Maronite convent, hamlet, and house. Assad was destitute of the subtlety and daring with which to meet such a power; yet he will not have suffered in vain the complaints of the poor Maronite, the appeals from his prison-house, to which no one replied save in scorn and hatred, will come forth from the deep chasm of the mountain, and call others to bear testimony to the truth for which he was a martyr. One or two of the more aged fathers sought to turn Assad back to his lost hopes and superstitious observances, unable to conceive why he was thus changed, to forsake the belief and the Church of his ancestors, his relatives, and friends. At last they troubled him no more, perceiving that he was neither to be moved nor persuaded: he might well anticipate death with pleasure; his failing health had no pity, his sufferings were watched with pleasure by his keepers, on his cell no cheerful beam ever fell, and in winter its cold and dimness were like those of the grave.

SOME CAUSES OF WANT OF SUCCESS IN THE MINISTRY.*

IT is obvious that there can be no effective results from a ministry which does not set forth faithfully those vital truths which lay bare the natural helplessness of man, and shew him how he may be made wise unto salvation. Mere ethics, and dry ratiocination, and the inculcation of virtue as its own reward, will neither make men Christians nor keep them so. The basis of our preaching must be the doctrine of the Bible. Our sermons must speak the Gospel fully, intelligibly, unmixedly, uncompromisingly. Christ must be magnified in all his offices, as our crucified Saviour and risen Lord-Head over all things to his Church. The work of the Holy Spirit in conversion, sanctification, and instruction, must be at the root of all our teaching. But suppose this outline filled up, and the cross lifted in the sight of our people,-by which compendious phrase I mean to express the whole range of Christian doctrine, beginning with the atonement for sin, and ending with the transformation of the purified saint into the likeness of Christ's glorified body,— may it not happen, does it not often happen, that we see no effects, we can trace no progress? all continues cold, and dead, and stationary; the fleece remains unmoistened; there is no noise or shaking; the dry bones are motionless-there is no breath in them.

1. This may arise, perhaps, from defects in the minister's mental habits.

He may be of an unstudious temper, in regard both to theology and general reading. The complete pastor must be, even to his dying day, no less a Christian student than a Christian teacher. God honours human learning, if used in subordination to Divine grace. It is truly said, "any branch of knowledge which a good man possesses he may apply to some good purpose. If he possessed the knowledge of an archangel, he might apply it all to the advantage of men and the glory of God." An unstudious minister has a paralysing effect upon a parish. There is a sameness of preaching, which becomes first unprofitable, then intolerable. The old sermons fail to excite an interest. There is no suitableness of application, no progressive building up in the faith, no address to individual conscience. The bow is drawn mechanically, and the arrow is shot at a venture, and naturally misses the

Extracted, by his lordship's permission, from "A Charge delivered to the Clergy of the Diocese of Winchester, by Charles Richard Sumner, D.D., Bishop of Winchester, at his Third Visitation, in October, 1837." London, Hatchard and Son. + Bickersteth's Christian Student, p. 20.

mark. So, too, in respect of literature. If the preacher betray the barrenness of his intellectual stores, and his want of sympathy with the educated class of his congregation, what can be the consequence but failure of personal respect, absence of attractiveness, loss of influence for the great objects of his ministry?

Or perhaps the minister may be labouring under a defect of devotional spirit. Even if such a one should enlighten his people, he will not sanctify them. "A ministry of power must be a ministry of prayer." There can be no prevailing with men, until there has been first a wrestling, as it were, with God, for souls as our hire. And this intercessional spirit has a reflex action upon our own minds. It gives an earnestness to our tone, corresponding with our deepened sense of responsibility. No man ever rose from his knees, after praying for his parish, without experiencing an increase of love for his ministerial work, and of ardour in its prosecution. He returns to his flock with something of that holy light shed around his head which shone on the face of Moses after talking with the Lord on the mount; so that all men may know, by the consistency of his walk and demeanour, and the concentration of every thought on the one great and absorbing object, that he too has been with Jesus. Another defect, which has a baneful influence upon ministerial success, is an unregulated judgment.

