Digitized by tine Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/discussionsargumOOnewmrich DISCUSSIONS AND ARGUMENTS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS. DISCUSSIONS AND ARGUMENTS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS BY JOHN HENRY CARDINAL NEWMAN u J\r£Py IMPRESSION LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA 191 1 /V3S- TO THE REV. HENRY ARTHUR WOODGATE, B.D., RECTOR OF BELBROUGHTON, HONORARY CANON OF WORCESTER. My dear Woodgate, Half a century and more has passed since you first allowed me to know you familiarly, and to possess your friendship. Now, in the last decade of our lives, it is pleasant to me to look back upon those old Oxford days, in which we were together, and, in memory of them, to dedicate to you a Volume, written, for the most part, before the currents of opinion and the course of events carried friends away in various directions, and brought about great changes and bitter separations. Those issues of religious inquiry I cannot certainly affect to lament, as far as they concern myself; as they relate to others, at least it is left to me, by such acts as you now allow me, to testify to them that affection which time and absence cannot quench, and which is the more fresh and buoyant because it is so old. I am, my dear Woodgate, Your attached and constant friend, JOHN HENRY NEWMAN. January 5, 1872. 36046S ADVERTISEMENT. This Volume is a fresh contribution, on the part of the Author, towards a uniform Edition of his pubHca- tions. Of the six portions, of which it consists, the first appeared in the British Magazine in the spring of 1836, under the title of " Home Thoughts Abroad." As that title was intended for a series of papers which were never written, and is unsuitable to a single instalment of them, another heading has been selected for it, answering more exactly to the particular subject of which it treats. The second and third are the 83rd and 85 th numbers of the "Tracts for the Times," and were published in the 5 th volume, in the year 1838. The fourth, "The Tamworth Reading Room," was written for the Times newspaper, and appeared in its columns in February 1 841, being afterwards published as a pamphlet. The letters, of which it consists, were written off as they were successively called for by the parties who paid the author the compliment of employing him, and are necessarily immethodical as compositions. VI Advertisement. The same may with still more reason be said of the Letters which follow, entitled, " Who's to blame ? " written in the spring of 1855, for an intimate friend, at that time the editor of the newspaper in which they appeared. The Review, which closes the Volume, was published in the Month Magazine of June 1866 January, 1872 CONTENTS. PAOB I. HOW TO ACCOMPLISH IT i [I. THE PATRISTICAL IDEA OF ANTICHRIST:— 1. HIS TIMES 44 2. HIS RELIGION 62 3. HIS CITY 77 4. HIS PERSECUTION 93 III. HOLY SCRIPTURE IN ITS RELATION TO THE CATHOLIC CREED:— 1. DIFFICULTIES IN THE SCRIPTURE PROOF OF THE CATHOLIC CREED lOg 2. DIFFICULTIES OF LATITUDINARIANISM . . . I26 3. STRUCTURE OF THE BIBLE ANTECEDENTLY CON- SIDERED ......... 142 4. STRUCTURE OF THE BIBLE IN MATTER OF FACT . 152 5. THE IMPRESSION MADE BY THE SCRIPTURE STATE- MENTS 170 6. EXTERNAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE CANON AND THE CREED COMPARED I96 7. INTERNAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE CANON AND THE CREED COMPARED 2l6 8. DIFFICULTIES OF JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN FAITH COMPARED .... .... 236 via Contents. IV. THE TAMWORTH READING ROOM :— 1. SECULAR KNOWLEDGE IN CONTRAST WITH RELIGION 2. NOT THE PRINCIPLE OF MORAL IMPROVEMENT . 3. NOT A DIRECT MEANS OF MORAL IMPROVEMENT 4. NOT THE ANTECEDENT OF MORAL IMPROVEMENT 5. NOT A PRINCIPLE OF SOCIAL UNITY . 6. NOT A PRINCIPLE OF ACTION .... 7. WITHOUT PERSONAL RELIGION, A TEMPTATION TO UNBELIEF V. WHO'S TO BLAME?— 1. THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION ON ITS TRIAL 2. STATES AND CONSTITUTIONS .... 3. CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLES AND THEIR VARIETIES 4. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ATHENIAN 5. THE ENGLISHMAN 6. THE REVERSE OF THE PICTURE . . , 7. ENGLISH JEALOUSY OF LAW COURTS 8. ENGLISH JEALOUSY OF CHURCH AND ARMY VI. AN INTERNAL ARGUMENT FOR CHRISTIANITY PAGE 261 269 277 283 292 298 306 3" 317 325 331 339 345 353 363 L HOW TO ACCOMPLISH IT.* I. WHEN I was at Rome, I fell in with an English acquaintance, whom I had met occasionally in his own county, and when he was on a visit at my own University. I had always felt him a pleasant, as rather engaging companion, and his talent no one could ques- tion ; but his opinions on a variety of political and ecclesiastical subjects were either very unsettled or at least very uncommon. His remarks had often the effect of random talking ; and though he was always ingenious, and often (as far as I was his antagonist) unanswerable, yet he did not advance me, or others, one step towards the conviction that he was right and we were wrong in the matter which happened to be in dispute. Such a personage is no unusual phenomenon in this day, in which every one thinks it a duty to exercise the " sacred right of private judgment;" and when, consequently, there are, as the grammar has it, "quot homines, tot * [The discussion in this Paper is carried on by two speculative Angli- cans, who aim at giving vitality to their Church, the one by uniting it to the Roman See, the other by developing a nineteenth-century Anglo-Catho- licism. The narrator sides on the whole with the latter of these.] ♦ * I 2 How to accomplish it. sententiae ; " nor should I have distinguished my good friend from a score of theorists and debaters, producible at a minute's notice in any part of the United Kingdom, except for two reasons — first, that his theories lay in the different direction from those now in fashion, and were all based upon the principle of " bigotry," (as he, whether seriously or paradoxically, avowed) — next, that he maintained they were not novelties, but as old as the Gospel itself, and possessing as continuous a tradition. Yet, in spite of whatever recommendations he cast about them, they did not take hold of me. They seemed un- real ; this will best explain what I mean : — unreal^ as if he had raised his structure in the air, an independent, self-sustained pile of buildings, sui simile, without histori- cal basis or recognized position among things existing, without discoverable relations to the wants, wishes, and opinions of those who were the subjects of his specu- lations. We were thrown together at Rome, as we had never been before ; and, getting familiar with him, I began to have some insight into his meaning. I soon found him to be quite serious in his opmions ; but I did not think him a wit the less chimerical and meteoros than be- fore. However, as he was always entertaining, and could bear a set-down or a laugh easily, from the sweetness and amiableness of his nature, I always liked to hear him talk. Indeed, if the truth must be spoken, I believe, in some degree, he began to poisgn my mind with his ex- travagances. One day I had called at the Prussian Minister's, and found my friend there. We left together. The landing from which the staircase descended looked out over Rome ; affording a most striking view of a city which the Christian can never survey without the bitterest, the How to accomplish it, 3 most loving, and the most melancholy thoughts. I will not describe the details of the prospect ; they may be found in every book ; nothing is so common now as pano- ramic or dioramic descriptions. Suffice it to say, that we were looking out from the Capitol all over the mo- dern city ; and that ancient Rome, being for the most part out of sight, was not suggested to us except as the basis of the history which followed its day. The morn- ing was very clear and still : all the many domes, which gave feature to the view before us, rose gracefully and proudly. We lingered at the window without saying a word. News of public affairs had lately come from England, which had saddened us both, as leading us to forebode the overthrow of all that gives dignity and in- terest to our country, not to touch upon the more serious reflections connected with it. My friend began by alluding to a former conversation, in which I had expressed my anticipation, that Rome, as a city, was still destined to bear the manifestation of divine judgments. He said, " Have you really the heart to say that all this is to be visited and overthrown ?" His eye glanced at St. Peter's. I was taken by surprise, and for a moment overcome, as well as he ; but the parallel of the Apostles' question in the Gospel soon came to my aid, and I said, by way of answer, " Master, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here !" He smiled ; and we relapsed into our meditative mood. At length I said, " Why, surely, as far as one's imagi- nation is concerned, nothing is so hard to conceive as that evil is coming on our own country : fairly as the surface of things still promises, yet you as well as I ex- pect evil. Not long before I came abroad, I was in a retired parish in Berkshire, on a Sunday, and the in- estimable blessings of our present condition, the guilt of 4 How to accomplish it. those who are destroying them, and moreover, the diffi- culty of believing they could be lost, came forcibly upon me. When everything looked so calm, regular, and smiling, the church bell going for service, high and low. young and old flocking in, others resting in the porch, and others delaying in the churchyard, as if there were enjoyment in the very cessation of that bodily action which for six days had worried them, (but I need not go on describing what both of us have seen a hundred times,) I said to myself, * What a heaven on earth is this ! how removed, like an oasis, from the dust and dreariness of the political world ! And is it possible that it depends for its existence on what is without, so as to be dissi- pated and to vanish at once upon the occurrence of certain changes in public affairs ? ' I could not bring myself to believe that the foundations beneath were crumbling away, and that a sudden fall might be expected." He replied by one of his occasional flights — " If Rome itself, as you say, is not to last, why should the daughter who has severed herself from Rome ? The amputated limb dies sooner than the wounded and enfeebled trunk which loses it." " Say this anywhere else in Rome than on this staircase," I answered. " Come, let us find a more appropriate place for such extravagances ; " and I took him by the arm, and we began to descend. We made for the villa on the Palatine, and in our way thither, and while strolling in its walks, the following discussion took place, which of course I have put together into a more compact shape than it assumed in our actual conversation. 2. *' What I mean," said he in continuation, " is this : that we, in England, are severed from the centre of unity, and How to accomplish it 5 therefore no wonder our Church does not flourish. You may say to me, if you please, that the Church of Rome is corrupt. I know it ; but what then t If (to use the common saying) there are remedies even worse than the disease they practise on, much more are remedies con- ceivable which are only not as bad, or but a little better. To cut off a limb is anyhow a strange mode of saving it from the influence of some constitutional ailment. Indigestion may cause cramp in the extremities, yet we spare our hands or feet, notwithstanding. I do not wish to press analogies ; yet, surely, there is such a religious fact as the existence of a great Catholic body, union with which is a Christian privilege and duty. Now, we English are separate from it." I answered, " I will grant you thus much, — that the present is an unsatisfactory, miserable state of things ; that there is a defect, an evil in existing circumstances, which we should pray and labour to remove ; yet I can grant no more. The Church is founded on a doctrine — the gospel of Truth ; it is a means to an end. Perish the Church Catholic itself, (though, blessed be the pro- mise, this cannot be,) yet let it perish rather than the Truth should fail. Purity of faith is more precious to the Christian than unity itself If Rome has erred grievously in doctrine (and in so thinking we are both of one mind), then is it a duty to separate even from P.ome." " You allow much more," he replied, " than most of us ; yet even you, as it seems to me, have not a deep sense enough of the seriousness of our position. Recollect, at the Reformation we did that which is a sin, unless we prove it to be a duty. It was, and is, a very solemn protest. Would the seraph Abdiel have made his re- sistance a triumph and a boast, — spoken of the glorious 6 • How to accomplish it, stand he had made, — or made it a pleasant era in his history ? Would he have gone on to praise himself, and say, * Certainly, I am one among a thousand ; all of them went wrong but I, and they are now in hell, but I am pure and uncorrupt, in consequence of my noble separation from those rebels ' ? Now, certainly, I have heard you glory in an event which at best was but an escape as by fire, — an escape at a great risk and loss, and at the price of a melancholy separation." I felt he had, as far as the practical question went, the advantage of me. Indeed it must be confessed that we Protestants are so satisfied with intellectual victories in our controversy with Rome as to think little of that charity which "vaunteth not herself, is not puffed up, doth not behave herself unseemly." He continued : — " Do you recollect the notion enter- tained by the primitive Christians concerning Catho- licity t The Church was, in their view, one vast body, founded by the Apostles, and spreading its branches out into all lands, — the channel through which the streams of grace flowed, the mystical vine through which that sap of life circulated, which was the possession of those and those only who were grafted on it. In this Church there can be no division. Pass the axe through it, and one part or the other is cut off from the Apostles. There cannot be two distinct bodies, each claiming descent from the original stem. Indeed, the very word catholic witnesses to this. Two Apostolic bodies there may be without actual contradiction of terms ; but there is neces- sarily but one body Catholic.'* And then, in illustration of this view, he went on to cite from memory the sub- stance of passages from Cyril and Augustine, which I suspect he had picked up from some Romanist friend at the English College. I have since turned them out in How to accomplish it, 7 in their respective authors, and here give them in trans- lation. The first extract occurs in a letter written by Augus- tine to a Donatist bishop : — " I will briefly suggest a question for your consideration. Seeing that at this day we have before our eyes the Church of God, called Catholic, diffused throughout the world, we think we ought not to doubt that herein is a most plain accomplishment of holy prophecy, confirmed as it was by our Lord in the Gospel, and by the Apostles, who, agreeably to the prediction, so extended it. Thus St. Paul preached the Gospel, and founded churches, etc. John also writes to seven Churches, etc. With all these churches we, at this day, com- municate, as is plain ; and it is equally plain that you Donatists do not communicate with them. Now, then, I ask you to assign some reason why Christ should ... all at once be pent up in Africa, where you are, or even in the whole of it. For your community, tvhich bears the name of Donatus, evidently is not in all places — that is, cathoHc. If you say ours is not the Catholic, but nick- name it the Macarian, the rest of Christendom differs from you ; whereas you yourselves must own, what every one who knows you will also testify, that yours is known as the Donatist denomination. Please to tell me, then, how the Church of Christ has vanished from the world, and is found only among you ; whereas our side of the controversy is upheld, without our saying a word, by the plain fact, that we see in it a fulfilment of Scripture prophecy." * The next is from one of the same Father's treatises, addressed to a friend : — " We must hold fast the Christian religion, and the communion of that Church which is, and is called, Catholic, not only by its members, but even by all its enemies. For, whether they will or no, even heretics themselves, and the children of schism, when they speak, not with their own people, but with strangers, call that Church nothing else but Catholic ? Indeed they would not be understood, unless they characterized it by that name which it bears throughout the world." f * Ep. 49, Ed. Benedict. t De vera Rel., c. 7, n. 12. 8 How to accomplish it. The last was from Cyril's explanation of the doctrine of the One Holy Catholic Church : — •' Whereas the name {church) is used variously .... as (for instance) it may be apphed to the heresy or persuasion of the Manichees, etc., therefore the creed has carefully committed to thee the confession of the One Holy Catholic Church, in order that thou mayest avoid their odious meetings, and remain always in the Holy Catholic Church, in which thou wast regenerated. And if per- chance thou art a traveller in a strange city, do not simply ask, ' Where is the house of God ? ' for the multitude of persuasions attempt to call their hiding-places by that name ; nor simply, ' Where is the Church ? ' but, * Where is the Catholic Church ? ' for such is the peculiar name of this the holy Mother of us all, who is the spouse of the Only-Begotten Son."* 3. After giving some account of these passages, he con- tinued : " Now, I am only contending for the fact that the communion of Rome constitutes the main body of the Church Catholic, and that we are split off from it, and in the condition of the Donatists ; so that every word of Augustine's argument to them, could be applied to us. This, I say, is 2. fact ; and if it be a grave fact, to account for it by saying that they are corrupt is only bringing in a second grave fact. Two such serious facts — that we are separate from the great body of the Church, and that it is corrupt — should, one would think, make us serious ; whereas we behave as if they were plus and minus, and destroyed each other. Or rather, we triumph in the Romanists being corrupt, and we deny they are the great body of Christians, unfairly merging their myriad of churches under the poor title of '^ the Church of Rome ; ' as if unanimity destroyed the argu- ment from numbers." * Cyril Hieros. Catech., xviii. 