and starting in the discussion from a point where human traditions and glosses have already obscured the divine word.

The author of these few pages is deeply impressed with the conviction, that a recurrence to the fountain head for a definition of terms, whatever reception it may meet with in some quarters, will have the effect of relieving many minds from much embarrassment; by placing before them the scriptural uses of the word "baptism," and the scriptural ordinance of baptism in water, freed from the unscriptural phraseology of the schools.

It would be gratifying, and might be profitable, if some of those writers, with whom the word "sacramental" is in such frequent and convenient use, would have the kindness to define the meaning they attach to it, and to point out on what "warranty of Holy Scripture" they ground that meaning.

It is sufficiently intelligible to say, that the pledge on oath (sacramentum) which the soldiers of the Roman Empire gave for their fidelity to the imperial standard, came to be applied in a way of analogous accommodation to the Lord's Supper; wherein the early

Baptism doth Save:" a Letter to the Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Exeter. By the Rev. Hugh M'Neile, D.D. "Baptism doth also now save us" (1 Peter iii. 21).

Christians, as good soldiers of Jesus Christ, pledged themselves with all solemnity to be "faithful unto death," in His service. But this account of the word is by no means sufficient to bear the weight of the complicated structure of ecclesiastical formalism which has been erected upon it.

To ascertain how the Latin word sacramentum, instead of continuing to signify an oath, as in Latin writers it does, began in Christian writers to signify "an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace," would be an investigation which, if it did not edify the devout, would at least gratify the curious.

Holy Scripture is altogether silent upon the subject.

LETTER TO THE LORD BISHOP OF EXETER.

MY LORD,-The eyes of the Church are upon you. Some are looking with hope, but without any clearly defined idea of what they are hoping for. Some are looking in anger, deeming your lordship a needless and reckless disturber of our peace. Some are looking in sorrow, grieved that the amount of inconsistency with itself, which belongs to our ecclesiastical system, should afford an opportunity, and supply even an appearance of excuse, for such vexatious and agitating proceedings as your lordship sees it right to persevere in.

I am one of these. I can entertain no hope of good from your course. I feel no anger, because I am persuaded you are conscientious in what you are doing. But I am grieved, in common, I believe, with all real lovers of peace and unity in the Church, I am deeply and sincerely grieved that your lordship should have repudiated with so high a hand that forbearance, which our unfinished and in some degree inconsistent system of ecclesiastical polity and doctrine demanded on either side.1

Your lordship could not be more exclusive and dictatorial, if the whole volume of our Book of Common Prayer, in the natural sense of it, were an undeniable echo of your lordship's private judgment: whereas, what is the fact?

Your lordship is respectfully but earnestly invited to consider what, as a matter of fact, is the present state of the case among us.

1. The Prayer-Book, considered as a whole, is in some degree inconsistent with itself; so that readers of the most discordant senti

1 This was written when the bishop was endeavouring to make his own private judgment on the subject of Baptism, the law of the Church.