Men may be intemperate in the pastoral office. They may overdrive the flock. They may excite a religious feeling, without communicating religious knowledge. They may light, as it were, a fire among thorns, which burns impetuously, and expires in à moment. They may lose sight of the means, in the deep sense they justly entertain of the importance of the end. It is from a defect of this kind that Church principles are so often forgotten and kept out of the view of our congregations. The result is, that many members of our communion have no distinct consciousness of any of the characteristics of the Church to which they belong. They lose all the benefit of Church union, Church sympathy, Church discipline. They are isolated and independent beings, instead of parts of a body, linked in a holy partnership with fellow-pilgrims, "every one members one of another" (Rom. xii. 5). Their hearts are not comforted, being knit together in love" (Col. ii. 2.)

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2. Or impediments to the progress of religion in our parishes may arise from defects in the minister's practical habits.

Desultoriness, for instance, is a great impediment to usefulness. And yet, I apprehend, this is no uncommon fault, springing from vague notions as to the exact character of our Church, as a constituted, not a gathered body. Do we sufficiently realise our position as pastors of the whole flock, not of a portion only; as spiritual overseers of the entire parish, not of a mere section? Is there any thing systematic in our mode of coming in contact with the spiritually dead, as well as with the living souls in our charge? Is there no partiality in our visiting? Have we no favourite districts? Do we remember that our commission extends to every soul, whether of them that hear, or them that forbear? Do we count the absent, as well as the present, in our churches and at our communion-tables? Do we make any aggressive movements upon those who neglect to wait on our ministry? In towns, for example, there is no class of parishioners with which it is so difficult to have communication as with the order of middle tradesmen. We have no obvious mode of approach; they are not the companions of our familiar intercourse, and they are not the objects of the charity of the clergy. What pains have we taken to facilitate our access to this part of our parochial community? How attempted to cultivate this corner of our vineyard? In the rural districts, on the other hand, the lads of the parish are the thorn in the minister's side. Freed from the restraint of school,

uncontrolled by parents, no longer domiciled, as formerly, in their employer's house, they are "as the horse or the mule, that have no understanding, whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest they come near unto us" (Ps. xxxii. 9). What have we done to tame their intractability? what to obtain a restraining influence? what, at least, to counteract the contagion of their example? Nothing, I fear, if desultory in our ministrations. The painful and difficult task is postponed for the easier and more congenial and more pleasant duty; the many that are erring and straying are relinquished for the folded few; the physician tarries with the whole, who need him not; and meanwhile the diseased are not strengthened, the sick are not healed, that which was broken is not bound up, or that brought back again which was driven away.

I may add one hint in reference to a want of business-like tact in organising parochial machinery, as a binderance to making full proof of our ministry. Our work is heavy; our hands hang down in weariness at the sight of the vastness of the field white unto harres, and abandoned to the sickle of a single reaper. Why not call in such subsidiary help as arrangement Enrgive ? Why not apply the principle of political ecconists-division of labour-to the spiritual husbandry? Much collateral good may flow from this practice. The employment of the educated classes as teachers in Sunday-schools is a means of correcting the evils incidental to a high state of civilisation. Use may be made of communicants in this way with good effect.

In closing these remarks, I would desire to remind myself and you, my reverend brethren, of the real source of all ministerial success. "Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it; except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh bat in vain" (Ps. cxxvii. 1). "Not by might, nor by Power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts" Zech. iv. 6). Nor is it so much by the increase of our places of worship, or the multiplication of our ergy, by the better organisation of the machinery of the Church, or the augmented number of her instruments, however useful;-but by the devotedness of her children to the work of extending Christ's kingdon,by the purity of her doctrines, and the faith fulness of her teaching,- by her unweariedness in labours of love, and her vigilance over the fold,—that the Church's usefulness is to be measured, and God's bussing anticipated. In setting up the outward framework, let us be careful to use it as a means to an end.