12. How to acconiplisli it, 9 "Stay! not so fast !" I made answer; "after all, they are but a part, though a large part, of the Christian world. Is the Greek communion to go for nothing, extending from St. Petersburg to Corinth and Antioch } or the Armenian churches .'* and the English communion which has branched off to India, Australia, the West Indies, the United States, Canada, and Nova Scotia } The true state of the case is this : the condition of the early Church, as Augustine and Cyril describe it, exists no more ; it is to be found nowhere. You may apply, indeed, the terms which they used of it to the present time, and call the Romanists Catholics, as they claim to be ; but this is a fiction and a theory, not the expression of a visible fact. Is it not a mere theory by which the Latin Church can affect to spread itself into Russia } I suspect, in spite of St. Cyril, you might ask in vain for their churches under the name of Catholic throughout the autocrat's dominions, or in Greece, as well as in England or Scotland. Where is the Catholic Bishop of Winchester or Lincoln } where the Catholic Church in England as a visible institution ? No more is it such in Scotland ; not to go on to speak of parts of Germany or the new world. All that can be said by way of reply is, that it is a very considerable communion, and vener- able from its consistency and antiquity." " That is the point," interrupted my companion ; "they maintain that, such as they are, such they ever have been. They have been from the first * the Catho- lics.' The schismatical Greeks, the Nestorians, the Monophysites, and the Protestants have grown up at different times, and on a novel doctrine or foundation." " Have a care," I answered, " of diverging to the question of Apostolicity. We are engaged upon the Catholicity of the Latin Church. If we are to speak of lO How to accomplish it. Antiquity, you yourself will be obliged to abandon its cause, for you are as decided as myself upon its corrup- tions from primitive simplicity. Foundation we have as apostolical as theirs, (unless you listen to the Nag's-head calumny,) and doctrine much more apostolical. Please to keep to the plain tangible fact, as you expressed it when you began, of the universal or catholic character of the Roman communion." 'He was silent for a while, so I proceeded. "Let me say a word or two more on the subject I had in hand when you interposed. I was observing that the state of things is certainly altered since Augus- tine's time — that is, in matter of fact, divisions, cross divisions, and complicated disarrangements have taken place in these latter centuries which were unknown in the fifth. We cannot, at once, apply his words as the representatives of things now existing ; they are, in great measure, but the expression of principles to be adopted. May I say something further without shocking you.? I think dissent and separatism present features unknown to primitive Christianity — so unknown that in its view of the world a place is not provided for them. A state of things has grown up, of which hereditary dissent is an element. All the better feelings of sta- bility, quietness, loyalty, and the like, are in some places enlisted in its favour. In some places, as in Scotland, dissent is the religion of the state and country. I am not supposing that such outlying communities have blessings equal to the Church Catholic; only, while I condemn them as outlying, I would still contend that they retain so much of privilege, so much of the life and warmth of that spiritual body, from the roots of which they spring, as irregular shoots, as to secure their indivi- dual members from the calamity of being altogether cut How to accomplish it, II off from it. In the latter ages of Judaism, the ten tribes, and afterwards the Samaritans, and then the proselytes of the gate, present a parallel, as having a position be- yond the literal scope of the Mosaic law. I shall scruple, therefore, to apply the strong language which Cyprian uses against schismatics to the Scottish presbyterians or to the Lutherans. At least, they have the Scriptures. You understand why I mention this — to show, by an additional illustration, that not every word that the Fathers utter concerning the Church Catholic applies at once to the Church of this day. The early Christians had not the complete canon, nor were books then common, nor could most of them read. Other differences between their Church and our Church might be mentioned ; — for instance, the tradition of the early Church was of an historical character, of the nature of testimony ; and possessed an authority superadded to the Church's pro- per authority as a divine institution. It was a witness, far more perfect in its way, but the same in kind, as the body of ancient writers may be for the genuineness of Caesar's works. It was virtually infallible. Now, how- ever, this accidental authority has long ceased, or, at least, is indefinitely weakened ; and to resist it is not so obviously a sin against light. Here, then, is another reason for caution in applying the language of the Fathers concerning schism to our own times, since they did not in their writings curiously separate the Church's intrinsic and permanent authority as divine, from her temporary office of bearing witness to the Apostolic doctrine as to an historical fact." "I must take time to think of this," he replied; "mean- while, you at least grant me that the Latin communion is the main portion of Christendom — that participation with it is especially our natural position — and that our 12 How to accomplish it, present separation from it is a grievous calamity as such, and, under the circumstances, nothing short of a solemn protest against corruptions in it, of which we dare not partake." " I grant it," said I. "And, in consequence, you discard, henceforth and foi ever, the following phrases, and the like — * our glorious emancipation from Rome,' * the noble stand we made against a corrupt church,' * our enlightened times/ * the blind and formal papists,' etc. etc." " We shall see," I answered — '* we shall see." 4. We walked some little way in silence ; at length, he said, " I wonder what use you intend to make of the view you just now so eagerly propounded, of the dif- ference of circumstances between the present and the ancient Church. It leads, I suppose, to the justification of some of those ill-starred theories of concession which are at present so numerous } " To tell the truth, I did not see my way clearly how far my own view ought to carry me. I saw that, with- out care, it would practically tend to the discarding the precedent of Antiquity altogether, and was not unwilling to have some light thrown by my friend upon the sub- ject ; so I affected, for the moment, a latitudinarianism which I did not feel.* " Certainly," I replied, " it would appear to be our duty to take things as we find them ; not to dream about the past, but to imitate, under changed circumstances, what we cannot fulfil literally. Christianity is intended to meet all forms of society ; it is not cast in the rigid mould of Judaism. Forms are transitory — principles are eternal : the Church of the * \Vid. Note on ** Essays Crit. and Histor.," vol. i., p. 288 ; also p. 308.J How to accomplish it. 13 day is but an accidental development and type of the invisible and unchangeable. It will always have the properties of truth ; it will be ever (for instance) essen- tially conservative and aristocratic ; but its policy and measures will ever vary according to the age. Our Church in the seventeenth century was inclined to Romanism ; in the nineteenth, it was against Catholic emancipation. The orange ribbon, the emblem of a whig revolution, is now the badge of high tory confeder- ations. Thus, the spirit of the Church is uniform, ever one and the same ; but its relative position and ordi- nances change. At least, all this might be said ; and I should like to see how you would answer it." " That is," he interposed, " you grant that a Jew would have been wrong in philosophizing after the pattern you are setting, and talking of the nature of things, and transitory forms, and eternal truths, though you are pri- vileged to do so ? " " May we not suppose that the rules of the early Church were expedient then — nay, expedient now — as far as they could conveniently be observed, without con- sidering them absolutely binding } " "Will you allow," he asked, in reply, "that St. Cyprian would have been in sin had he dispensed with episcopal Ordination, or St. Austin had he recognized the Donatists, or St. Chrysostom had he allowed the deacons to conse- crate the elements } " " They would have committed sin," I answered. " And in what would that sin have consisted .? " " I suppose in doing that which they thought to be contrary to the continued usage of the Church." "That is," he said, "in doing what they thought con- trary to apostolic usage ? " I ixranted it. 14 How to acco?nplish it " And, of course," he said, " what they thought to "be of apostolic usage, in such matters, was really such ? ' I allowed this also. " So it seems," he continued, " that they might not, and we may, do things contrary to apostolic usage." " That," I said, " is the very assertion I am making ; outward circumstances being changed, we may alter our rule of conduct." He made answer : " I will give you my mind in a parable. Not many days since, I had scrambled into the rubbish yonder, which marks the site of the Apollo library, when I found what would be a treasure in the eyes of all the antiquarians in Europe, but which, to me, has a value of another kind — a MS. vindication of him- self by a Jewish courtier of Herod the Great, for not observing the rites and customs of Judaism. It is well argued throughout. He sets out with owning the divinity of the Mosaic law, its beauty and expediency ; the asso- ciations of reverence and interest cast around it; the affection it stirs within the mind ; and the abstract de- sirableness of obeying it. * But, after all, I confess,' he continues, * I do not think its precepts binding at this day, because we are at such a distance from the age of Moses, and all the nations around us, not to say ourselves are changed, though the Law is not' He proceeds to argue that he is not bound to go up to Jerusalem at the Passover, because there are synagogues about the country, which did not exist in the time of Moses ; and, though it is true that purifications may be performed at the Temple, which the synagogues do not allow of, yet, ' after all,' he asks, * how can we possibly know that the line of priests and Levites has been kept pure } Who can tell what irregularities may not have been introduced into their families during the captivity? Then, again^ How to accomplish it. 15 what a set of men these said priests are ! Tainted with Pharisaical pride, or rather polluted with pharisaical hypocrisy : especially the high priests : the very office has become altogether secular — very much changed, too, in form and detail from the original institution. What enormities have occurred in the history of the Asmo- neans ! Who can suppose that they have any longer extraordinary gifts, prophecy, or the like, as of old time? Besides, there is a temple at Alexandria now, not to say another at Gerizim. Again, Herod, a man of Edom, is king, and has remodelled the state of things ; for cen- turies we have had secular alliances, and religion is now to be supported by ordinary, not extraordinary, means. From the time that these political changes took place, the rites have been superfluous. Events have proved this. A number of Jews once attempted to keep the Sabbath strictly, when an enemy came who surprised them in consequence, and killed them. They were pious but plainly narrow-minded and extravagant men. In short, since the Captivity, the former system has been superseded.' " " Enough, enough," I interrupted ; " perhaps I have spoken more strongly than I meant as to our liberty of acquiescing in innovations. However, I still must hold that we have no right to judge of others at this day, as we should have judged of them, had all of us lived a thousand years earlier. I do really think, for instance, that in the presbyterianism of Scotland we see a provi- dential phenomenon, the growth of a secondary system unknown to St. Austin — begun, indeed, not without sin, but continued, as regards the many, ignorantly, and compatibly with some portion of true faith : I cannot at once apply to its upholders his language concerning schismatics." 1 6 How to accomplish it, " Well, perhaps I may grant you this, under explana- tions," he replied, " if you, indeed, will grant that we, on our part, should deviate in practice from primitive rules as little as we can help — only so much as the sheer necessity of our circumstances obliges us. For instance, no plain necessity can ever oblige us to bury an unbap- tized person ; though a necessity (viz., of climate), may be urged for baptizing by sprinkling, not by immersion. This will serve as an illustration." I assented to him, and was glad to have gained a clearer view on this point than I had ever obtained before. I have since seen the principle expressed, in a Tract that has fallen in my way, as follows, the immediate point argued in it being the Apostolical Succession ; — " Consider the analogy of an absent parent, or dear friend, in another hemisphere. Would not such an one naturally reckon it one sign of sincere attachment, if, when he returned home, he found that in all family questions respect had been shown especially to those in whom he was known to have had most confidence ? . . . If his children and dependents had searched diligently where, and with whom, he had left commissions, and, having fair cause to think they had found such, had scrupulously conformed themselves, as far as they could, to the proceedings of those so trusted by him, would he not think this a better sign than if they had been dexter- ous in devising exceptions, in explaining away the words of trust, and limiting the prerogatives he had conferred?"* The principle herein set forth is one which the law manifestly acts upon, as does every prudent statesman or man of business — viz., to go as near as he can to the rules, etc., which come into his hands, when he cannot observe them literally in all respects. But, to continue our conversation. * [By Mr. Keble.] How to accomplish it, 17 5. My companion went on in his ardent way: "After all, there is no reason why the ancient unity of Christen- dom should not be revived among us, and Rome be again ecclesiastical head of the whole Church." " You will/' said I, " be much better employed, surely, in speculating upon the means of building up our exist- ing English Church, the Church of Andrewes and Laud, Ken and Butler, than attempting what, even in your own judgment, is an inconsistency. Tell me, can you tolerate the practical idolatry, the virtual worship, of the Virgin and Saints, which is the offence of the Latin Church, and the degradation of moral truth and duty which follows from these ? " " These are corruptions of the Greek Church also," he answered. " Which only shows," said I, " that we are in the posi- tion of Abdiel — one against a many, to take your own comparison. However, this is nothing to the purpose. It is plain, to speak soberly and practically, we never can unite with Rome ; for, even were we disposed to tolerate in its adherents what we could not allow in ourselves, they would not listen to our overtures for a moment, unless we began by agreeing to accept all the doctrinal decrees of Trent, and that about images in the number. No ; surely, the one and only policy remain- ing for us to pursue is, not to look towards Rome, but to build up upon Laud's principles." " Here you are theorizing, not I," returned he. " What is the ground of Andrewes and Laud, Stillingfleet and the rest, but a theory which has never been realized.? I grant that the position they take in argument is most admirable, nearer much than the Romanist s to that of l8 How to acco7nplish it, the primitive Church, and that they defend and develop their peculiar view most originally and satisfactorily ; still, after all, it is a theory, — a fine-drawn theory, which has never been owned by any body of churchmen, never witnessed in operation in any system. The question is not, how to draw it out, but how to do it. Laud's attempt was so unsuccessful as to prove he was working upon a mere theory. The actual English Church has never adopted it : in spite of the learning of her divines, she has ranked herself among the Protestants, and the doc- trine of the Via Media has slept in libraries. Nay, not only is Anglicanism a theory ; it represents, after all, but an imperfect system ; it implies a return to that inchoate state, in which the Church existed before the era of Con- stantine. It is a substitution of infancy for manhood. Of course it took some time, after its first starting, to get the Ark of Religion into her due course, which was at first somewhat vacillating and indeterminate. The language of theology was confessedly unformed, and we at this day actually adopt the creeds and the canons of the fourth century ; why not, then, the rites and customs also?" " I suppose," said I, " no follower of Laud would object to the rites and customs then received." " Why, then," he asked, " do not we pay to the See of Rome the deference shown by the Fathers and Councils of that age ? " " Rome is corrupt," I answered. " When she reforms, it will be time enough to think about the share of honour and power belonging to her in the Universal Church. At present, her prerogative is, at least, suspended, and that most justly." " However, what I was showing," continued he, " was that the Anglican principle is scarcely fair, as fastening the Christian upon the very first age of the Gospel for How to accomplish it. 19 evidence of all those necessary developments of the elements of Gospel truth, which could not be introduced throughout the Church except gradually. On the other hand, the Anglican system itself is not found complete in those early centuries ; so that the principle is self- destructive. Before there were Christian rulers, there was no doctrine of * Church and King,' no union of * Church and State,' which we rightly consider to be a development of the Gospel rule. The principle in question, then, is both in itself unfair and unfairly applied, as it is found in our divines. It is also the result of a very shallow philosophy : as if you could possibly prevent the com- pletion of given tendencies, as if Romanism would not be the inevitable result of a realized Anglicanism, were it ever realized.