Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

it is in the other evangelists, Tavта TAUTA,—YEVηTAI,—“ till all these things be done, or have come to pass." 3. That the argument of "G. F.,” from Luke, i. 20, would require that the dumbness of Zacharias should have ceased at the conception of John, for that was the commencement of the accomplishment of the prophecy; whereas he continued dumb until after the birth of the child, the rejoicing of the neighbourhood, and the circumcision and naming of the child. These things were done, or came to pass, EyevεTO: and these are the things to which the angel referred, when he said, αχρι ης ημερας γενηται ταυτα. The angel had informed Zacharias that his " prayer was heard;-that Elizabeth should bear him a son ;-that he should call his name John ;-that he should have joy and gladness;-and that many should rejoice at his birth. And the other things mentioned by the angel are mentioned as the reasons of that rejoicing of many, and are not included in his 4. That if" G. F." will take the concordances of γενηται ταυτα. Trommius and Schmidt, and proceed to apply his meaning of "commence" or "begin to take place" to yevra in the different places where it occurs, he will soon be convinced, with every other Greek scholar, that his theory is altogether untenable.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant, PAULUS SENESCHALLUS. (To be continued.)

INTERCOURSE BETWEEN THE EASTERN CHURCHES AND
THE NONJURORS.

SIR,-If "D." will turn to Skinner's History of the Church of Scotland, vol. ii. pp. 634-639, he will find a solution for the mystery of the letter from the Eastern Patriarchs to the Catholics of Britain, to which he called our attention in the last. Those catholics were not, as he conjectures, Romanists, but Nonjurors, between whom and the Eastern churches a treaty of union was in agitation from 1716 to 1725, under the express approval of the Czar Peter, and through the medium of Arsenius, Metropolitan of Thebais, who was in London. The last communication which was received from the East is dated 1723, and is signed, among others, by three of the patriarchs, (Jeremias of Constantinople, Athanasius of Antioch, and Chrysanthus of Jerusalem,) whose names are appended to the inscription which "D." has cited. The papers are stated to have been deposited in Lambeth. The subject is well worthy attention at the present time, when it seems not improbable that some opening may be afforded for renewing communications with our eastern brethren in the faith.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

ALPHA.

PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN PARIS, FOR CELEBRATING THE WORSHIP OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND IN THE FRENCH

LANGUAGE.

SIR, On the cover of the British Magazine for August I saw a notice signed by Mr. Gourrier, relative to a proposed chapel or church to be erected in Paris under the above designation. The persons for whose use it is designed are stated to be partly Anglo-Gallicans, the result of mixed marriages, and partly native French. As episcopacy without a bishop is something like lucus, a non lucendo,' and only calculated to throw ridicule upon the subject, I am anxious to know under what bishop the proposed church and its minister are intended to be placed? I see the names of several most respectable clergymen of the church of England mentioned as "cordially recommending" the proposed scheme. Perhaps one of them will be so good as to inform your readers upon this point, as no bishop's name appears upon the paper. I am, Sir, your obedient servant, A PRESBYTER OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH.

[BISHOP TAYLOR'S] CONTEMPLATIONS ON THE STATE OF MAN. SIR, Will you allow me to thank your correspondent "Mr. Marriott,' in your November No., p. 533–4, for his obliging offer of the MS. in his possession, which he supposes to be the original draught of the "Contemplations on the State of Man." I hope to avail myself of his offer to inspect it, when I am able to come to town; but it can hardly be the original he supposes, inasmuch as "Mr. Marriott" states its date to be 1693, and the Contemplations first came out, according to Bishop Heber, in 1684.

May I at the same time make one or two additions and corrections to my former letter on this singular treatise?