Biography.

THE LIFE OF BISHOP HALL.

[Concluded from No. LXXXVI.]

"Tu temporal advantages, respect, and influence, which, by the blessing of God, the Church has enjoyed, and which Churchmen may rightly enjoy, in times of tranquillity, when kings are her nursing fathers, and queens her nursing mothers, I duly appreciate. But in contemplating the obligations of the pastoral office, our best lessons of duty will generally Le found in the history of the Church in a suffering state. In this view there is not, perhaps, a brighter page in the history of the Church of England than the grand rebellion, if we consider it in a Christian gint; when we view seven or eight thousand men wering every privation, and every insult, and every calamuy, for truth and righteousness' sake, and exerting the duties of their office at every risk, for the

benefit of those who still adhered to them."* Fully agreeing with the truth of this remark, I may add, that of those who, amidst this season of persecution, bore testimony to their zealous attachment to the cause of Episcopacy, and to the sound scriptural interpretation of the Articles of the Church of England, few were more energetic than Bishop Hall. We have hitherto found him justly advancing from one preferment to another; we must now regard him as a persecuted man, persecuted for his adherence to a righteous cause. On the 15th of November, 1611, he was translated to the see of Norwich, vacant by the death of Dr. Richard Montague. But on the 30th of December, having joined the Archbishop of York (Dr. Williams), with other prelates, in protesting against the validity of all laws made during their compulsory absence from parliament, owing to the fury of the mob,-he was, with most of the others, committed to the Tower, at eight o'clock, in a cold frosty evening. When in the Tower the privilege of a seat in parliament was taken from the bishops. While there imprisoned, they regularly preached to crowded congregations. One of Bishop Hall's sermons, preached there on James, iv. 8, is to be found in his works. Here also he wrote a little work, "The Free Prisoner; or, the Comfort of Restraint."

On the 5th of May, 1612, the bishops were released on giving five thousand pounds bail. Bishop Hall withdrew to Norwich, where he was received with much respect, and frequently preached to large congregations; remaining unmolested till the beginning of April 1643. The ordinance for sequestering notorious delinquents' estates then passed, wherein his name was included. All his rents were stopped; and a very few days after, some of the sequestrators came to seize on his palace, and his estate both real and personal. Of the severe usage he met with upon that occasion, he thus speaks in his “ Hard Measure :" "The sequestrators sent certain men appointed by them (whereof one had been burned in the hand) to appraise all the goods that were in my house, which they accordingly executed with all diligent severity, not leaving so much as a dozen of trenchers, or my children's pictures, out of their curious inventory; yea, they would have appraised our very wearing-apparel had not some of them declared their opinion to the contrary. These goods, both library and household stuff of all kinds, were appointed to be exposed to public sale; but, in the meantime, Mrs. Goodwin, a religious good gentlewoman, whom yet we had never known or seen, being moved with compassion, very kindly offered to lay down to the sequestrators the whole sum at which the goods were valued; and was pleased to leave them in our hands, for our use, till we might be able to repurchase them. As for the books, several stationers looked on them, but were not forward to buy : at last, Mr. Cooke, a worthy divine of this diocese, gave bond to the sequestrators to pay them the whole sum whereat they were set; which was afterwards satisfied out of that poor pittance which was allowed me for my maintenance."

⚫ See preface to a Charge delivered to the Clergy of the United Dincese of Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Fife, by the Right Rev. James Walker, D.D., their bishop, delivered in 1833. Edinburgh, R. Grant and Son.