* However, my main objection to it is, that it is not, and never has been, realized. Protestantism is embodied in a system ; so Is Popery : but when a man takes up this Via Media, he is a mere doctrinarian — ^he is wasting his efforts in delineating an invisible phantom ; and he will be judged, and fairly, to be trifling, and bookish, and unfit for the world. He will be set down in the number of those who, in some matter of business, start up to suggest their own little crotchet, and are for ever measuring mountains with a pocket ruler, or improving the planetary courses. The world moves forward in bold and intelligible parties ; it has its roads to the east and north — nay, to points of the compass * ["As to the resemblance of the author's opinions to Romanism, — 11 Popery be a perversion or corruption of the Truth, as we believe, it must, by the very force of the terms, be like that Truth which it counterfeits ; and therefore the fact of a resemblance, as far as it exists, is no proof of any essential approximation in his opinions to Popery. Rather, it would be a serious argument against their primitive character, if to superficial observers they bore no likeness to it. Ultra-Protestantism could never have been silently corrupted into Popery." — Advert, yd vol. Par. Serm.^ Ed. i.J 20 How to accomplish it, between them, to the full number of the thirty-two ; but not to more than these. You must travel along a ready-made road ; you cannot go right ahead across- country, or, in spite of your abstract correctness, you will be swamped or benighted. When a person calling himself a ' Reformed Catholic,* or an * Apostolical Chris- tian,' begins to speak, people say to him, * What are you } If you are a Catholic, why do you not join the Romanists } If you are ours, why do you not maintain the great Protestant doctrines } ' Or, in the words of Hall of Norwich, addressed, it is said, to Laud : ' I would I knew where to find you ; then I could tell how to take direct aims ; whereas now I must pore and conjecture. To- day you are in the tents of the Romanists — to-morrow in ours ; the next day between both — against both. Our adversaries think you ours — we, theirs ; your conscience finds you with both and neither. I flatter you not : this of yours is the worst of all tempers. Heat and cold have their uses — lukewarmness is good for nothing, but to trouble the stomach. ... How long will you halt in this indiffer- ence ? Resolve one way, and know, at last, what you do hold — what you should. Cast off either your wings or your teeth, and, loathing this bat-like nature, be either a bird or a beast.' " This was the character of his school down to the Non-jurors, in whom the failure of the experiment was finally ascertained. The theory sunk then, once and for all." " My dear fellow," I made answer, " I see you are of those who think success and the applause of men every- thing, not bearing to consider, y^rj-/, whether a view be true, and then to incur boldly the * reproach ' of uphold- ing it. Surely, the Truth has in no age been popular, and those who preached it have been thought idiots, and died without visible fruit of their labours." He smiled, and was silent, as if in thought. How to accomplish it. 21 I continued : " Now listen to me. for I have it in pur- pose to turn your own words against yourself, to show that you are the theorist, and I the man of practical sense ; and at the same time to cheer you with the hope, that the Anglican principle, though the true one, yet may perchance be destined, even yet, in the designs of Providence, to be expanded and realized in us, the unworthy sons of the great Archbishop. As I said these words, I caught a sight of one of the companions of my excursion making towards us, who was well known to the friend with whom I was con- versing. Instead, then, of beginning my harangue upon the prospects of the English Church, I said, " Here comes a friend in need, just in time. I was but going to repeat what I have picked up from him. He is the great theorist, after all, and he will best do justice to his own views himself." We went forward to meet him ; and, after some indifferent topics had passed between us, I told him the position in which he had found us, and asked him to take upon himself the exposition of his own speculations. I will pass over all explanations on his part, hesitations, disclaimers of the character I gave of him, and the like, and will take up the conversation when he was fairly implicated in the task which we had imposed upon him. For the future, I will call him Basil, and my first friend Ambrose, to avoid circumlocution. " Nothing seems so chimerical, I confess," said he, " as the notion that the Church temper of the seventeenth century will ever return in England ; nor do I ever ex- pect it will, on a large scale. But the great and small in extent are not conditions of moral or religious strength 22 How to accomplish it, and dignity. The Holy Land was not larger than Wales. We can afford to give up the greater part of England to the spirit of the age, and yet develop, in a diocese, or a single city, those principles and tendencies of the Caro- line era which have never yet arrived at their just dimensions." " You presuppose, of course, a King like the Martyr, in these anticipations ? " said Ambrose. "In speaking of a single diocese, or city," returned the other, " I have obviously implied a system of which political arrangements are not the mainspring. Alas ! we can no longer have such a king. The Monarchy is not constitutionally now what it was then ; nay, the Church, perchance, may not even be allowed the privilege of being loyal in time to come, though obedient and patient it always must be. The principle of national religion is fast getting out of fashion, and we are relaps- ing into the primitive state of Christianity, when men prayed for their rulers, and suffered from them, neither giving nor receiving temporal benefits. The element of high-churchmanship (as that word has commonly been understood) seems about to retreat again into the depths of the Christian temper, and Apostolicity is to be elicited instead, in greater measure. ' 'Tis true, 'tis pity ; pity 'tis, 'tis true.' It would be well, indeed, were we allowed to acknowledge the magistrate's divine right to preside over the Church ; but if the State declares it has itself no divine right over us, what help is there for. it } We must learn, like Hagar, to subsist by ourselves in the wilderness. Certainly, 1 never expect the system of Laud to return, but I do expect the due continuation and development of his principles. High-churchmanship — looking at th^ matter How to accomplish it. 23 historically — will be regarded as a temporary stage of a course. The (so-called) union of Church and State, as it then existed, has been a wonderful and most gracious phenomenon in Christian history. It is a realization of the Gospel in its highest perfection, when both Caesar and St. Peter know and fulfil their office. I do not ex- pect anything so blessed again. Charles is the King, Laud the prelate, Oxford the sacred city, of this prin- ciple ; just as Rome is the city of Catholicism, and modern Paris of infidelity. I give up high-churchman- ship. But, to return " " First, however," interrupted Ambrose, " I have it in purpose to imprison you in a dilemma, which you must resolve before you can discuss your subject with any ease or convenience. Either you expect this substitu- tion of apostolicity for high-churchmanship at an early or at a distant date. If you say at an early, such keen anticipation of so deplorable a calamity as the un- christianizing of the State savours of disloyalty ; if at a distant, of fanaticism, as if the spirit of the seventeenth century could, on ever so contracted a field, revive centuries hence." " I intend," he answered, " neither to be disaffected nor fanatical, and yet shall retain my anticipations. As to the charge of disloyalty, I repel it at once by stating, that I am looking forward to events as yet re- moved from us by centuries. It is no disloyal or craven spirit to suppose that, in the course of generations, changes may occur, when change is the rule of the world, and when, in our own country especially, not one hundred and fifty years perhaps has ever passed without some great constitutional change, or violent revolution. It is no faintness of heart to suppose that the eras of 1536, 1649, and 1688 are tokens of other such in store. 24 How to accomplish it. We all know that dynasties and governments are, like individuals, mortal ; and to provide against the un- churching of the monarchy, is not more disrespectful to it than to introduce a regency bill beforehand, in the prospect of a minority. The Church alone is eternal ; and, being such, it must, by the very law of its nature, survive its friends, and is bound calmly to anticipate the vicissitudes of its condition. We are consulting for no affair of the day ; we are contemplating our fortunes five centuries to come. We are labouring for the year 25(X). By that time we may have buried our temporal guardians : their memory we shall always revere and bless ; but the Successors of the Apostles will still have their work — if the world last so long — a work (may be) of greater peril and hardship, but of more honour, than now. "Nor, on the other hand, is it idle to suppose that former principles, long dormant, may, like seed in the earth, spring up at some distant day. History is full of precedents in favour of such an anticipation. At this very time the nation is beginning to reap the full fruits of the perverse anti-ecclesiastical spirit to which the Re- formation on the Continent gave birth. Three centuries and more have not developed it. Again, three centuries and more were necessary for the infant Church to attain her mature and perfect form, and due stature. Atha- nasius, Basil, and Austin are the fully instructed doctors of her doctrine, discipline, and morals." 7. I could not but look at Ambrose, and smile at hearing the argument he had used, before the other came up, incidentally n)ade available against himself Basil continued ; How to accomplish it, 25 "Again, Hildebrand was the first to bring into use the donations made by Pepin and Charlemagne to the Church; yet these were made between A.D. 750 — 800, and Hildebrand's papacy did not commence till 1086. The interval was a time of weakness, humiliation, guilt, and disgrace to the Church, far exceeding any ecclesiastical scandals in our own country, whether in the century be- fore or after the Caroline era. Gibbon tells us that the Popes of the ninth and tenth centuries were * insulted, imprisoned, and murdered by their tyrants;' that the illegitimate son, grandson, and great grandson of Maro- zia, a woman of profligate character, were seated in St. Peter's chair ; and the second of these was but nineteen when elevated to that spiritual dignity. He renounced the ecclesiastical dress, and abandoned himself to hunt- ing, gaming, drinking, and kindred excesses. This, too, was the season of anti-popes, one of whom actually op- posed Hildebrand himself, and eventually obliged him to retreat to Salerno, where he died. Yet now that celebrated man stands in history as if the very contem- porary and first inheritor of Charlemagne's gifts, and reigns in the Church without the vestige of a rival. So little has time to do with the creations of moral energy, that Guiberto ceases in our associations to have lived with him, or the first Carlovingians to have been before him. He obliterated an interval of three hundred years." " You were somewhat too conceding, methinks, when you began," said Ambrose, " if you are not exorbitant now. It is not much more to ask that a king like Charles should ascend the throne, than that a mind like Hildebrand's should be given to the Church." "And yet Father Paul, a sagacious man," Basil an- swered, " did look with much anxiety towards the English hierarchy of his day (161 7), as likely to develop an 26 How to accomplish it, apostolical spirit which even kings could not control So far, indeed, he was mistaken in his immediate antici- pation, because the English Church was far too loyal to be dangerous to the State ; yet it may chance that, in the course of centuries there is no king to whom to be loyal. His words are these : — * Anglis nimium timeo ; episcoporum magna ilia potestas, licet sub rege, prorsus mihi suspecta est. Ubi vel regem desidem nacti fuerint, vel magni spiritiis archiepiscopum habuerint, regia authori- tas pessundabitur, et episcopi ad absolutam dominationem aspira- bunt. Ego equum ephippiatum in Anglii videre videor, et ascen- surum propediem equitem antiquum divine' * *' Now, is it not singular that this Church should so close upon these words have developed Laud, a prelate (if any other) aspiring and undaunted ? And again, that within fifty years of him the king actually was in the power of the primate, as the umpire between him and the nation, though Sancroft (as he himself afterwards understood) was not alive to his position, nor equal to the emergency ? These are omens of what may be still to come, inasmuch as they show the political and moral temper, the presiding genius of the Anglican Church, which had produced, at distant intervals, before Laud, prelates as high-minded, though doubtless less enlight- ened and more ambitious. It is not one stroke of for- tune, one political revolution, which can chase the genius loci from his favourite haunt. Canterbury and Oxford are a match for many Williams of Nassau." I here interrupted him to corroborate his last remarks, without pledging myself to approve his mode of con- veying them, I said that " Leslie, one of the last of * [I think this is to be found in Sarpi's Letters, a book lent to me by Dr. Routh.l How to acco?nplish it, 27 the line of apostolical divines, had expressed the same opinion concerning the Church at large, in his Case of the Regale and Pontificate. His words are as follows : *I say, if the Church would trust to Him more than to the arm of flesh, she need not fear the power of kings. No ; Christ would give her kings, not as heads and spiritual fathers over her, but as nursing fathers, to protect, love, and cherish her, to reverence and to save her, as the Spouse of Christ. Instead of such fathers as she has made kings to be over herself, and of whom she stands in awe, and dare not exert the power Christ has given her, without their good liking, she should then have " children whom she might make princes in all the earth." Kings would become her sons and her servants, instead of being her fathers. * My brethren, let me freely speak to you. These promises must be fulfilled, and in this world, for they are spoke of it, and belong not to the state of heaven, but to the condition of the Church in all the earth. All the prophets that have been, since the world began, have spoken of these days ; therefore, they will surely come ; and " though ye have lien among the pots, yet she shall be as the wings of a dove, that is covered with silver, and her feathers like gold." ' " Having been led to quote from an author who wrote a century since, let me here add the witness of an acute observer of our own century, whose Letters and Remains have been published since the date of the conversation I am relating — Mr. Alexander Knox. The following was written just two centuries after Sarpi's letter : * No Church on earth has more intrinsic excellence, [than the EngUsh Church,] yet no Church, probably, has less practical influ- ence. Her excellence, then, I conceive, gives ground for confiding that Providence will never abandon her ; but her want of influence would seem no less clearly to indicate, that Divine Wisdom will not always suffer her to go on .without measures for her improvement. . Shall then the present negligence and insensibility always prevail? This cannot be; the rich provision made by the grace and providence of God, for habits of a noble kind, is evidence that 28 How to accomplish it. those habits shall at length be formed, that men shall arise, fitted, both by inclination and ability, to discover for themselves, and to display to others, whatever yet remains undisclosed, whether in the words or works of God. But if it be asked, how shall fit instru- ments be prepared for this high purpose, it can only be answered, that in the most signal instances times of severe trial have been chosen for divine communications. — Moses, an exile, when God spoke to him from the bush ; Daniel, a captive in Babylon, where he was cheered with those clearest rays of Old Testament prophecy ; St. John, a prisoner in Patmos, where he was caught up into heaven, and beheld the apocalyptic vision My persuasion of the radical excellence of the Church of England does not suffer me to doubt, that she is to be an illustrious agent in bringing the mystical kingdom of Christ to its ultimate perfection.' " 8. When the conversation had arrived at this point* my friend Ambrose put in a remark. " It must be confessed," he said, " that your triumphant Church will, after all, be very much like what the papal was in its pride of place. The only difference would seem to be, that the Popes deposed kings ; but you, in effect, wait till there are no kings to depose, leaving it to the (so- called) * radical reformers ' to bring upon themselves the odium of the acts which are to introduce you. Why not, then, avail ourselves of what is ready to our hands in the Church of Rome? Why attempt, instead, to form a second-best and spurious Romanism } " *' Pardon me," I said, in answer, "Basil thinks the Roman Church corrupt in doctrine. We cannot join a Church, did we wish it ever so much, which does not acknowledge our Orders, refuses us the Cup, demands our acquiescence in image worship, and excommuni- cates us, if we do not receive it and all other decisions of the Tridentine Council. While she insists on this, there must be an impassable line between her and us ; and How to accomplish it. 2g while she claims infallibility, she must insist on what she has once decreed ; and when she abandons that claim she breaks the principle of her own vitality. Thus, we can never unite with Rome." " This is true and certain," said Basil ; " but even though Rome were as sound in faith as she is notori- ously unsound, our present line would remain the same. What, indeed, might come to pass at a distant era, when monarchies had ceased to be, it would be impertinent to ask ; but, though I have been anticipating the future, we have nothing really to do with the future. Our business is with things as they are. We want to begin at once, and must not, dare not start upon a basis which is not to be realized for some hundred years to come. Of course ; — and to do anything effectually, we must build upon principles and feelings already recognized among us. I grant all this : let