THE BRITISH CHURCHMAN. A MAGAZINE CONDUCTED ON THE PRINCIPLES OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND, BY HER REFORMERS. "Protestant is her Name, and Catholic her Surname."-JEREMY TAYLOR. VOLUME III. LONDON: SMITH, ELDER, AND CO., CORNHILL. 1845. PREFACE. Ir is but few words that a Periodical like our own needs by way of Preface. We have to announce the completion of a Third Volume-to thank our friends for their favours-to express our satisfaction with the progress we have made—and to hope that, by the Divine blessing, we may be made one among many means of keeping up a tone of true Evangelical Churchmanship in our beloved country. Since the commencement of the present Volume, our Church has suffered greatly, as well from within as from without. The powers of this world, never very ready to give to God's Church, often show themselves both able and willing to take away; and of this kind of reform our own Church has had her full share, nor is it yet over. Our consolation is that states of suffering have ever been states of spiritual prosperity, and there has been no surer medicine in the hands of the Spiritual Physician to cure the lethargy of his Church than the sharp but wholesome draught of tribulation. As to the recent APOSTACIES, for we utterly reject the affected and inadequte term secessions, we at once deeply lament and yet sorrowfully rejoice. Some among those who have left were, we fear, long before their departure Jesuits in disguise; others |