Thus deprived of all support, the good bishop applied to the committee at Norwich, which allowed him 4007. a-year out of the episcopal revenues. But before he could receive one quarter, an order was sent from the superior committee for sequestration at London, forbidding such allowance, and charging the Norwich committee, that neither they, nor any other, had power to allow him any thing; but if his wife needed a maintenance, on her application to the committee of lords and commons, she should have a fifth part. Her petition, after long delays, was granted her. But so confused and imperfect an account was brought in to the sequestrators by their solicitor and collector, of both the temporal and spiritual revenues, that the bishop could never get a knowledge what a fifth part meant, and was probably obliged to take what they thought fit to give him. And even while he received nothing, something was required from him; for the spoliators were not ashamed, after they had taken away and sold all his goods and personal estate, to come to him for assessments and monthly payments for the estate which was seized, and took distresses from him upon his most just denial. Nay, they vehemently required him to find the arms usually furnished by his predecessors, when they had left him nothing, and offered him insolent affronts and indignities. Of this he himself records two instances. One morning, before his servants were up, some London troopers came to his gates, requiring entrance, and threatening, if they were not admitted, to break open the gates. The pretence for their coming was to search for arms and ammunition; and though the bishop told them he had only two muskets, yet they searched the house, looked into the chests and trunks, and examined the vessels in the cellar. Finding no other warlike furniture, they took away one of two horses, though told the bishop's age would not allow him to travel on foot. On another occasion, the mob beset his palace, at a very unseasonable hour, for having ordained in his own chapel, and had the insolence to demand his appearance before the mayor.

Still he remained in his palace, though with a poor retinue and maintenance; but at last he was forced to quit it at three weeks' warning (though his wife offered to pay rent for it out of her fifths), and might have lain in the streets, had not a neighbour in the Close quitted his own house to make room for him and his family. This was his "hard measure,” as he expresses it in his essay on the subject.

The bishop soon after this retired to Heigham, near Norwich, where he exercised great charity even with his narrow means, and preaching constantly as often as opportunity offered. In 1652 he lost his wife, to whom he had been married forty-nine years; on which occasion he wrote a tract, entitled, "Songs in the Night, or Cheerfulness under Affliction ;" which remarkably illustrates the power of true religion in alleviating the agony of many of those painful bereavements to which all are liable, and which many have bitterly experienced; and under which nothing can afford lasting comfort to the soul but implicit trust that every dispensation is designed by a merciful Jehovah for the spiritual and everlasting good of his believing people.

which he bore with becoming patience, being entirely resigned to the Divine will. He died at Heigham, September 8th, 1656, aged eighty-two, and was buried in the churchyard of that parish without any memorial, observing in his will, "I do not hold God's house a meet repository for the dead bodies of the greatest saints." His funeral sermon was preached at St. Peter's, Norwich, by the Rev. John Whitefoote, rector of Heigham, from Gen. xlvii. 29.

Bishop Hall was, indeed, one of those burning and shining lights which have cast lustre upon our Church. He entered into the full spirit of her doctrines and discipline. His name will ever be revered by those acquainted with his history, and who have perused his works, which, it may fairly be stated, few can have done without edification and improvement.* It is truly gratifying for the attached member of the Established Church to be enabled to point to such men as the subject of the present memoir, as incontrovertible evidences that sound religious views were held, and practical duties enforced, in the strongest terms, by those within its pale in other days, when the cry was, as it is now," Down with it, even to the ground!" It is a matter of heartfelt gratitude to be convinced that the very principles which Bishop Hall advocated are extending through the length and breadth of the Established Church. While the doctrines he defended (and in which are embodied the very essence of Christianity) are faithfully preached, and fearlessly maintained, her foundations will be found to be "on the holy hills;" and no weapon that is formed against her will be permitted to prosper.

THE INQUISITION.-No. VIII.

0.

THE tortures to which the unhappy prisoners of the Inquisition were exposed, in the hope of inducing them to confess themselves guilty, even of crimes of which they were in reality innocent, have been considered in a former paper; the present shall be devoted to an account of one of the most remarkable modes of execution which can disgrace the annals of a nation. An auto-da-fe, or act of faith, was a kind of gaoldelivery of the Inquisition. It was held usually at the distance of three or four years; and with such pomp and splendour as rendered it a scene of revelry and amusement to the wretched crowds who assembled to witness it, and who, in not a few instances, verily thought they were doing God service in congregating to behold the murder of his creatures.