1. "Echebar, who reigned in Mogor," I find from Purchas' Pilgrimage, (book v. chap. vi.) where his name and title are similarly spelt, to be the same with Akbar, the third of the Mogul dynasty 1555-1605. The "king of Narsinga," or Bisnagar, is also exhibited with all his titles by Purchas, (Ibid. chap. xi.) by whom he is called Vencapatadinus Ragiu Devamaganus Ragel;" from which array of sonorous words I am unable to extract his true oriental designation. Purchas, who wrote before Sir Thomas Roe's embassy to Selim Jehangire, the successor of Akbar, in 1614, refers for his information about these Eastern princes chiefly to Spanish and Portuguese missionaries and voyagers, whose mode of spelling he follows. But it is singular that an English writer should adopt it nearly a century later, when our settlements at Surat and Bombay, and Dryden's "Aureng Zebe," had made the name of "the Great Mogul" familiar to English

ears.

The book to which the author of the Contemplations refers, in a note appended to this part of his treatise, is " Jarrici Thesaurus Rerum

Indicarum," printed at Cologne in 1614-16. Pierre du Jarric was a French jesuit, who published his work first in French at Bordeaux, 1608. The Latin translation was made by Martino Martinez, a Spanish jesuit, author of "El Atlante Chinico," and other works on the jesuit mission in China, published in the early part of the seventeenth century. This reference may help to fix the date of the treatise; and possibly, if any of your readers know where to have access to the work of Jarric, it may further illustrate this part of it.

It is remarkable that of four modern authorities, the only modern authorities referred to in this singular treatise, three at least are jesuits : Christopher Clavius, "the mathematician," p. 484, who is said to have been employed by Gregory XIII. in the reformation of the calendar; Leonard Lessius, p. 515; and the work of Du Jarric or Martinez just mentioned. Who is meant by the fourth, “Jo. Gaiter in Peregrino," p. 491, I am not yet able to discover.

2. I was mistaken in saying that Jeremy Taylor has no mention of the doctrine of guardian angels. In the Epistle Dedicatory to his Discourse on Confirmation, vol. xi. p. 225, he speaks of it as a pious supposition held by some wise and good men, but on which he gives no decided opinion of his own.

3. "The sensitive knowledge of the humanity of Christ," p. 505, seems to be a notion closely connected with the doctrine of transubstantiation. See the close of Massillon's sermon "Sur les Dispositions à la Communion."

4. "The four gifts of glory" to the bodies of saints, p. 478, and 507, 8-viz., clarity, agility, subtilty, and impassibility, are often mentioned in Romish hagiography: e. g., the jesuit Eusebio Nieremberg speaks of Loyola as having enjoyed these gifts before his translation.

5. There is a singular scholastic phrase, p. 465, of the Deity "making choice of one amongst an infinity of men possible." I have seen it debated in a treatise by a Spanish jesuit, whether the Deity is subject to possibility, like the creatures, or independent of it! But such notions or questions are remote enough from the character of English theology.

6. "The city of Quinsay, which contained fourscore millions of souls," p. 421, calls forth no suspicions from Bishop Heber. I should guess, not that we should read "myriads," as Heber proposes, but that the writer, copying from some Italian or Spanish missionary, mistranslated the numeral "millares" for "millones." But possibly he might have found what he writes. There is a famous story of the city of Grand Paytiti in South America, which was said to have been of some such dimensions; it contained many thousands of Christian converts, streets paved with gold, &c.; being all the while as real as Cuckoo-cloud-land.

In short, this treatise appears to me to be of no English original. The language is often defective; the allusions to manners and customs are of other countries. I am confirmed in my supposition that the author is a Romanist, by the opinion of one of the ablest living judges; and I think it very possible that the original may be shortly discovered. From the strong resemblance to the "Hell Opened" of the jesuit Pinamonti, as given in your Magazine for December, 1836, it VOL. XIV.-Oct. 1838.

31

seems not improbable that a search for Pinamonti's other works (as he lived contemporarily with the production of this treatise) might lead to a detection of the fraud. That a fraud was intended on the memory of Jeremy Taylor seems beyond question. Yours faithfully, E. C.