us leave the future to itself : we are concerned, not with illusions, (as the French politicians say,) but with things that are. But this holds of other illusions besides those against which you have warned such as me. For what we know, by the time we are without kings Rome may be without a Pope ; and it would be a strange policy to go over to them now, by way of anticipating a distant era, which, for what we know, may, in the event, be preceded by their coming over to us. You have heard of the two brothers in the seventeenth century, papist and puritan, who disputed together and convinced each other. Let us take warn- ing from them. "I repeat, to do anything effectually, certainly we must start upon recognized principles and customs. Any other procedure stamps a person as wrong-headed, ill- judging, or eccentric, and brings upon him the contempt and ridicule of those sensible men by whose opinions 30 How to accomplish it, society is necessarily governed. Putting aside the ques- tion of truth and falsehood — which of course is the main consideration — even as aiming at success, we must be aware of the great error of making changes on no more definite basis than their abstract fitness, their alleged scripturalness, their adoption by the ancients. Such changes are rightly called innovations; those which spring from existing institutions, opinions, or feelings, are called developme?its, and may be recommended with- out invidiousness as being improvements. I adopt, then, and claim as my own, that position of yours, * that we must take and use what is ready to our hands.' To do otherwise, is to act the doctrinairCy and to provide for simple failure : for instance, if we would enforce observ- ance of the Lord's Day, we must not, at the outset, rest it on any theory (however just) of Church authority, but on the authority of Scripture. If we would oppose the State's interference with the distribution of Church property, we shall succeed, not by urging any doctrine of Church independence, or by citing decrees of General Councils, but by showing the contrariety of that measure l;o existing constitutional and ecclesiastical precedents among ourselves. Hildebrand found the Church pro- vided with certain existing means of power ; he vindi- cated them, and was rewarded with the success which attends, not on truth as such, but on this prudence and tact in conduct. St. Paul observed the same rule, — whether preaching at Athens or persuading his country- men. It was the gracious condescension of our Lord Himself, not to substitute Christianity for Judaism by any violent revolution, but to develop Judaism into Christi- anity, as the Jews might bear it. Now, Popery is not here ready to our hands ; on the contrary, we find among us, at this day, an intense fear and hatred of Popery ; and How to accomplish it, 31 that, ill-instructed as it confessedly is, still based upon truth. It is mere headstrong folly, then, to advocate the Church of Rome. It is to lose our position as a Church, which never answers to any, whether body or individual. If, indeed, salvation were not in our Church, the case would be altered ; as it is, were Rome as pure in faith as the Church of the Apostles, which she is not, I would not join her, unless those about me did so too, lest I should commit schism. Our business is to take what we have received, and build upon it : to accept, as a legacy from our forefathers, this * Protestant* spirit which they have bequeathed us, and merely to disengage it from its errors, purify it, and make it something more than a negative principle ; thus only have we a chance of success. All your arguments, then, my dear Ambrose, in favour of Romanism, or rather your regrets on the sub- ject — for you are not able to go so far as to design, or even to hope on the subject — seem to me irrelevant, and recoil upon your own professed principle ; and, instead of persuading others, only lead them to ask the pertinent question, *Why do you stay among us, if you like a foreign religion better ? ' " The other smiled with an expression which showed that he was at once entertained and as unconvinced as before. For myself, I was not quite pleased with the tone of political expedience which my friend had assumed, though I agreed in his general sentiment ; except, indeed, in his patience towards the word "'Protestant," which v& a term as political as were his arguments. " You have surely been somewhat carried beyond your own excellent judgment," I said, "by your earnestness in advocating a view. A person who did not know you as well as I do would take such avowals as the offspring 32 How to accomplish it, of a Florentine, not an English school. It is certainly safer in so serious a matter to go upon more obvious, more religious grounds than those you have selected ; for I agree with you most entirely in the conclusion you arrive at. I will give you a reason, which has had par- ticular weight with me. Of course, one must not say, * Whatever is, is right,' in such a sense as to excuse what is wrong, whether committed or permitted, violence or cowardice ; yet, at the same time, it certainly is true, that the external circumstances under which we find our- selves, have a legitimate influence, nay, a sort of claim of deference, upon our conduct. St. Paul says that every one should remain in the place where he finds himself. This, so far, at least, applies to our ecclesias- tical position, that, unless where conscience comes in, it is our duty to submit to what we are born under. I do not insist here on the engagements of the clergy to administer the discipline of Christ as the Church and Realm have received the same ; here, I only assert that we find the Church and State united, and must therefore maintain that Union." " The said Union," interrupted Ambrose, " being much like the union of the Israelites with the Egyptians, in the house of bondage." "So it may be," I replied, — "but recollect that the chosen people were not allowed to disenthral themselves without an intimation of God's permission. When Moses attempted, of himself, to avenge them, he only got into trial and distress. It was in vain he killed the Egyptian, there was neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded. Providence always says, * Stand stilly and see the salvation of God.' We must not dare to move, except He bids us. How different was the success of Moses afterwards, when God sent him ! In like manner, How to accomplish it. 33 the deliverers of Israel, in the period of the Judges, were, for the most part, expressly commissioned to their office. At another time, 'the Lord delivered Sisera into the hand of a woman.* It is not for us * to know the times and the seasons which the Father hath put in His own power.' " And so, once more, Daniel, though he prayed towards the Temple during his captivity, made no attempt to leave Babylon for his own country, to escape from the mass of idolaters and infidels, scorners and profligates, among whom his lot was cast in this world. We, too, who are in captivity, must bide our tiiney 9. Here there was a pause in the conversation, as if our minds required rest after sharing in it, or leisure to digest it. We were in the terrace walk overlooking the Trastevere : we stood still, and made such disconnected remarks as the separate buildings and places in the view suggested. At length, the Montorio, where St. Peter was martyred, and some discourse it suggested, recalled us to our former subject, and we began again with fresh life. "Hildebrand," said Ambrose, "had a basis to go upon ; and we, in matter of fact, have none. However true your policy may be of our availing ourselves of things existing, I repeat we have no church basis, — we have nothing but certain merely political rights. Hilde- brand had definite powers, though dormant or obsolete. The Exarchate of Ravenna had been formally ceded to the popedom by Pepin, though virtually wrested from it in the interval. The supposed donation of Constan- tine and the Decretals were recognized charters, which churchmen might fall back upon. We have nothing of this kind now." 3 34 How to accomplish it, " Let us make the most of what we have," returned the other ; " and surely we have enough for our purpose. Let us consider what that purpose is, and what it is we want : our one tangible object is to restore the connexion, at present broken, between bishops and people ; — for in this everything is involved, directly or indirectly, which it is a duty to contend for ; — and to effect this, we want no temporal rights of any sort, as the Popes needed, but merely the recognition of our Church's existing spiritual powers. We are not aiming at any kingdom of this world ; we need no Magna-Chartas or Coronation oaths for the object which we have at heart : we wish to main- tain the faith, and bind men together in love. We are aiming, with this view, at that commanding moral in- fluence which attended the early Church, which made it attractive and persuasive, which manifested itself in a fascination sufficient to elicit out of paganism and draw into itself all that was noblest and best from the mass of mankind, and which created an internal system of such grace, beauty, and majesty, that believers were moulded thereby into martyrs and evangelists. Now let us see what materials we have for a similar spiritual structure, if we keep what, through God's good providence, has descended to us. "First, we have the Ordination Service, acknowledg- ing three, and three only, divinely appointed Orders of ministers, implying a Succession, and the bishop's divine commission for continuing it, and assigning to the pres- bytery the power of retaining and remitting sins : these are invaluable, as being essential, possessions. "Next, we have the plain statements of the general necessity of the sacraments for salvation, and the strong language of the services appointed for the administra- tion of them. We have Confirmation and Matrimony How to accomplish it. 35 recognized as spiritual ordinances. We have forms of absolution and blessing. " Further, we have the injunction of daily service, and the solemnization of fast and festival days. " Lastly, we have a yearly confession of the desirable ness of a restoration of the primitive discipline. ** On these foundations, properly understood, we may do anything." " Still you have not touched upon the real difficulty," interrupted Ambrose. " Hildebrand governed an exist- ing body, and was only employed in vindicating for it certain powers and privileges ; you, on the other hand, have to make the body, before you proceed to strengthen it. The Church in England is not a body now, it has little or no substantiveness ; it has dwindled down to its ministers, who are as much secular functionaries as they are rulers of a Christian people. What reason have you to suppose that the principles you have enumerated will interest an uninstructed, as well as edify an already dis- ciplined, multitude } Still the problem is, How to do it } '* 10. When he stopped, Basil looked at me. " Cyril," said he, mentioning my name, " has much to say on this argument, and I leave it to him to tell you how to do it." Thus challenged, I began in my turn. " I will tell you," I said, " Hildebrand really had to create as well as we. If the Church was not in his time laid prostrate before the worlri, at least it was incorpo- rated into it — so I am told, at least, by those who have studied the history of his times: the clergy were dissolved in secular vocations and professions ; a bishop was a powerful baron, the feudal vassal of a temporal prince, of whom he held estates and castles, his Ordination being 36 How to accofnplish it. virtually an incidental form, necessary at the commence- ment of his occupancy; the inferior clergy were inextri- cably entangled in the fetters of secular alliances, often criminal and scandalous. In planting his lever, which was to break all these irreligious ties, he made the received forms and rules of the Church his fulcrum. If master- minds are ever granted to us, to build us up in faith and unity, they must do the same ; they must take their stand upon that existing basis which Basil has just now described, and must be determined never to extravagate from it. They must make that basis their creed and their motive ; they must persevere for many years, in preaching and teaching, before they proceed to act upon their principles, introducing terms and names, and im- pressing members of the Church with the real meaning of the truths which are her animating element, and which her members verbally admit. In spite of opposi- tion, they must persevere in insisting on the episcopal system, the apostolical succession, the ministerial com- mission, the power of the keys, the duty and desirable- ness of Church discipline, the sacredness of Church rites and ordinances. " So far well ; but you will say, how is all this to be made interesting to the people ? I answer, that the topics themselves which they are to preach are of that striking and attractive nature which carries with it its own influence. The very notion, that representatives of tlie Apostles are now on earth, from whose communion we may obtain grace, as the first Christians did from the Apostles, is surely, when admitted, of a most transport- ing and persuasive character ; it will supply the desider- atum which exists in the actual teaching of this day. Clergymen at present are subject to the painful experi- ence of losing, the more religious portion of their flock. How to accomplish it. Ttl whom they have tutored and moulded as children, but who, as they come into life, fall away to the dissenters. Why is this ? Because they desire to be stricter than the mass of Churchmen, and the Church gives them no means ; they desire to be governed by sanctions more constrain- ing than those of mere argument, and the Church keeps back those doctrines, which, to the eye of faith, give a reality and substance to religion. He who is told that the Church is the treasure-house of spiritual gifts, comes for a definite privilege ; he who has been taught that it is merely a duty to keep united to the Church, gains nothing, and is tempted to leave it for the meeting- house, which promises him present excitement, if it does nothing more. He who sees Churchmen identified with the world, naturally looks at dissent as a separation from it. The first business, then, of our Hildebrand will be to stop this continual secession to the dissenters, by supplying those doctrines which nature itself, I may say, desiderates in our existing institutions, and which the dissenters attempt to supply. This should be well observed, for it is a remarkable circumstance, that most of the more striking innovations of the present day are awkward and unconscious imitations of the provisions of the old Catholic system. 'Texts for every day in the year' are the substitute for the orderly calendar of Scripture Lessons ; prayer-meetings stand for the daily service ; farewell speeches to missionaries take the place of public Ordinations ; public meetings for religious oratory, the place of the ceremonies and processions of the middle ages ; charitable societies are instead of the strict and enthusiastic Religious Institutions. Men know not of the legitimate Priesthood, and therefore are condemned to hang upon the judgment of individual and self-authorized preachers ; they defraud their chil- 38 How to accomplish it. dren of the initiatory sacrament, and therefore are forced to invent a rite of dedication instead of it ; they put up with legends of private Christians, distinguished for an ambiguous or imperfect piety, narrow-minded in faith, and tawdry and discoloured in their holiness, in the place of the men of God, the meek martyrs, the saintly pastors, the wise and winning teachers of the Catholic Church. One of the most striking illustrations of this general remark, is the existing practice and feeling about psalmody : — formerly great part of the public ser- vice was sung ; part of this, as the Te Deum, being an exhibition of the peculiar gospel doctrines. We let this practice go out ; then, feeling the want of singing, we introduce it between the separate portions of the ser- vices. There is no objection to this, so far; it has primitive sanction. But observe, — we have only time for one or two verses, which cannot show the drift and spirit of the Psalm, and are often altogether unintelligible, or grammatically defective. Next, a complaint arises, that no Christian hymns constitute part of the singing ; so, having relinquished the Te Deum, we have recourse to the rhymes of Watts, Newton, and Wesley. Moreover, we sing as slow as if singing were a penitential exercise. Consider how the Easter hymn affects a congregation, and you will see their natural congeniality to musical services of a more animated, quicker, and more continued measure. The dissenters seem to feel this in their adop- tion of objectionable secular tunes, or of religious tunes of a cantabile character; our slow airs seem to answer no purpose, except that of painfully exhausting the breath — they will never allure a congregation to sing. So, again, as to the Services generally; they are scarcel> at all adapted to the successive seasons and days of the Christian year : the Bible is rich in materials for illus- How 10 accomplish it. 39 trating and solemnizing these as they come ; but we make little use of it. Consider how impressive the Easter anthem is, as a substitute for the Venite: why should not such as this be appointed at other Seasons, in the same and other parts of the service ? How few prayers we possess for particular occasions ! Reflect, for instance, upOn Jeremy Taylor's prayers and litanies, and I think you will grant that, carefully preserving the Prayer Book's majestic simplicity of style, we might nevertheless profitably make additions to our liturgical services. We have but matins and evensong appointed : what if a clergyman wishes to have prayers in his church seven times a day } "I touched just now on the subject of the Religious Institutions of the middle ages. These are imperatively called for to stop the progress of dissent ; indeed, I con- ceive you necessarily must have dissent or monachism in a Christian country ; — so make your choice. The rfiore religious minds demand some stricter religion than that of the generality of men ; if you do not gratify this desire religiously and soberly, they will gratify it them- selves at the expense of unity. I wish this were better understood than it is. You may build new churches, without stint, in every part of the land, but you will not approximate towards the extinction of Methodism and dissent till you consult for this feeling ; till then, the sectaries will