If a prisoner is found guilty, either from evidence or his own confession, he is sentenced to be whipped, to perpetual imprisonment within the walls of the inquisition-house, to the galleys, or to be put to death; according to the supposed enormity of his crime. After judgment is passed, all walk in procession to the place appointed for their execution, and it is this which, as I have said, is styled an act of faith.

Early in the morning after sentence was pronounced, the bells of the churches began to toll; the officials repaired to the inquisition-house, from which in due time the following melancholy procession issued:-

These works were published some years ago under the editorship of the Rev. Josiah Pratt, B.D., vicar of St. Stephen's, Coleman Street; but the edition is exceedingly scarce. A new edition, in twelve volumes, is now publishing in Oxford, by Mr. Talboys, edited by the Rev. Peter Hall, M.A., of Tavistock Chapel, London.

↑ See Geddes' "Tracts," vol. i.; M'Crie's "Reformation in

the monks of St. Dominic walked first, carrying the standard of the Inquisition, on one side of which was the picture of Dominic himself, curiously wrought in needle-work; and on the other, a figure of the cross, between those of an olive-branch and a naked sword, with the motto “Justitia et Misericordia." Immediately after followed the penitents, dressed in black coats without sleeves, bare-footed. The principal offenders were the infamous habit, the sanbenito, a species of loose vest of yellow cloth, cailed in Spanish zamarrah. On the sanbenito of those to be strangled were painted flames burning downwards, which the Spanish toraced fuego revolto, to intimate that they had escaped the fire. The sanbenito of those sentenced to be burned alive was covered with figures of flames burning upwards, around which devils were painted carrying faggots or fanning the fire. Similar marks of infamy appeared on the coroza, or pasteboard cap put upon their heads. The prisoners were arranged in ferent classes, the most guilty walking last, having either extinguished torches or else crosses in their hads, and halters round their necks. Each prisoner was guarded by two familiars, and, in addition, those Corletined to die by two friars. After the prisoners car the local magistrates, the judges, and officers of st, with a train of nobles on horseback; to them

ceeded the monastic clergy. At some distance the umbers of the holy office proceeded, with great pomp and very slowly, preceded by their fiscal, bearing the ndard of the Inquisition, composed of red silk damask, on which the names and insignia of Pope Sixtus IV. and Ferdinand the Catholic (the founders of the infernal tribunal) were conspicuous, surmounted by a massy silver crucifix overlaid with gold, which was held in the highest veneration by the populace. The familiars followed on horseback; forming their body-guard, and including many of the principal zentry. The procession closed with immense crowds of the lower orders.

Having arrived at the place of the auto, the inquisiters ascended the platform erected for their reception, and the prisoners were conducted to another, which was placed opposite to it. The service commenced with a sermon, usually preached by some distinguished prelate; after which the clerk of the tribunal read the sentences of the penitents, who, on their knees, and with hands laid on the missal, replated their confessions. The presiding inquisitor then descended from his throne, and, advancing to the ar, absolved the penitents à culpa, leaving them under the obligation to bear the several punishments to which they had been adjudged, whether these consisted of penances, banishment, whipping, hard labour, or imprisonment. He then administered an oath to all who were present at the spectacle; binding them to live and die in the communion of the Roman Church, and to uphold and defend, against all its adversaries, the tribunal of the holy Inquisition; during which ceremony the people were to be seen all at once on their knees in the streets. The more tragical part of the scene now followed. The sentences of those who were doomed to die having been publicly read, such of them as were in holy orders were publicly degraded, by being stripped, piece by piece, of their priestly vestments; a ceremony which was performed with every circumstance calculated to expose them to ignominy and execration in the eyes of the superstitious beholders. After this they were formally delivered over to the secular judges, to suffer the punishment awarded to heretics by the civil law.

