CHARACTER OF THE FRENCH. DR. BROWN, author of the Essay on the Characteristics, thus wrote of the French in the year 1757. The effeminate manners of the French affect not their national capacity, because their youth are assiduously trained up for all public offices, civil, naval, military, in schools provided at the national expense. Here the candidates for public employ go through a severe and laborious course of discipline, and only expect to rise in station as they rise in knowledge and ability. THEIR EFFEMINATE manners affect not their national spirit of defence, because they are controlled by the spirit of military honour. This for some ages hath been early instilled into every rising generation; and is at length become so strong and universal as to form the national character. It spreads through every rank; inspires even the meanest in the kingdom; and pervades and actuates the whole machine of Government with a force little inferior to that of public virtue. As this principle in France secures the national spirit of defence; so the power of their monarch, aided by this principle of honour, gives vigour to every movement of the state. Forced by this, the character of the French nation, though inconsistent, is respectable. They have found or rather invented, the art of uniting all extremes: they have virtues and vices, strengths and weaknesses, seemingly incompatible. They are effeminate, yet brave; insincere, yet honourable; hospitable, not benevolent; vain, yet subtle; splendid, not generous; warlike, yet polite; plausible, not virtuous; mercantile, yet not mean; in trifles serious, gay in enterprise; women at the toilet, heroes in the field; profligate in heart, in conduct decent; divided in opinion, in action united; in manners weak, but strong in principle; contemptible in private life, in public formidable.-BROWN's Characteristics. THE OFFERTORY.-"In the infancy of the Church, people gave all they had, and sold their very lands, and laid the price at the apostles' feet. Acts iv. 34. But this is a pitch of charity not required now; and it is well it is not, for I am afraid more would go away sorrowful,' than the young man in the gospel. For if there are so many in the world that keep from the Church what belongs to her by a stronger right than any man in Britain holds his estate, (for the tithes of the clergy have more than a human tenure,) what would those do if they were commanded to part with their own estates for the use of the Church? Surely we cannot suppose that they who refuse to give the Church what is justly hers, should ever bestow on her what is their own."-BARCLAY'S Persuasive to the People of Scotland, A.D. 1723. FASTS AND FESTIVALS IN SEPTEMBER. ST. MATTHEW'S day is kept the 21st of September. He is also called Levi; he was the son of an Alpheus of the tribe of Zebulon, and was born at Nazareth. He was a publican or toll-taker on the goods passing and repassing the lake of Gennesareth at Capernaum. Whilst in the execution of his office, our Lord passed by him and looking on him said, FOLLOW ME. He arose, left all his worldly goods and inordinate affections, and followed Christ. Let us also make our baptismal calling and election sure, by following Christ in obedience and holiness of life, having been born again of the incorruptible seed by the Word of God. He preached in Judea and wrote his gospel in the Hebrew language: neither the time, the place, nor the manner of his death is known; but his example of ready obedience ought to be ever before us. First Lessons, Ecclus. xxxv. and xxxviii. Second Lessons, St. Matt. xxii.; 1 Cor. vi. Epistle, 2 Cor. iv. 1. Gospel, St. Matt. ix. 9. ST. MICHAEL AND ALL ANGELS' feast is held on the 29th of September, in thankfulness for the many and great benefits which the Church hath received through their ministry. Michael is twice mentioned by Daniel, once by St. Jude, and once in the Revelations; and without all doubt He is the chief of Saints, our Lord and Redeemer Jesus Christ. Daniel represents Him fighting with Satan, when opposing the restoration of the Jewish Church; St. Jude as disputing about the body of Moses or the Church of the Jews; and St. John as conquering the old Serpent, at the Reformation. The war was in heaven, which means the Church, and the weapons of the combatants were spiritual, for the Dragon was overcome by the BLOOD of the Lamb. Michael's great victory was therefore achieved at the Reformation, when the accuser of the brethren was cast down, and salvation and strength, and the kingdom of God and the power of Christ were manifested. There is no doubt St. Jude meant the Jewish Church, when he says St. Michael disputed with the Devil; but if it should have been his literal body, Satan's object was to discover where it had been buried, that he might tempt the Jews to worship his relics, as he has since tempted the Roman Church to worship and venerate the old bones of apocryphal Saints.-Our plain duty is to worship the Lord God and Him only to serve. First Lessons, Gen. xxxii., Dan. v. 5. Second Lessons, Acts xii. to verse 20; Jude from verse 6 to 16. For the Epistle, Rev. xii. 7. Gospel, St. Matt. xviii. 1. [From STEPHEN's Short Account of the Fasts and Festivals.] THE SAME NIGHT in which Jesus arose from the dead, He conferred on the Apostles the power of the remission of sins; and at His ascension, He commanded them to preach repentance and the remission of sins in His name, among all nations, beginning at the mother-church of Jerusalem. Accordingly, when the first Christian converts were pricked in their hearts at St. Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost, he replied to their anxious question "What shall we do?"- "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins," that is, that they might be reckoned or accounted just, and be reconciled to God. St. Paul also, in his sermon in the synagogue at Antioch, declared a similar truth. "Be it known to you therefore, men, brethren, that through [the means of] this man [Jesus Christ] is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins. And by [the power or grace of] Him, all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses." In this address, St. Paul shows clearly what he means when he writes in his epistles of works as opposed to faith. That which in his epistles he calls works, in this sermon he calls the law of Moses; and that which he calls faith in his epistles, he here calls believing, but which, of course, includes obedience. The most punctual observance of the rites and ceremonies of the Mosaic law could not justify any man; but the obediential faith of our type Abraham is the believing that will justify us 1 Acts xiii. 38, 39. * Continued from page 394. No. 14. P before God. When the King of Glory appeared to Saul the persecutor, He informed him that He would send him to the Gentiles to open the eyes of their understandings, to turn them from the darkness of idolatry to the light of gospel truth; to deliver them from the power and dominion of Satan unto the obedience of the faith, "that they may receive forgiveness of sins [ justification] and inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith" in Christ2. THE SACRIFICES and ceremonial performances of the law of Moses were altogether unable to purge the conscience, and to deliver men from the effects of transgression. The only effect of their washings and ceremonies was to re-admit men to the congregation from which the breach of some ceremony had excluded them for the time being. They merely removed the political guilt that rendered the Jew liable to civil and ecclesiastical penalties; but they did not purge the conscience of sin. God therefore sent Christ in the flesh, to bear our sins and to be reckoned or accounted a sinner, to break the power of sin, and to nail the indictment against us to His cross. St. Paul therefore concludes that a man is justified, or accepted as righteous, by obedience to the faith alone, without any respect whatever to the washings and ceremonies of Moses; for He is the God of the Gentiles whom He has justified freely by His grace, as well as of the Jews. By His sacrifice for sin, Christ suffered that condemnation in our stead that was due to us; and took away its power, redeeming us from the curse of the Law, and bestowing on us the blessing of Abraham, or reckoning us just by the exercise of his faith. In consequence of this justification, He has sent the Spirit of Christ into our hearts, giving us peace, and the privilege of sons. We are justified, therefore, by the free and unmerited grace of God the Father, through the complete obedience of God the Son, and we are assisted in the duties of our Christian course by God the Holy Ghost. “Justification,” says Bishop Jolly, “is begun in the sacrament of baptism, and is progressive, till it be finally sealed and perfected by the last sentence of the supreme Judge1.” The Christian Sacrifice in the Eucharist, pp. 173, 174. JUSTIFICATION by faith is a divine act, connected with a moral process wrought by the Spirit of God in the inner man -the hidden man of the heart; but it is inseparable from moral qualifications, because faith itself is a moral quality-a good work--a submission of the understanding and the heart to revealed truth. We cannot do anything that is good, without the assistance of Divine grace, neither can we produce in ourselves the will to believe and to do from the heart, according to His will, but by His grace and the Holy Spirit residing in us, who works in us through Jesus Christ, that which is well-pleasing in His sight. Whatever holiness is in man, like every other good and perfect gift, is wrought in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who is the author of all godliness, with whom is no variableness nor shadow of turning from good to evil. The spirit of holiness or sanctification was infused into us at our baptism, when we were elected through sanctification of the Holy Spirit, and the sprinkling of the blood of Christ; having been at the same time born again of the incorruptible seed, by the living word of God". In the Creed, among other revealed truths, we profess our belief that there is One baptism for the remission of sin, that is, for our justification. The Apostle calls this divine act, a time of refreshing sent out from the presence of the Lord; for we then receive the incorruptible-the ever-living-the everlasting -and the ever-abiding seed by the living word of God, and now on repentance and conversion to newness of life, we receive remission of sin, or justification. At that time of refreshing, we were regenerated and made new creatures in Christ, we received the gift of the Holy Spirit through the blood of sprinkling; we were justified by His grace, and made heirs of the kingdom of Heaven, according to the hope of eternal lifes. THE MEANS of our redemption are external, and independent of us; being the free and unmerited mercies of God the Father on account of the merits and through the mediation of God the Son. In consequence of His atonement, and through faith in His blood, we were created anew in baptism, unto the performance of Christian good works, or of obedience, for with 5 John xv. 5; Heb. xiii. 21. • 1 Peter i. 2, 23. Titus i. 5-8. |