P.S. Since I sent you the first draft of this letter, which seems to have been mislaid, your correspondent "," September, p. 302, has supplied me with a fuller correction of my mistake under my second head; for which I beg him to accept my thanks. Narsingapatam, near Cuttack, in the Deccan, is probably the capital of the prince before mentioned. I find the king of Narsinga mentioned as a tributary to the Mogul emperor in the middle of the seventeenth century.

There is some mistake in your correspondent's quotation at the close of his letter. Francis Xavier died in the island Xan-Chong near Macao, Nov. 20, 1552: consequently, he could not be alive in 1640. The Portuguese viceroy, with whom he went out, was Martin Alonso de Sosa, the predecessor of Juan de Castro, who was the fourteenth, and not the fourth, as stated by your correspondent; and he arrived in India in 1542. It could scarcely have been much earlier, as the order of which Xavier was so distinguished a member was not established till 1540. The date of Juan de Castro's death should probably be 1546.

OMISSION OF THE PRAYER FOR "CHRIST'S CHURCH
MILITANT," &c.

SIR,-Remembering, in former numbers of the Magazine, some very just remarks on the unjustifiable irregularity of the clergyman changing the lessons, as appointed in the service of the church, I wish to bring under your notice, and that of your readers, another very objectionable practice, which I fear is even still more common. I mean, the entire omission of a very important part of the service. The first rubric at the end of the communion service enjoins as follows: "Upon Sundays and other holidays (if there be no communion) shall be said all that is appointed at the communion until the end of the general prayer, (for the whole state of Christ's church militant here in earth) together with one or more of these collects last rehearsed, concluding with the blessing." Upon what authority does the minister take upon himself (as is the practice in many churches) to neglect the direction of this rubric, and immediately after sermon, when there is no communion, proceed to the collect and blessing (which also ought to be said at the altar, not in the pulpit), and entirely omit the offertory, and the prayer for the church militant? In principle, this is precisely the same offence as changing the lessons. In practice, it is surely far more injurious, as it deprives the congregation of one of the most beautiful and comprehensive prayers perhaps ever composed. It leaves the service incomplete, and, which I must consider a very important point, it leaves the congregation to depart without being reminded, by

seeing the minister at the altar, that it is their own fault that he does not proceed with the remainder of the service, and the administration of the holy mysteries of the eucharist. I cannot but adopt your own words: "Such practice is extremely irregular, and it is a sad pity that wherever it occurs it is not stopped in the only way in which such wilful irregularities ever are stopped-by a complaint to the ordinary, with the names of the parties who will authenticate the complaint.' I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

PRESBYTER.

TITHES.

SIR,-If I am not mistaken, your correspondent, "A Lover of Justice," has fallen into an error, by confounding the purchase of a living with the purchase of tithes; and therefore, from very excellent premises, has drawn an incorrect conclusion.

I believe that tithes come into the market exactly on the same footing as other landed property, and that a man who should buy the tithes of a parish would no more think of getting ten per cent. for his money than if he were to buy a farm in the parish. If the tithes were worth a thousand a year, and land was at thirty years' purchase, I conceive he would have to give 30,000l. for them.

Since the tithes are to bear the rate, and not the living,—that is, the property, and not the person-and certainly every species of property should be rated according to its full relative value with respect to other properties-it seems that tithes should be rated exactly as other landed property-viz., upon the interest of the money that would be required to purchase them; in other words, on the sum for which they would let; and this, I believe, is the principle of Mr. Shaw Lefevre's Bill.

I hope the clear and just view of this subject given by the Rev. Mr. Austen will convince many that this bill will not rate the tithes unfairly, and will shew the injustice and impolicy of desiring any lower scale of assessment. I am, Sir, your obedient humble servant, A CLERGYMAN AND TITHE-OWNER.

SALE OF CHURCH PROPERTY UNDER MUNICIPAL BILL. SIR,-The regulation in the late Municipal Bill which enacts that all advowsons belonging to corporate bodies should be disposed of to the highest bidders, and the advertisements sent forth under its provisions, at this time particularly call the attention of the public to the sale of church property. As the subject is a very important one, and in no

* See Wheatly on the Common Prayer in loco.

« AnteriorContinuar »