It was on this occasion that the inquisitors performed that impious farce which has excited the indignation of all in whose breast fanaticism, or some worte principle, has not extinguished every sentiment of ceaimon feeling. When they delivered the prisoner into the hands of the secular judges, whom they had summoned to receive him, they besought them to

treat him with clemency and compassion. This they did to escape falling under the censure of irregularity, which the canons of the Church had denounced against ecclesiastics who should be accessory to the inflicting of any bodily injury. Yet they not only knew what would be the consequence of their act, but had taken all the precautions necessary for securing it. Five days before the auto-da-fe, they acquainted the ordinary royal judge with the number of prisoners to be delivered over to him, in order that the proper quantity of stakes, wood, and every thing else requisite for the execution, might be in readiness. The prisoners once declared by the inquisitors to be impenitent or relapsed heretics, nothing was competent to the magistrate but to pronounce the sentence adjudging them to the flames; and had he presumed, in any instance, to change the sentence of death to perpetual imprisonment, he would soon have felt the vengeance of the holy office.†

"Some

The penitents being removed to their several prisons, the condemned were led forth to execution. writers," says Dr. M'Crie, "have spoken as if they were executed on the spot where the sentence was read, and in the presence of all who had witnessed the preceding parts of the spectacle. This, however, is a mistake the stakes were erected without the walls of the town in which the auto-da-fe was celebrated."

Dr. Geddes was present at an auto-da-fe in Lisbon; and thus describes the manner in which the unhappy condemned were put to death: "At the place of execution there are so many stakes set up as there are prisoners to be burned, a large quantity of dry furze being placed about them. These stakes of the professed,' as the inquisitors called them, are about four yards high, and have each of them a small board, whereon the prisoner is to be scated, within half-a-yard of the top.

The 'professed' then go up a ladder betwixt two Jesuits, who attend them the whole day of execution. When they come even with the fore-mentioned board, they turn about to the people, and the Jesuits spend near a quarter of an hour in exhorting them to be reconciled to the see of Rome; on their refusal, the Jesuits come down, and the executioner, ascending, turns the professed' from off the ladder upon the seat, chains their bodies close to the stakes, and leaves them. The Jesuits then go up to them a second time, to renew their exhortation, and, if they find it ineffectual, usually tell them at parting, that they leave them to the devil, who is standing at their elbow, ready to receive their souls, and carry them with him into the flames of hell-fire, so soon as they are out of their bodies. Upon this a general shout is raised; and, as soon as the Jesuits are got off the ladder, the universal cry is, Let the dogs' beards be made! let the dogs' beards be made!' which is accordingly performed, by thrusting flaming furzes, fastened to a long pole, against their faces. This barbarity is commonly repeated till their faces are burned to a coal, and is always accompanied with the loudest acclamations of joy. Fire is then set to the furze at the bottom of the stake; when, if there happen to be a wind, to which that place is exposed, it seldom reaches higher than the criminal's knees; in which case they are not dead in an hour and a half, or two hours, and so are really roasted, and not burned to death. If there is a calm, they are commonly dead in about half an hour after the furze is set on fire." "There cannot, surely, out of hell," he continues,

The Protestant historian of the Inquisition, De Montes, states the matter thus: "When the person who is relaxed has confessed, the inquisitors, on delivering him to the secular judges, beseech them to treat him with much commiseration, and not to break a bone of his body, or shed his blood;' but when he is obstinate, they beseech them if he shall shew any symptoms of true repentance, to treat him with much commiseration,' &c." -Montanus, p. 148. I do not observe any such distinction in the accounts of the popish historians.-Llorente, ii. 250-253; Puigblanch, i. 279-281. See M'Crie.

+ Llorente, ii. 253, 254; Puigblanch, i. 350-353.