deprive you of numbers, and those the best of your flock, whom you can least afford to lose, and who might be the greatest strength and ornament to it. This is an occurrence which happens daily. Say that one out of a number of sisters in a family takes a religious turn ; is not her natural impulse to join either the Wesleyans or the irregulars within our pale } And why 1 all because the Church does not provide innocent 40 How to accoinplisk it, outlets for the sober relief of feeling and excitement ; she would fain devote herself immediately to God's ser- vice — to prayer, almsgiving, attendance on the sick. You not only decline her services yourself, — you drive her to the dissenters : and why ? all because the Reli- gious Life, though sanctioned by Apostles and illustrated by the early Saints, has before now given scope to moroseness, tyranny, and presumption." II. " I will tell you," interrupted Basil, " an advantage which has often struck me as likely to result from the institution (under sober regulations) of religious Sister- hoods — viz., the education of the female portion of the community in Church principles. It is plain we need schools for females : so great is the inconvenience, that persons in the higher ranks contrive to educate their daughters at home, from want of confidence in those schools in which alone they can place them. It is speaking temperately of these to say, that (with honour- able exceptions, of course, such as will be found to every rule) they teach little beyond mere accomplishments, present no antidotes to the frivolity of young minds, and instruct in no definite views of religious truth at all. On the other hand, what an incalculable gain would it be to the Church were the daughters, and future mothers, of England educated in a zealous and affectionate adher- ence to its cause, taught to reverence its authority, and to delight in its ordinances and services ! What, again, if they had instructors, who were invested with even more than the respectability which collegiate foundations give to education in the case of the other sex, instructors placed above the hopes and fears of the world, and impressing the thought of the Church on their pupils' How to accomplish it. 4r minds, in association with their own refinement and heavenly serenity ! But, alas ! so ingrained are our un- fortunate prejudices on this head, that I fear nothing but serious national afflictions will give an opening to the accomplishment of so blessed a design." " For myself/' said I, " I confess my hopes do not ex- tend beyond the vision of the rise of this Religious Life among us ; not that even this will have any success, as you well observe, till loss of property turns the thoughts of the clergy and others from this world to the next. As to the rise of a high episcopal system, that is, again to use your notion, a dream of A.D. 2500. We can but desire in our day to keep alive the lamp of truth in the sepulchre of this world till a brighter era : and surely the ancient system I speak of is the providentially de- signed instrument of this work. When Arianism tri- umphed in the sees of the eastern Church, the Associated Brethren of Egypt and Syria were the witnesses pro- phesying in sackcloth against it. So it may be again. When the day of trial comes, we shall be driven from the established system of the Church, from livings and professorships, fellowships and stalls ; we shall (so be it) muster amid dishonour, poverty, and destitution, for higher purposes ; we shall bear to be severed from possessions and connexions of this world ; we shall turn our thoughts to the education of those middle classes, the children of farmers and tradesmen, whom the Church has hitherto neglected ; we shall educate a certain num- ber, for the purpose of transmitting to posterity our principles and our manner of life ; we shall turn our- selves to the wants of the great towns, and attempt to be evangelists in a population almost heathen. "Till then, I scarcely expect that anything will be devised of a nature to meet the peculiar evils existing in 4^ How to accomplish it, a densely peopled city. Benevolent persons hope, by increasing our instruments of usefulness, to relieve them. Doubtless they may so relieve them ; and no charitable effort can fail of a blessing. New churches and lay co- operation will do something ; but, I confess, I think that some instrument different in kind is required for the present emergency: great towns will never be evangelized merely by the parochial system. They are beyond the sphere of the parish priest, burdened as he is with the endearments and anxieties of a family, and the secular restraints and engagements of the Establishment. The unstable multitude cannot be influenced and ruled except by uncommon means, by the evident sight of disinte- rested and self-denying love, and elevated firmness. The show of domestic comfort, the decencies of furniture and apparel, the bright hearth and the comfortable table, (good and innocent as they are in their place,) are as ill-suited to the missionary of a town population as to an Apostle. Heathens, and quasi-heathens, (such as the miserable rabble of a large town,) were not converted in the beginning of the Gospel, nor now, as it would appear, by the sight of domestic virtues or domestic comforts in their missionary. Surely Providence has His various means adapted to different ends. I think that Religious Institutions, over and above their intrinsic recommendations, are the legitimate instruments of working upon a populace, just as argument may be accounted the medium of conversion in the case of the educated, or parental authority in the case of the young. 12. " I have been watching with some interest," said Ambrose, who had been silent all this while, "how near, with all your protestations against Popery, you would How to accomplish it, 43 advance towards it in the course of your speculations. I am now happy to see you will go the full length of what you yourselves seem to admit is considered one ol its most remarkable characteristics — monachism." " I know," answered I, " that is at present the popular notion ; but our generation has not yet learned the dis- tinction between Popery and Catholicism. But, be of good heart ; it will learn many things in time." The other laughed ; and, the day being now someway advanced into the afternoon, we left the garden, and separated. March, 1836. 44 II. THE PATRISTICAL IDEA OF ANTICHRIST. IN FOUR LECTURES. I. The Ti7nes of Antichrist. THE Thessalonian Christians had supposed that the coming of Christ was near at hand. St. Paul writes to warn them against such an expectation. Not that he discountenances their looking out for our Lord's coming, — the contrary ; but he tells them that a certain event must come before it, and till that had arrived the end would not be. " Let no man deceive you by any means," he says ; " for that Day shall not come, except there come a falling away first," — and he proceeds " and " except first " that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition." As long as the world lasts, this passage of Scripture will be full of reverent interest to Christians. It is their duty ever to be watching for the advent of their Lord, to search for the signs of it in all that happens around them ; and above all to keep in mind this great and awful sign of which St. Paul speaks to the Thessalonians. As our Lord's first coming had its forerunner, so will the The Twtes of Antich7^ist, 45 second have its own. The first was " One more than a prophet," the Holy Baptist : the second will be more than an enemy of Christ ; it will be the very image of Satan, the fearful and hateful Antichrist. Of him, as described in prophecy, I propose to speak ; and, in Soing so, I shall follow the exclusive guidance of the ancient Fathers of the Church. I follow the ancient Fathers, not as thinking that on such a subject they have the weight they possess in the instance of doctrines or ordinances. When they speak of doctrines, they speak of them as being universally held. They are witnesses to the fact of those doctrines having been received, not here or there, but everywhere. We receive those doctrines which they thus teach, not merely because they teach them, but because they bear witness that all Christians everywhere then held them. We take them as honest informants, but not as a sufficient authority in themselves, though they are an authority too. If they were to state these very same doctrines, but say, " These are our opinions : we deduced them from Scripture, and they are true," we might well doubt about receiving them at their hands. We might fairly say, that we had as much right to deduce from Scripture as they had ; that deductions of Scripture were mere opinions ; that if our deductions agreed with theirs, that would be a happy coincidence, and increase our con- fidence in them ; but if they did not, it could not be helped — we must follow our own light. Doubtless, no man has any right to impose his own deductions upon another, in matters of faith. There is an obvious obliga- tion, indeed, upon the ignorant to submit to those who are better informed ; and there is a fitness in the young submitting implicitly for a time to the teaching of their elders ; but, beyond this, one man s opinion is not better 46 The Patristical Idea of Antichrist. than another's. But this is not the state of the case as regards the primitive Fathers. They do not speak of their own private opinion ; they do not say, '* This is true, because we see it in Scripture " — about which there might be differences of judgment — but, " this is true, because in matter of fact it is held, and has ever been held, by all the Churches, down to our times, without interruption, ever since the Apostles : " where the ques- tion is merely one of testimony, viz., whether they had the means of knowing that it had been and was so held ; for if it was the belief of so many and independent Churches at once, and that, on the ground of its being from the Apostles, doubtless it cannot but be true and Apostolic. This, I say, is the mode in which the Fathers speak as regards doctrine ; but it is otherwise when they interpret prophecy. In this matter there seems to have been no catholic, no formal and distinct, or at least no authorita- tive traditions; so that when they interpret Scripture they are for the most part giving, and profess to be giving, either their own private opinions, or vague, float- ing, and merely ge? eral anticipations. This is what might have been expected ; for it is not ordinarily the course of Divine Providence to interpret prophecy before the event. What the Apostles disclosed concerning the future, was for the most part disclosed by them in private, to individuals — not committed to writing, not intended for the edifying of the body of Christ, — and was soon lost. Thus, in a few verses after the passage I have quoted, St. Paul says, " Remember ye not, that when I was yet with you, I told you these things t " and he writes by hints and allusions, not speaking out. And it shows how little care was taken to discriminate and authenticate his prophetical intimations, that the Thes- The Times of Antichrist, 47 salonians had adopted an opinion, that he had said— what in fact he had not said — that the Day of Christ was immediately at hand. Yet, though the Fathers do not convey to us the inter- pretation of prophecy with the same certainty as they convey doctrine, yet, in proportion to their agreement, their personal weight, and the prevalence, or again the authoritative character of the opinions they are stating, they are to be read with deference ; for, to say the least, they are as likely to be right as commentators now ; in some respects more so, because the interpretation of pro- phecy has become in these times a matter of controversy and party. And passion and prejudice have so inter- fered with soundness of judgment, that it is difficult to say who is to be trusted to interpret it, or whether a pri- vate Christian may not be as good an expositor as those by whom the office has been assumed. I. Now to turn to the passage in question, which I shall examine by arguments drawn from Scripture, without being solicitous to agree, or to say why I am at issue, with modern commentators : " That Day shall not come, except there come a falling away first." Here the sign of the second Advent is said to be a certain fright- ful apostasy, and the manifestation of the man of sin, the son of perdition — that is, as he is commonly called, Antichrist. Our Saviour seems to add, that that sign will immediately precede Him, or that His coming will follow close upon it ; for after speaking of " false pro- phets " and " false Christs," " showing signs and won- ders," " iniquity abounding," and " love waxing cold," and the like. He adds, " When ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors." Again 4^ The PatristicaL Idea of Antichrist, He says, "When ye shall see the Abomination of Desolation . . . stand in the holy place . . . then let them that be in Judea flee into the mountains."* Indeed, St. Paul also implies this, when he says that Anti- christ shall be destroyed by the brightness of Christ's coming. First, then, I say, if Antichrist is to come immediatety before Christ, and to be the sign of His coming, it ib manifest that Antichrist is not come yet, but is still to be expected ; for, else Christ would have come before now. Further, it appears that the time of Antichrist's tyranny will be three years and a half, or, as Scripture expresses it, "a time, and times, and a dividing of time," or "forty- two months," — which is an additional reason for believ- ing he is not come ; for, if so, he must have come quite lately, his time being altogether so short ; that is, within the last three years, and this we cannot say he has. Besides, there are two other circumstances of his appearance, which have not been fulfilled. First, a time of unexampled trouble. " Then shall be great tribu- lation, such as was not from the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be ; and except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved."t This has not yet been. Next, the preaching of the Gospel throughout the world — "And this Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations, and then shall the end come."{ 2. Now it may be objected to this conclusion, that St. Paul says, in the passage before us, that " the mystery of iniquity doth already work," that is, even in his day, as if Antichrist had in fact come even then. But he would * MatL xxiv. i6, 33. f lb. 21, 22. X lb. 14- The Times of Antichrist, 49 seem to mean merely this, that in his day there were shadows and forebodings, earnests, and operative ele- ments, of that which was one day to come in its fulness. Just as the types of Christ went before Christ, so the shadows of Antichrist precede him. In truth, every event of this world is a type of those that follow, history proceeding forward as a circle ever enlarging. The days of the Apostles typified the last days : there were false Christs, and risings, and troubles, and persecutions, and the judicial destruction of the Jewish Church. In like manner, every age presents its own picture of those still future events, which, and which alone, are the real ful- filment of the prophecy which stands at the head of all of them. Hence St. John says, " Little children, it is the last time ; and as ye have heard that the Antichrist shall come, even now are there many Antichrists ; whereby we know that it is the last time." * Antichrist was come, and was not come ; it was, and it was not the last time. In the sense in which the Apostles' day might be called the "last time," and the end of the world, it was also the time of Antichrist. A second objection may be made as follows : St. Paul says, "Now ye know what withholdeth, that he (Anti- christ) might be revealed in his time." Here a something is mentioned as keeping back the manifestation of the enemy of truth. He proceeds : " He that now withhold- eth, will withhold, until he be taken out of the way." Now this restraining power was in early times considered to be the Roman Empire, but the Roman Empire (it is argued) has long been taken out of the way ; it follows that Anti- christ has long since come. In answer to this objec- tion, I would grant that he "that withholdeth," or "hindereth," means the power of Rome, for all the ancient ♦ I John ii. 18. 4 50 The Patristical Idea of Antichrist. writers so speak of it. And I grant that as Rome, according to the prophet Daniel's vision, succeeded Greece, so Antichrist succeeds Rome, and the Second Coming succeeds Antichrist.* But it does not hence fol- low that Antichrist is come : for it is not clear that the Roman Empire is gone. Far from it : the Roman Em- pire in the view of prophecy, remains even to this day, Rome had a very different fate from the other three mon- sters mentioned by the Prophet, as will be seen by his description of it. " Behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly ; and it had great iron teeth : it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it : and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns y-\ These ten horns, an Angel informed him, " are ten kings that shall rise out of this kingdom" of Rome. As, then, the ten horns belonged to the fourth beast, and were not separate from it, so the kingdoms, into which the Roman Empire was to be divided, are but the continuation and termina- tion of that Empire itself, — which lasts on, and in some sense lives in the view of prophecy, however we decide the historical question. Consequently, we have not yet seen the end of the Roman Empire. " That which with- holdeth " still exists, up to the manifestation of its ten horns ; and till it is removed, Antichrist will not come. And from the midst of those horns he will arise, as the same Prophet informs us : "I considered the horns, and behold, there came up among them another little horn ; . . . and behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things." Up to the time, then, when Antichrist shall actually appear, there has been and will be a continual effort to manifest him to the world on the part of the powers * Chrysostom in loco + Dan. vii, 7. The Times of Antichrist. 