THE CHURCH No. 21.] MAGAZINE. SEPTEMBER, 1840. MEMOIR OF THE REV. H. S. PLUMPTRE, M.A. [VOL. II. IN compiling the Memoirs of those servants of Christ, whose portraits adorn the successive numbers of "The Church Magazine," there is often much greater difficulty than may be imagined. Sometimes we are enabled to collect from published works, or other common sources, materials sufficient for a pretty full account of the Clergyman whose likeness we give; at other times we are obliged to be content with just what we can cull here and there, as best we may, and are consequently unable to furnish our readers with anything beyond a very brief sketch of his life. Nor is it any fault of ours, or indeed of anybody else, that our Memoir is sometimes rather scanty; nor moreover does it argue that the individual who is the subject of it, is not quite equal or even superior in every respect to any one of those whose lives are given at much greater length. The differences in this respect are easily accounted for; and are in fact occasioned by circumstances which we cannot command, and which may be expected to control us, as they inevitably would others, if they were in our situation. No one, two or three persons, even in this enlightened age, can possibly contrive to know exactly everybody, and much less everything about them. The number of Clergymen in England and Wales cannot be far, if any, short of twenty thousand; and it is quite possible that amongst them there may be some possessed of great natural abilities and very high acquirements, and be heartily devoted to their sacred profession, and eminently holy in their lives, and we know nothing of them beyond their mere name, if even that, especially as it is not unfrequently the case that the wisest and best of men love retirement, and to pass through the world in comparative obscurity. But if even the individual be generally well-known and very eminent in the world, it may so happen that we are without the means of obtaining much information respecting him, that can be fully depended upon as truth. And we always take especial care to state nothing as a fact, which is not really so; and consequently whether the Memoirs we give be long or short, and whatever may be the sources whence we gather the materials for them, what they do contain may be fully relied on; and this itself will compensate in some sort, the brevity of some of the sketches which we give. With these few, and perhaps not unnecessary, observations, we proceed to give what we have collected respecting the esteemed ambassador of Christ, whose likeness accompanies the present number of the Magazine. The Rev. Henry Scawen Plumptre, is the second son of the late Very Reverend John Plumptre, D.D., who was for many years Dean of Gloucester. He was born at Worcester, of which Cathedral his father was also for some time a Prebendary, previously to his removal to Gloucester. At the usual time Mr. Plumptre was sent to Eton, where he was educated until the period S arrived for his removal to one of the Universities, when he was entered at Merton College, Oxford. He took his degree of Bachelor of Arts in the year 1813, and shortly afterwards entered into Holy Orders. As soon as he was of sufficient age to hold it, he was presented by the Dean and Chapter of Gloucester, to the living of Cowbridge, in the county of Glamorgan, in Wales. But although English was pretty generally spoken in that part of Wales, yet as the living consisted of two separate parishes or chapelries, in one of which the inhabitants did not understand English, Mr. Plumptre, on discovering this, immediately determined on exchanging this living for an English benefice, as soon as possible. It was however, sometime, before he accomplished his object, but at length he exchanged it for the Vicarage of Lyenshall, in the county of Hereford. After having spent a considerable time in his new Vicarage, and being desirous of a little change, Mr. Plumptre accepted the charge of St. Mark's Church, Kennington, in the absence of the Incumbent, the Rev. W. Otter, the present Bishop of Chichester, who was then on the Continent for the benefit of his health. Shortly after his return, Mr. Plumptre was appointed by the Trustees to St. Matthew's Chapel, Denmark Hill, a short distance from Kennington; where he remained somewhere about two years, and then accepted the office of Morning Preacher, at the Parish Church of St. Mary's, Newington. Soon after this he was elected in a highly creditable and most gratifying manner to the situation of alternate Evening Preacher at the Foundling Hospital. Although he had no interest amongst the Governors of that Institution, he was chosen from a list of no less than twenty-six candidates, upon none of whom could the choice have more fortunately fallen. On the decease of the Incumbent of St. Mary's Parochial Chapel, Lambeth, in 1833, Mr. Plumptre was in the most handsome manner appointed his successor, by the Rev. Dr. D'Oyly, the Rector of Lambeth, with whom he had become acquainted, while officiating for Mr. Otter, at St. Mark's Church, Kennington, which is in that extensive and important parish. This incumbency together with his appointment at the Foundling Hospital, Mr. Plumptre continued to hold until the 25th of March last year, when on account of severe indisposition, he was compelled to resign both situations, at the urgent request of his medical attendant, which was also in conformity with his own wishes, as he had long felt that the laborious duties of his Chapelry were secretly undermining his constitution. Relieved from these heavy duties and anxious cares for the spiritual welfare of his people, he soon began to feel the beneficial effects of his respite from labour, and is now we are happy to say through the blessing of Almighty God, restored to health, and is better than he has been for some years. He has now no regular charge, but is merely employed in gratuitously assisting his Clerical brethren in the neighbourhood where he has lived highly and deservedly respected for the last seven or eight years. Besides a few occasional Sermons, Mr. Plumptre has published a Course of Lectures on the Parable of the Prodigal Son, delivered during Lent, when he was Morning Preacher at St. Mary's Church, Newington; but they have now been long out of print. We have never seen these Lectures, but if as they undoubtedly are they are of an order similar to the Sermons which, with much advantage and pleasure to ourselves, we have heard Mr. Plumptre deliver, they well deserve to be reprinted, and known as generally as they would be esteemed. Amidst the spurious liberality and too general unfaithfulness of the age, Mr. Plumptre is found faithful to the trust committed to him, and ever ready to fulfil his ordination vows by endeavouring to "banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrines contrary to God's word." While he holds the life-giving doctrines of the Gospel in all their fulness, he is what is called a high, or properly speaking, a sound and decided churchman in principle. He considers the popish and every other form of dissent as highly wrong, and