51 of evil. The history of the Church is the history of that long birth. " The mystery of iniquity doth already work," says St. Paul. *' Even now there are many Antichrists/** says St. John, — "every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is not of God ; and this is that spirit of the Antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come, and even now already is it in the world!' -^ It has been at work ever since, from the time of the Apostles, though kept under by him that " withholdeth." At this very time there is a fierce struggle, the spirit of Antichrist attempting to rise, and the political power in those countries which are prophetically Roman, firm and vigorous in repressing it. And in fact, we actually have before our eyes, as our fathers also in the generation before us, a fierce and lawless principle everywhere at work — a spirit of rebellion against God and man, which the powers of government in each country can barel)' keep under with their greatest efforts. Whether this which we witness be that spirit of Antichrist, J which is one day at length to be let loose, this ambitious spirit, the parent of all heresy, schism, sedition, revolution, and war — whether this be so or not, at least we know from prophecy that the present framework of society and government, as far as it is the representative of Roman powers, is that which withholdeth, and Antichrist is that which will rise when th's restraint fails. 3. It has been more or less implied in the foregoing re- marks, that Antichrist is one man, an individual, not a power or a kingdom. Such surely is the impression left on the mind by the Scripture notices concerning him, after taking fully into accouut the figurative character * I John ii. 18. t lb. iv. 3. % [* tvoit.os.'l 52 The Patristical Idea of A?ilichrist, of prophetical language. Consider these passages to- gether, which describe him, and see whether we must not so conclude. First, the passage in St. Paul's Epistle : " That day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, who is the adversary and rival of all that is called God or worshipped ; so that he sitteth as God in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. . . . Then shall that Wicked One be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming .... whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders." Next, in the prophet Daniel: "Another shall rise after them, and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings. And he shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws : and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times, and the dividing of time. But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end." Again: "And the king shall do according to his will ; and he shall exalt and mag- nify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished. . . . Neither shall he re- gard the God of his fathers, nor the Desire of women, nor regard any god ; for he shall magnify himself above all. But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces, and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honour with gold and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things." * Let it be observed, that Daniel elsewhere de- scribes other kings, and that the event has shown them * Dan. vii,, xi. The Times of Antichrist. 53 certainly to be individuals, — for instance, Xerxes, Darius, and Alexander. And in like manner St. John : "There was given unto him a mouth speaking great things, and blasphemies ; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme His Name, and His taber- nacle, and them that dwell in heaven. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them ; and power was given him over all kindreds and tongues and nations. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world."t Further, that by Antichrist is meant some one person, is made probable by the anticipations which, as I have said, have already occurred in history, of the fulfilment of the prophecy. Individual men have arisen actually answering in a great measure to the above descriptions ; and this circumstance creates a probability, that the absolute and entire fulfilment which is to come will be in an individual also. The most remarkable of these shadows of the destined scourge appeared before the time of the Apostles, between them and the age of Daniel, viz., the heathen king Antiochus, of whom we read in the books of Maccabees. This instance is the more to the purpose, because he is actually described, (as we suppose) by Daniel, in another part of his pro- phecy, in terms which seem also to belong to Antichrist, and, as belonging, imply that Antiochus actually was what he seems to be, a type of that more fearful future enemy of the Church. This Antiochus was the savage persecutQr of the Jews, in their latter times, as Aptj- 54 Tf^^ Patristical Idea of Antichrist, Christ will be of the Christians. A few passages from the Maccabees will show you what he was. St. Paul in the text speaks of an Apostasy, and then of Antichrist as following upon it ; and thus is the future of the Christian Church typified in the past Jewish history. " In those days went there out of Israel wicked men, who persuaded many, saying, Let us go and make a covenant with the heathen that are round about us : for since we departed from them, we have had much sorrow. So this device pleased them well. Then certain of the people were so forward herein, that they went to the king, who gave them licence to do after the ordinances of the heathen ; whereupon they built a place of exercise at Jerusalem, according to the custom of the heathen ; and made themselves uncircumcised, and forsook the holy covenant, and joined themselves to the heathen, and were sold to do mischief." Here was the Falling away. After this introduction the Enemy of truth appears. " After that Antiochus had smitten Egypt, he returned again, .... and went up against Israel and Jerusalem with a great multitude, and entered proudly into the sanctuary, and took away the golden altar, and the candlestick of light and all the vessels thereof, and the table of the shew- bread, and the pouring vessels, and the vials, and the censers of gold, and the veil, and the crowns, and the golden ornaments that were before the temple ; all which he pulled off. And when he had taken all away, he went into his own land, having made a great massacre, and spoken very proudly." After this he set fire to Jerusalem, " and pulled down the houses and walls thereof on every side. . . . Then built they the city of David with a great and strong wall, . . . and they put therein a sinful nation, wicked men, and forti- fied themselves therein." Next^ " Kin^ Antiochu§ wro|t The Times of Antichrist, 55 to his whole kingdom, that all should be one people, and every one should leave his laws : so all the hea- then agreed according to the commandment of the king. Yea, many also of the Israelites consented to his reli- gion, and sacrificed unto idols, and profaned the sab- bath." After this he forced these impieties upon the chosen people. All were to be put to death who would not " profane the sabbath and festival days, and pollute the sanctuary and holy people, and set up altars, and groves, and chapels of idols, and sacrifice swine's flesh and unclean beasts," and " leave their children uncircum- cised." At length he set up an idol, or, in the words of the history, " the Abomination of Desolation upon the altar, and builded idol altars throughout the cities of Juda on every side. . . . And when they had rent in pieces the books of the law which they found, they burnt them with fire." It is added, " Howbeit many in Israel were fully resolved and confirmed in themselves not to eat any unclean thing, wherefore they chose rather to die . . . and there was very great wrath upon Israel." * Here we have presented to us some of the lineaments of Antichrist, who will be such, and worse than such, as Antiochus. The history of the apostate emperor Julian, who lived between 300 and 400 years after Christ, furnishes us with another approximation to the predicted Antichrist, and an additional reason for thinking he will be one person, not a kingdom, power, or the like. And so again does the false prophet Mahomet, who propagated his imposture about 600 years after Christ came. Lastly, that Antichrist is one individual man, not a power, — not a mere ethical spirit, or a political system, not a dynasty, or succession of rulers, — was the unjyerscil 56 The Patristical Idea of Antichrist. tradition of the early Church. " We must say," writes St. Jerome upon Daniel, " what has been handed down to us by all ecclesiastical writers, that, in the end of the world, when the Roman Empire is to be destroyed, there will be ten kings, to divide the Roman territory between them, and that an eleventh will rise up, a small king, who will subdue three of the ten, and thereupon receive the submission of the other seven. It is said that ' the Horn had eyes, as the eyes of a man,' lest we should, as some have thought, suppose him to be the evil spirit, or a demon, whereas he is one man, in whom Satan shall dwell bodily. * And a mouth speaking great things ; * for he is the man of sin, the son of perdition, so that he dares to * sit in the Temple of God, making himself as if God.* * The beast has been slain, and his carcase has perished ; ' since Antichrist blasphemes in that united Roman Empire, all its kingdoms are at one and the same time to be abolished, and there shall be no earthly kingdom, but the society of the saints, and the coming of the triumphant Son of God." " And Theodoret : " Having spoken of Antiochus Epiphanes, the prophet passes from the figure to the Antitype ; for the Antitype of Antiochus is Antichrist, and the figure of Antichrist is Antiochus. As Antiochus compelled the Jews to act impiously, so the Man of Sin, the son of perdition, will make every effort for the seduction of the pious, by false miracles, and by force, and by persecution. As the Lord says, * Then will be great tribulation, such as never was from the beginning of the world till this time, nor ever shall be.'"* What I have said upon this subject may be summed up as follows : — that the coming of Christ will be immediately preceded by a very awful and unparalleled * Jerom. in Dan. vii : Thepdor. in Dan, xi Tlie Times of Antichrist, 57 outbreak of evil, called by St. Paul an Apostasy, a falling away, in the midst of which a certain terrible Man of sin and Child of perdition, the special and singular enemy of Christ, or Antichrist, will appear ; that this will be when revolutions prevail, and the present framework of society breaks to pieces ; and that at present the spirit which he will embody and represent is kept under by "the powers that be," but that on their dissolution, he will rise out of their bosom and knit them together again in his own evil way, under his own rule, to the exclusion of the Church. 4. It would be out of place to say more than this at present I will but insist on one particular circumstance contained in St. Paul's announcement which I have al- ready in part commented on. It is said there will " come a falling away, and the man of sin will be revealed." In other words, the Man of Sin is born of an Apostasy, or at least comes into power through an apostasy, or is preceded by an apos- tasy, or would not be except for an apostasy. So says the inspired text : now observe, how remarkably the course of Providence, as seen in history, has commented on this prediction. First, we have a comment in the instance of Antiochus previous to the actual events contemplated in the pro- phecy. The Israelites, or at least great numbers of them, put off their own sacred religion, and then the enemy was allowed to come in. Next the apostate emperor Julian, who attempted to overthrow the Church by craft, and introduce paganism back again : it is observable that he was preceded, nay, he was nurtured, by heresy ; by that first great heresy i^hich disturbed the peace and purity of the Churcjx 58 The Patristical Idea of Antichrist. About forty years before he became emperor, arose the pestilent Arian heresy which denied that Christ was God. It ate its way among the rulers of the Church like a canker, and what with the treachery of some, and the mistakes of others, at one time it was all but domi- nant throughout Christendom. The few holy and faith- ful men, who witnessed for the Truth, cried out, with awe and terror at the apostasy, that Antichrist was com- ing. They called it the " forerunner of Antichrist."* And true, his Shadow came. Julian was educated in the bosom of Arianism by some of its principal up- holders. His tutor was that Eusebius from whom its partizans took their name; and in due time he fell away to paganism, became a hater and persecutor of the Church, and was cut off before he had reigned out the brief period which will be the real Antichrist's duration. And thirdly, another heresy arose, a heresy in its con- sequences far more lasting and far-spreading ; it was of a twofold character ; with two heads, as I may call them, Nestorianism and Eutychianism, apparently opposed to each other, yet acting; towards a common end : both in one way or other denied the truth of Christ^s gracious in carnation, and tended to destroy the faith of Christians not less certainly, though more insidiously, than the heresy of Arius. It spread through the East and through Egypt, corrupting and poisoning those Churches which had once, alas ! been the most flourishing, the earliest abodes and strongholds of revealed truth. Out of this heresy, or at least by means of it, the impostor Ma- homet sprang, and formed his creed. Here is another especial Shadow of Antichrist. * wpSSpofios 'AtrrixpiffTov. — " Now is the Apostasy ; for men have fallen away from the right faith. This then is the Apostasy, and the enemy must be looked out for." — C^rii. Catech,^ 15, n. 9. The Times of Antichrist, 59 These instances give us warning : — Is the enemy of Christ, and His Church, to arise out of a certain special falling away from GOD ? And is there no reason to fear that some such Apostasy is gradually preparing, gathering, hastening on in this very day ? For is there not at this very time a special effort made almost all over the world, that is, every here and there, more or less in sight or out of sight, in this or that place, but most visibly or formidably in its most civilized and powerful parts, an effort to do without Religion ? Is there not an opinion avowed and growing, that a nation has nothing to do with Religion ; that it is merely a matter for each man's own conscience ? — which is all one with saying that we may let the Truth fail from the earth without trying to continue it in and on after our time. Is there not a vigorous and united movement in all countries to cast down the Church of Christ from power and place ? Is there not a feverish and ever-busy endeavour to get rid of the necessity of Religion in public transactions ? for example, an attempt to get rid of oaths, under a pretence that they are too sacred for affairs of common life, instead of providing that they be taken more reverently and more suitably ? an attempt to educate without Religion ? — that is, by putting all forms of Religion together, which comes to the same thing ; — an attempt to enforce temperance, and the vir- tues which flow from it, without Religion, by means of Societies which are built on mere principles of utility? an attempt to make expedience, and not truth, the end and the rule of measures of State and the enactments of Law ? an attempt to make numbers, and not the Truth, the ground of maintaining, or not maintaining, this or that creed, as if we had any reason whatever in Scripture fpr ^linking that the many will be in the right, and the 6o The Patristical Idea of Antichrist, few in the wrong ? An attempt to deprive the Bible of its one meaning to the exclusion of all other, to make people think that it may have an hundred meanings all equally good, or, in other words, that it has no meaning at all, is a dead letter, and may be put aside ? an at- tempt to supersede Religion altogether, as far as it is external or objective, as far as it is displayed in ordi- nances, or can be expressed by written words, — to con- fine it to our inward feelings, and thus, considering how variable, how evanescent our feelings are, an attempt, in fact, to destroy Religion ? Surely, there is at this day a confederacy of evil, marshalling its hosts from all parts of the world, organiz- ing itself, taking its measures, enclosing the Church of Christ as in a net, and preparing the way for a general Apostasy from it. Whether this very Apostasy is to give birth to Antichrist, or whether he is still to be delayed, as he has already been delayed so long, we cannot know ; but at any rate this Apostasy, and all its tokens and instruments, are of the Evil One, and savour of death. Far be it from any of us to be of those simple ones who are taken in that snare which is circling around us ! Far be it from us to be seduced with the fair promises in which Satan is sure to hide his poison ! Do you think he is so unskilful in his craft, as to ask you openly and plainly to join him in his warfare against the Truth ? No ; he offers you baits to tempt you. He promises you civil liberty ; he promises you equality ; he promises you trade and wealth ; he promises you a remission of taxes ; he promises you reform. This is the way in which he conceals from you the kind of work to which he is putting you ; he tempts you to rail against your rulers and superiors ; he does so himself, and in- jiuces ygu to imitate him ; or he promises you illuming- The Times of Antichrist. 6i tion, — he offers you knowledge, science, philosophy, enlargement of mind. He scoffs at times gone by ; he scoffs at every institution which reveres them. He prompts you what to say, and then listens to you, and praises you, and encourages you. He bids you mount aloft. He shows you how to become as gods. Then he laughs and jokes with you, and gets intimate with you ; he takes your hand, and gets his fingers between yours, and grasps them, and then you are his. Shall we Christians allow ourselves to have lot or part in this matter? Shall we, even with our little finger, help on the Mystery of Iniquity, which is travailing for birth, and convulsing the earth with its pangs ? " O my soul, come not thou into their secret ; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united." " What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness ? and what communion hath light with darkness ? Wherefore, come out from among them, and be ye separate," . . . lest you be workers together with God's enemies, and be opening the way for the Man of Sin, the son of perdition. 62 2. The Religion of Antichrist ST. JOHN tells us that ** every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is that spirit of Antichrist, which even now already is in the Nvorld." It was the characteristic of Antichrist, that he should openly deny our Lord Jesus Christ to be the Son of God come in the flesh from heaven. So exactly and fully was this description to answer to him, that to deny Christ might be suitably called the spirit of Anti- christ ; and the deniers of Him might be said to have the spirit of Antichrist, to be like Antichrist, to be Anti- christs. The same thing is stated in a former chapter. " Who is the Liar, but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ } he is the Antichrist, that denieth the Father md the Son. Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father;"* from which words, moreover, it would appear that Antichrist will be led on from re- jecting the Son of God to the rejecting of God alto- gether, either by implication or practically. I shall now make some further observations on the characteristic marks of the predicted enemy of the Church ; and, as before, I shall confine myself to the in- terpretations of Scripture given by the early Fathers. My reason for doing so is simply this, — that on so difficult a subject as unfulfilled prophecy, I really can • 1 John ii. 22. 23. The Religion of Antichrist, 6"^ have no opinion of my own, nor indeed is it desirable I should have, or at least that I should put it forward in any formal way. The opinion of any one person, even if he were the most fit to form one, could hardly be of any authority, or be worth putting forward by itself; whereas the judgment and views of the early Church claim and attract our special regard, because for what we know they may be in part derived from traditions of the Apostles, and because they are put forward far more consistently and unanimously than those of any other set of teachers. Thus they have at least greater claims on our attention than those of othei writers, be their claims little or great ; if they are little, those of others are still less. The only really strong claim which can be made on our belief, is the clear fulfilment of the prophecy. Did we see all the marks of the prophecy satisfactorily answered in the past history of the Church, then we might dispense with authority in the parties setting the proof before us. This condition, however, can hardly be satisfied, because the date of Antichrist comes close upon the coming of Christ in judgment, and therefore the event will not have happened under such circum- stances as to allow of being appealed to. Nor indeed is any history producible in which are fulfilled all the marks of Antichrist clearly, though some are fulfilled here and there. Nothing then is left us, (if we are to take up any opinion at all, — if we are to profit, as Scripture surely intends, by its warnings concerning the evil which is to come,) but to go by the judgment of the Fathers, whether that be of special authority in this matter or not. To them therefore I have had re- course already, and now shall have recourse again. To continue, then, the subject with the early Fathers as my guides. 64 ^ -^^ Pah'isiical Idea of Antichrist, I. It seems clear that St. Paul and St. John speak of the same enemy of the Church, from the similarity of their descriptions. They both say, that the spirit itself was already at work in their day. " That spirit of the Antichrist," says St. John, "is now already in the world." " The mystery of iniquity doth already work," says St. Paul. And they both describe the enemy as character- ized by the same especial sin, open infidelity. St. John says, that " he is the Antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son ; " while St. Paul speaks of him in like manner as " the adversary and rival of all that is called God, or worshipped ;" that "he sitteth as God in the Temple of God, setting forth himself that he is God." In both these passages, the same blasphemous denial of God and religion is described ; but St. Paul adds, in addition, that he will oppose all existing religion, true or false, " all that is called God, or worshipped." Two other passages of Scripture may be adduced, predicting the same reckless impiety ; one from the eleventh chapter of Daniel : " The king shall do accord- ing to his will ; and he shall exalt himself and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished. . . . Neither shall he re- gard the God of his fathers, nor the. Desire of women, nor regard any god — for he shall magnify himself above all!' The other passage is faintly marked with any prophetic allusion in itself, except that all our Saviour's sayings have a deep meaning, and the Fathers take this in par- ticular to have such. " I am come in My Father's Name, and ye receive Me not ; if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive." * This they consider • John V. 43. The Religion of Antichrist. 05 to be a prophetic allusion to Antichrist, whom the Jews were to mistake for the Christ. He is to come " in His own name." Not from God, as even the Son of God came, who if any might have come in the power of His essential divinity, not in God's Name, not with any pre- tence of a mission from Him, but in his own name, by a blasphemous assumption of divine power, thus will Antichrist come. To the above passages may be added those which speak generally of the impieties of the last age of the world, impieties which we may believe will usher in and be completed in Antichrist : — " Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased. . . . Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried : but the wicked shall do wickedly ; and none of the wicked shall understand, but the wise shall understand."* "In the last days perilous times shall come, for men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof: "f "scoffers walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of His coming.?"} " despising govern- ment, presumptuous . . . self-willed, not afraid to speak evil of dignities . . . promising men liberty, while them- selves the servants of corruption : "§ and the like. 2. I just now made mention of the Jews : it may be well X 2. r^et. iii. 3, 4. § 2 Pet. ii. 10, 19. 5 * Dan. xii. 4, 10. f 2 Tim. iii. 2 — 5. • 66 The Patrisiicat Idea of Antichrist. then to state what was held in the early Church concern- ing Antichrist's connexion with them. Our Lord foretold that many should come in His name, saying, ** I am Christ." It was the judicial punish- ment of the Jews, as of all unbelievers in one way or another, that, having rejected the true Christ, they should take up with a false one ; and Antichrist will be the com- plete and perfect seducer, towards whom all who were previous are approximations, according to the words just now quoted, "If another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive." To the same purport are St. Paul's words after describing Antichrist ; " whose coming," he says, "is . . . with all deceivableness ol unrighteousness in them that perish, because they received not the love of the Truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned who believed not the Truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." Hence, considering that Antichrist would pretend to be the Messiah, it was of old the received notion that he^ was to be of Jewish race and to observe the Jewish rites. Further, St. Paul says that Antichrist should " sit in the Temple of God ; " that is, according to the earlier Fathers, in the Jewish Tem.ple. Our Saviour's own words may be taken to support this notion, because He speaks of " the Abomination of Desolation " (which, whatever other meanings it might have, in its fulness denotes Antichrist) "standing in the ho iy placed Further, the persecution of Christ's witnesses which Antichrist will cause, is described by St. John as taking place in Jerusalem. "Their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, (which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt,) where also our Lord was crucified/' The Religion of Antichrist, 67 Now here a remark may be made. At first sight, I suppose, we should not consider that there was much evidence from the Sacred Text for Antichrist taking part with the Jews, or having to do with their Temple. It is, then, a very remarkable fact, that the apostate emperor Julian, who was a type and earnest of the great enemy, should, as he did, have taken part with the Jews, and set about building their Temple. Here the history is a sort of comment on the prophecy, and sustains and vindicates those early interpretations of it which I am reviewing. Of course I must be understood to mean, and a memorable circumstance it is, that this belief of the Church that Antichrist should be connected with the Jews, was expressed long before Julian's time, and that \ye still possess the works in which it is contained. In fact we have the writings of two Fathers, both Bishops and martyrs of the Church, who lived at least one hundred and fifty years before Julian, and less than one hundred years after St. John. They both distinctly declare Antichrist's connexion with the Jews. The first of them, Irenaeus, speaks as follows : " In the Temple which is at Jerusalem the adversary will sit, endeavouring to show himself to be the Christ." And the second, Hippolytus : " Antichrist will be he who shall resuscitate the kingdom of the Jews."* 3. Next let us ask, Will Antichrist profess any sort of religion at all } Neither true God nor false god will he worship : so far is clear, and yet something more, and * Iren Haer. v. 25. Hippol. de Antichristo, § 25. St. Cyril of Jeru- salem also speaks of Antichrist building the Jewish Temple ; and he too wrote before Julian's attempt, and (what is remarkable) prophesied it would faiU because of the prophecies. — Vide Rufif. Hist. i. 37. 68 The Patristical Idea of Antichrist. that obscure, is told us. Indeed, as far as the prophetic accounts go, they seem at first sight incompatible with each other. Antichrist is to " exalt himself over all that is called God or worshipped." He will set himself forcibly against idols and idolatry, as the early writers agree in declaring. Yet in the book of Daniel we read, " In his estate shall he honour the god of forces ; and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honour with gold and silver, and with precious stones and pleasant things. Thus shall he do in the most strongholds with a strange gody whom he shall acknowledge and increase with glory." * What is meant by the words translated " god of forces," and afterwards called " a strange god," is quite hidden from us, and probably will be so till the event ; but anyhow some sort of false worship is cer- tainly predicted as the mark of Antichrist, with this prediction the contrary way, that he shall set himself against all idols, as well as against the true God. Now it is not at all extraordinary that there should be this contrariety in the prediction, for we know generally that infidelity leads to superstition, and that the men most reckless in their blasphemy are cowards also as regards the invisible world. They cannot be consistent if they would. But let me notice here a remarkable coincidence, which is contained in the history of that type or shadow of the final apostasy which scared the world some forty or fifty years ago, — a coincidence between actual events and prophecy suflficient to show us that the apparent contradiction in the latter may easily be reconciled, though beforehand we may not see how ; sufficient to remind us that the all-watchful eye, and the all-ordain- ing hand of God is still over the world, and that the seeds, sown in prophecy above two thousand years since, * Dan. xi. 38, 39. 7 he Religion of Aiitick^^ist. 69 are not dead, but from time to time, by blade and tender shoot, give earnest of the future harvest. Surely the world is impregnated with the elements of preternatural evil, which ever and anon, in unhealthy seasons, give lowering and muttering tokens of the wrath to come ! In that great and famous nation over against us, once great for its love of Christ's Church, since memorable for the deeds of blasphemy, which leads me here to mention it, and now, when it should be pitied and prayed for. made unhappily, in too many respects, our own model — followed when it should be condemned, and admired when it should be excused, — in the Capital of that powerful and celebrated nation, there took place, as we all well know, within the last fifty years, an open apos- tasy from Christianity ; nor from Christianity only, but from every kind of worship which might retain any semblance or pretence of the great truths of religion. Atheism was absolutely professed ; — and yet in spite of this, it seems a contradiction in terms to say it, a certain sort of worship, and that, as the prophet expresses it, "a strange worship," was introduced. Observe what this was. I say, they avowed on the one hand Atheism. They prevailed upon a wretched man, whom they had forced upon the Church as an Archbishop, to come before them in public and declare that there was no God, anj that what he had hitherto taught was a fable. They wrote up over the burial-places that death was an eternal sleep. They closed the churches, they seized and desecrated the gold and silver plate belonging to them, turning, like Belshazzar, those sacred vessels to the use of their impious revellings ; they formed mock processions, clad in priestly garments, and singing profane hymns. They annulled the divine ordinance of marriage, resolving it 70 The Patristical Idea of Antichrist. into a mere civil contract to be made and dissolved at pleasure. These things are but a part of thei) enormities. On the other hand, after having broken away from all restraint as regards God and man, they gave a name to that reprobate state itself into which they had thrown themselves, and exalted it, that very negation of religion, or rather that real and living blasphemy, into a kind of god. They called it Liberty, and they literally wor- shipped it as a divinity. It would almost be incredible, that men who had flung off all religion should be at the pains to assume a new and senseless worship of their own devising, whether in superstition or in mockery, were not events so recent and so notorious. Aftei abjuring our Lord and Saviour, and blasphemousl)) declaring Him to be an impostor, they proceeded to decree, in the public assembly of the nation, the adora- tion of Liberty and Equality as divinities: and they appointed festivals besides in honour of Reason, the Country, the Constitution, and the Virtues. Further, they determined that tutelary gods, even dead men, may be canonized, consecrated, and worshipped ; and they enrolled in the number of these some of the most notorious infidels and profligates of the last century. The remains of the two principal of these were brought in solemn procession into one of their churches, and placed upon the holy altar itself ; incense was offered to them, and the assembled multitude bowed down in wor- ship before one of them — before what remained on earth of an inveterate enemy of Christ. Now, I do not mention all this as considering it the fulfilment of the prophecy, nor, again, as if the fulfilment when it comes will be in this precise way, but merely to point out, what the course of events has shown to us in The Religion of Antichrist. *J\ these latter times, that there are ways of fulfiUing sacred announcements that seem at first sight contradictory, — that men may oppose every existing worship, true and false, and yet take up a worship of their own from pride, wantonness, policy, superstition, fanaticism, or other reasons. And further, let it be remarked, that there was a tendency in the infatuated people I have spoken of, to introduce the old Roman democratic worship, as if further to show us that Rome, the fourth monster of the prophet's vision, is not dead. They even went so far as to restore the worship of one of the Roman divinities ^Ceres) by name, raised a statue to her, and appointed a festival in her honour. This indeed was inconsistent with exalting themselves "above ^// that is called god;" but I mention the particular fact, as I have said, not as throwing light upon the prophecy, but to show that the spirit of old Rome has not passed from the world, though its name is almost extinct. Still further, it is startling to observe, that the former Apostate, in the early times, the Emperor Julian, he too was engaged in bringing back Roman Paganism. Further still, let it be observed that Antiochus too, the Antichrist before Christ, the persecutor of the Jews, he too signalized himself in forcing the Pagan worship upon them, introducing it even into the Temple. We know not what is to come ; but this we may safely say, that, improbable as it is that Paganism should ever be publicly restored and enforced by authority for any period, however short, even three years and a half, yet it is far less improbable now than it was fifty years ago, before the event occurred which I have referred to. Who would not have been thought a madman or idiot, before that period, who had conjectured such a porten- 72 The Patristical Idea of Antichrist. tous approximation towards Paganism as actually then took place ? 4. Now let us recur to the ancient Fathers, and see whether their further anticipations do not run parallel to the events which have since happened. Antichrist, as they considered, will come out of the Roman Empire just upon its destruction ; — that is, the Roman Empire will in its last days divide itself into ten parts, and the Enemy will come up suddenly out of it upon these ten, and subdue three of them, or all of them perhaps, and (as the prophet continues) "shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws, and they shall be given into His hand until a time, and times, and the dividing of time."