hesitates not, as opportunity serves, faithfully to exhort his hearers, to mark and avoid all those who cause divisions and offences in the fold of Christ. As a preacher, Mr. Plumptre is possessed of much natural eloquence, and delivers his discourses with considerable energy; and we trust he will long be spared to benefit the Church of God by his faithful instructions and judicious labours. The Portrait from which our engraving is copied, was painted by his Curate, the Rev. Mr. Deey, now the Incumbent of St. Thomas's, in the borough of Southwark. THE JUDGMENT OF THE CHURCH AGAINST DISSENTERS. We now proceed to give others of the Canons which comdemn dissent of every description, and shew in terms not be mistaken in what light the Church has always viewed schism of every kind. And if the sworn ministers of the Church-those who minister or should minister her doctrines and discipline, as they are virtually sworn to do—had all along faithfully impressed the consciences of their people with the heinousness of the sin of dissent, we should not at the present moment have had in the country one-sixth of the division and discord, and strife and contention, with the consequent confusion, and every evil-work, which now annoy the Clergy, and afflict the Church, within every part of her jurisdiction. We sincerely hope and pray that those who have solemnly vowed to "be ever ready to banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrines contrary to God's word," seeing the mischief which has arisen through ministerial unfaithfulness, will now set themselves faithfully and manfully to fulfil their duty to God and his Church, and to the souls of their fellow-creatures, by endeavouring to lessen and keep down dissent, and thereby put the most effectual stop in their power to the lamentable increase of indifference, infidelity, socialism, and licentiousness,all which spring as legitimately and naturally from the principles of dissent, as water from the fountain. This may not appear to be the case to those who have not given much attention to the principles so constantly propagated by the dissenters, and have not well studied them in all their bearings, and in their effects upon the minds and conduct of those unfortunate persons who imbibe them, and are influenced by them. We shall have more to say on this subject in future, and will therefore at once introduce the Canons of which we have spoken. The third, fourth, and fifth, we have already given, and others now follow with their numbers and titles quite correct:— 66 6. Impugners of the Rites and Ceremonies, established in the Church of England, censured. "Whosoever shall hereafter affirm, that the Rites and Ceremonies of the Church of England by law established, are wicked, antichristian, or superstitious, or such as being commanded by lawful.authority, men, who are zealously and godly affected, may not with any good conscience approve them, use them, or, as occasion requireth, subscribe unto them; let him be excommunicated ipso facto, and not restored until he repent, and publicly revoke such his wicked errors." "7. Impugners of the Government of the Church of England by Archbishops, Bishops, etc. censured. "Whosoever shall hereafter affirm, that the Government of the Church of England under his Majesty by Archbishops, Bishops, Deans, Archdeacons, and the rest that bear office in the same, is antichristian, and repugnant to the word of God; let him be excommunicated ipso facto, and so continue until he repent, and publicly revoke such his wicked errors. 66 8. Impugners of the Forms of Consecrating and Ordering Archbishops, Bishops, etc. in the Church of England, censured. "Whosoever shall hereafter affirm or teach, that the form and manner of making and consecrating Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, containeth anything in it repugnant to the word of God, or that they who are made Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, in that form, are not lawfully made, nor ought to be accounted, either by themselves or others, to be truly either Bishops, Priests, or Deacons, until they have some other calling to those divine offices; let him be excommunicated ipso facto, not to be restored until he repent, and publicly revoke such his wicked errors." Thus far we proceed with the Canons of this kind for the present, and hope that they will be well considered by all, but more especially by the Clergy, who either do hold or should hold the same principles as the Canons; for although they do not subscribe to the hundred and forty-one Canons, they subscribe to the three Articles in the thirty-sixth Canon, which in amount comprises all the rest. REGISTRATION OF BIRTHS' ACT. As the Registrar-General has just published his Annual Report, and has omitted, amongst many other things which ought to have been published, the following correspondence, we now give it to the world, by way of " Appendix," considering it quite as valuable as an illustration of the operation of that Mischievous Act, and of the generalship of the Registrar, as the Report itself. By way of introduction we may however observe, that if the Clerical and lay members of the Church had made as much noise about their real "grievances" as their enemies do about their pretended ones, the Church and the country would never have been saddled with so great a burden and nuisance as is the unchristian Registration Act, with its ceaseless annoyances. That it would be constantly made use of as an engine to insult the Clergy and injure the Church, was foretold before the grievance was practically felt; and since its operation, abundant evidence has been afforded of its unchristian, injurious, and insulting character and tendency, worked as it almost invariably is by decided and open enemies of the Church. From the Registrar-General down to the lowest of his subalterns, enmity to the Church is almost always to be discovered. It is true that they all more or less manifest some little policy in their movements, in order to accustom the Clergy and the people to the yoke of oppression by degrees, lest by going too far at once, their subjects should rebel, and their object be defeated. But the Clergy may rely upon it, that as soon as the yoke can be tightly screwed about their necks with impunity, it will be so; and they will then find it too late to get rid of a burden which they will feel too grievous to be borne; and of which they might have been entirely free, had they quietly resisted the evil at first, and left his RegistrarGeneralship and his subordinates to take their own course, and to work out their scheme according to their own will or power. It has always seemed to us a piece of the most monstrous injustice for the state to lay upon a portion of its subjects a burden of which others sustain no part at all. Why the Clergy should have duties imposed upon them, and be made to keep merely a Civil Registration for merely civil purposes, in addition to their own Ecclesiastical Registers, and this too without a farthing of remuneration, it would be difficult to reconcile with the principles of anything like that impartiality and |