* Now it is very observable, that one of the two early Fathers whom I have already cited, Hippolytus, expressly says that the ten states which will at length appear, though kingdoms, shall also be democracies. I say this is observable, con- sidering the present state of the world, the tendency of things in this day towards democracy, and the instance which has been presented to us of democracy within the last fifty years, in those occurrences in France to which I have already referred. Another expectation of the early Church was, that the Roman monster, after remaining torpid for centuries, would wake up at the end of the world, and be restored in all its laws and forms ; and this, too, considering those same recent events to which I have referred, is certainly worth noticing also. The same Father, who anticipates the coming of democracies, expressly deduces from a passage in the xiiith chapter of the Apocalypse, that * Dan. vii. 25. The Religion of Antichrist, 7j "the system of Augustus, who was founder of the Roman Empire, shall be adopted and established by him (Anti- christ), in order to his own aggrandizement and glory. This is the fourth monster whose head was wounded and healed ; in that the empire was destroyed and came to nought, and was divided into ten diadems. But at this time Antichrist, as being an unscrupulous villain, will heal and restore it ; so that it will be active and vigorous once more through the system which he establishes." * I will but notice one other expectation falling in with the foregoing notion of the re-establishment of Roman power, entertained by the two Fathers whom I have been quoting ; viz., one concerning the name of Antichrist, as spoken of in the xiiith chapter of the Revelation : " Here is wisdom," says the inspired text ; " let him that hath understanding count his number, for it is the number of a man, and his number is six hundred threescore and six." Both Irenaeus and Hippolytus give a name, the letters of which together in Greek make up this number, characteristic of the position of Antichrist as the head of the Roman Empire in its restored state, viz., the word Latinus, or the Latin king. Irenaeus speaks as follows : ** Expect that the empire will first be divided into ten kings ; then while they are reigning and beginning to settle and aggrandize them- selves, suddenly one will come and claim the kingdom, and frighten them, having a name which contains the predicted number (^66) ; him recognize as the Abomina- tion of Desolation." Then he goes on to mention, to- gether with two other words, the name of Lateinos as answering to the number, and says of it, " This is very probable, since it is the name of the last empire ; — for the Latins " (that is, the Romans) " are now in power." f Ibid., 27, 49. t He adds, that he himself prefers one of the other words. 74 *rhe Patristical Idea of Antichrist, And Hippolytus : " Since . . the wound of the first monster was healed .... and it is plain that the Latins are still in power, therefore he is called the Latin King (Latinus), the name passing from an empire to an individual." * Whether this anticipation will be fulfilled or not, we cannot say. I only mention it as showing the belief of the Fathers in the restoration and re-establishment of the Roman Empire, which has certainly since their day been more than once attempted. It seems then, on the whole, that, as far as the testi- mony of the early Church goes, Antichrist will be an open blasphemer, opposing himself to every existing worship, true and false, — a persecutor, a patron of the Jews, and a restorer of their worship, and, further, the author of a novel kind of worship. Moreover, he will appear suddenly, at the very end of the Roman Empire, which once was, and now is dormant ; that he will knit it into one, and engraft his Judaism and his new worship (a sort of Paganism, it may be) upon the old discipline of Caesar Augustus ; that in consequence he will earn the title of the Latin or Roman King, as best expressive of his place and character ; lastly, that he will pass away as suddenly as he came. 5. Now concerning this, I repeat, I do not wish to pro- nounce how far the early Church was right or wrong in these anticipations, though events since have seriously tended to strengthen its general interpretations of Scrips ture prophecy. It may be asked, however, What practical use is there in speaking of these things, if they be doubtful ? * Hippol. de Antichristo, § 50. The Greek text seems corrupt. The Religion of Antichrist. 75 I answer, first, that it is not unprofitable to bear in mind that we are still under what may be called a miraculous system. I do not mean to maintain that literal miracles are taking place now every day, but that our present state is a portion of a providential course, which began in miracle, and, at least at the end of the world, if not before, will end in miracle. The particular expectations above detailed may be right or wrong ; yet an Antichrist, whoever and whatever he be, is to come ; marvels are to come ; the old Roman Empire is not extinct ; Satan, if bound, is bound but for a season ; the contest of good and evil is not ended. I repeat it, in the present state of things, when the great object of education is supposed to be the getting rid of things supernatural, when we are bid to laugh and jeer at believing everything we do not see, are told to account for everything by things known and ascertained, and to assay every statement by the touchstone of experi- ence, I must think that this vision of Antichrist, as a supernatural power to come, is a great providential gain, as being a counterpoise to the evil tendencies of the age. And next, it must surely be profitable for our thoughts to be sent backward and forward to the beginning and the end of the Gospel times, to the first and the second com- ing of Christ. What we want, is to understand that we are in the place in which the early Christians were, with the same covenant, ministry, sacraments, and duties ; — to realize a state of things long past away ; — to feel that we are in a sinful world, a world lying in wickedness ; to discern our position in it, that we are witnesses in it, that reproach and suffering are our portion, — so that we must not " think it strange " if they come upon us, but a kind of gracious exception if they do not ; to have our hearts awake, as if we had seen Christ and 76 The Patristical Idea of Antichrist, His Apostles, and seen their miracles, — awake to the hope and waiting of His second coming, looking out for it, nay, desiring to see the tokens of it ; thinking often and much of the judgment to come, dwelling on and adequately entering into the thought, that we individually shall be judged. All these surely are acts of true and saving faith ; and this is one substantial use of the Book of Revelation, and other prophetical parts of Scripture, quite distinct from our knowing their real interpretation, viz., to take the veil from our eyes, to lift up the cover- ing which lies over the face of the world, and make us see day by day, as we go in and out, as we get up and lie down, as we labour, and walk, and rest, and recreate ourselves, the Throne of God set up in the midst of us, His majesty and His judgments, His Son's continual intercession for the elect, their trials, and their victory. 77 The City of Antichrist. THE Angel thus interprets to St. John the vision of the Great Harlot, the enchantress, who seduced the inhabitants of the earth. He says, " The woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth." The city spoken of in these words is evidently Rome, which was then the seat of empire all over the earth, — which was supreme even in Judaea. We hear of the Romans all through the Gospels and Acts. Our Saviour was born when His mother the Blessed Virgin, and Joseph, were brought up to Bethlehem to be taxed by the Roman governor. He was crucified under Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor. St. Paul was at various times protected by the circum- stance of his being a Roman citizen , on the other hand, when he was seized and imprisoned, it was by the Roman governors, and at last he was sent to Rome itself, to the emperor, and eventually martyred there, together with St. Peter. Thus the sovereignty of Rome, at the time when Christ and His Apostles preached and wrote, which is a matter of historical notoriety, is forced on our notice in the New Testament itself It is undeniably meant by the Angel when he speaks of "the great city which reigneth over the earth." The connexion of Rome with the reign and exploits of Antichrist, is so often brought before us in the con- troversies of this day, that it may be well, after what I 7 8 The Patristical Idea of Antichrist. have already had occasion to say on the subject of the last enemy of the Church, to consider now what Scrip- ture prophecy says concerning Rome; which I shall attempt to do, as before, with the guidance of the early Fathers. I. Now let us observewhat is said concerning Rome, in the passage which the Angel concludes in the words which I have quoted, and what we may deduce from it. That great city is described under the image of a woman, cruel, profligate, and impious. She is described as arrayed in all worldly splendour and costliness, in purple and scarlet, in gold and precious stones, and pearls, as shedding and drinking the blood of the saints, till she was drunken with it. Moreover she is called by the name of " Babylon the Great," to signify her power, wealth, profaneness, pride, sensuality, and persecuting spirit, after the pattern of that former enemy of the Church. I need not here relate how all this really answered to the character and history of Rome at the time St. John spoke of it. There never was a more ambitious, haughty, hard-hearted, and worldly people than the Romans ; never any, for none else had ever the opportunity, which so persecuted the Church. Christians suffered ten persecutions at their hands, as they are commonly reckoned, and very horrible ones, extending over two hundred and fifty years. The day would fail to go through an account of the tortures they suffered from Rome ; so that the Apostle's description was as signally fulfilled afterwards as a prophecy, as it was accurate at the time as an historical notice. This guilty city, represented by St. John as an abandoned woman, is said to be seated on " a scarlet- The City of Antic lirist, 79 coloured monster, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns." Here we are sent back by the prophetic description to the seventh chapter of Daniel, in which the four great empires of the world are shadowed out under the figure of four beasts, a lion, a bear, a leopard, and a nameless monster, *' diverse" from the rest, " dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly;" " and it had ten horns." This surely is the very same beast which St. John saw : the ten horns mark it. Now this fourth beast in Daniel's vision is the Roman Empire; therefore " the beast," on which the woman sat, is the Roman Empire. And this agrees very accurately with the actual position of things in history ; for Rome, the mistress of the world, might well be said to sit upon, and be carried about triumphantly on that world which she had subdued and tamed, and made her creature. Further, the prophet Daniel explains the ten horns of the monster to be " ten kings that shall arise" out of this Empire ; in which St. John agrees, saying, " The ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet, but receive power as kings one hour with the beast." Moreover in a former vision Daniel speaks of the Empire as destined to be ''divided," as " partly strong and partly broken."* Further still, this Empire, the beast of burden of the woman, was at length to rise against her and devour her, as some savage animal might turn upon its keeper ; and it was to do this in the time of its divided or multiplied existence. " The ten horns which thou sawest upon him, these shall hate" her, " and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh and burn her with fire." Such was to be the end of the great city. Lastly, three of the kings, perhaps all, are said to be subdued by Antichrist, who * Dan. ii. 41, 42. 8o The Patristical Idea of Antichrist, is to come up suddenly while they are in power ; for such is the course of Daniel's prophecy : " Another shall rise after them, and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings, and he shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws ; and they shall be given into his hands until a time, times, and the dividing of time." This power, who was to rise upon the kings, is Antichrist ; and I would have you observe how Rome and Antichrist stand to- wards each other in the prophecy. Rome is to fall before Antichrist rises ; for the ten kings are to destroy Rome, and Antichrist is then to appear and supersede the ten kings. As far as we dare judge from the words, this seems clear. First, St. John says, " The ten horns shall hate and devour " the woman ; secondly, Daniel says, '*I considered the horns, and behold, there came up among them another little horn," viz., Antichrist, "before whom" or by whom "there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots." Now then, let us consider how far these prophecies have been fulfilled, and what seems to remain unfulfilled. In the first place, the Roman Empire did break up, as foretold. It divided into a number of separate kingdoms, such as our own, France, and the like ; yet it is difficult to number ten accurately and exactly. Next, though Rome certainly has been desolated in the most fearful and miserable way, yet it has not exactly suffered from ten parts of its former empire, but from barbarians who came down upon it from regions external to it ; and, in the third place, it still exists as a city, whereas it was to be " desolated, devoured, and burned with fire." The City of Antichrist. 8i fourthly, there is one point in the description of the ungodly city, which has hardly been fulfilled at all in the case of Rome. She had " a golden cup in her hand full of abominations," and made " the inhabitants of the earth drunk with the wine of her fornication ; " expres- sions which imply surely some seduction or delusion which she was enabled to practise upon the world, and which, I say, has not been fulfilled in the case of that great imperial city upon seven hills of which St. John spake. Here then are points which require some con- sideration. I say, the Roman Empire has scarcely yet been divided into ten. The Prophet Daniel is conspicuous among the inspired writers for the clearness and exactness of his predictions ; so much so, that some unbelievers, over- come by the truth of them, could only take refuge in the unworthy, and, at the same time, unreasonable and untenable supposition, that they were written after the events which they profess to foretell. But we have had no such exact fulfilment in history of the ten kings ; therefore we must suppose that it is yet to come. With this accords the ancient notion, that they were to come at the end of the world, and last for but a short time, Antichrist coming upon them. There have, indeed, been approximations to that number, yet, I conceive, nothing more. Now observe how the actual state of things corresponds to the prophecy, and to the primitive interpretation of it. It is difficult to say whether the Roman Empire is gone or not; in one sense, it is gone, for it is divided into kingdoms ; in another sense, it is not, for the date cannot be assigned at which it came to an end, and much might be said in various ways to show that it may be considered still existing, though in a mutilated and decayed state. But if this be so, and if %* 6 82 Tne Patristical Idea of Antichrist. it is to end in ten vigorous kings, as Daniel says, then it must one day revive. Now observe, I say, how the pro- phetic description answers to this account of it. " The wild Beast," that is, the Roman Empire, " the Monster that thou sawest, was and is not, and shall ascend out of the abyss, and go into perdition." Again mention is made of " the Monster that was, and is not, and yet is!' Again we are expressly told that the ten kings and the Empire shall rise together ; the kings appearing at the time of the monster's resurrection, not during its languid and torpid state. " The ten kings . . . have received no kingdom as yet, but receive power as kings one hour with the beast." If, then, the Roman Empire is still prostrate, the ten kings have not come ; and if the ten kings have not come, the destined destroyers of the woman, the full judgments upon Rome, have not yet come. 3. Thus the full measure of judgment has not fallen upon Rome ; yet her sufferings, and the sufferings of her Empire, have been very severe. St. Peter seems to predict them, in his First Epistle, as then impending. He seems to imply that our Lord's visitation, which was then just occurring, was no local or momentary venge- ance upon one people or city, but a solemn and extended judgment of the whole earth, though beginning at Jeru- salem. " The time is come," he says, " when judgment must begin at the house of God " (at the sacred city) ; " and, if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the Gospel of God .? And if the righteous scarcely be saved," — {i, e,, the remnant who should go forth of Zion, according to the prophecy, that chosen seed in the Jewish Church which received Christ The City of Antichrist, 83 when He came, and took the new name of Christians, and shot forth and grew far and wide into a fresh Church, or, in other words, the elect whom our Saviour speaks of as being involved in all the troubles and judgments of the devoted people, yet safely carried through) ; " if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear," — the inhabitants of the world at large ? '^^ Here is intimation of the presence of a fearful scourge which was then going over all the ungodly world, be- ginning at apostate Jerusalem, and punishing it. Such was the case : vengeance first fell upon the once holy city, which was destroyed by the Romans : it proceeded next against the executioners themselves.f The empire was disorganized, and broken to pieces by dissensions and insurrections, by plagues, famines, and earthquakes, while countless hosts of barbarians attacked it from the north and east, and portioned it out, and burned and pillaged Rome itself The judgment, I say, which began at Jerusalem, steadily tracked its way for centuries round and round the world, till at length, with unerring aim, it smote the haughty mistress of the nations herself, the guilty woman seated upon the fourth monster which Daniel saw. I will mention one or two of these fearful inflictions. Hosts of barbarians came down upon the civilized world, the Roman empire. One multitude — though multitude is a feeble word to describe them, — invaded France, % which was living in peace and prosperity under the shadow of Rome. They desolated and burned town and country. Seventeen provinces were made a desert * Pet. iv. 17, 18. Vide also Jer. xxv. 28, 29. Ezek. ix. 6. t Vide Is. xlvii. 5, 6. X A.D. 407. Vide Gibbon, Hist. vol. v. chap. 30. 84 The Patristical Idea of Antichrist, Eight metropolitan cities were set on fire and destroyed Multitudes of Christians perished even in the churches. The fertile coast of Africa was the scene of another of these invasions.* The barbarians gave no quarter to any who opposed them. They tortured their captives, of whatever age, rank, and sex, to force them to discover their wealth. They drove away the inhabitants of the cities to the mountains. They ransacked the churches. They destroyed even the fruit-trees, so complete was the desolation. Of judgments in the course of nature, I will mention three out of a great number. One, an inundation from the sea in all parts of the Eastern empire. The water overflowed the coast for two miles inland, sweeping away houses and inhabitants along a line of some thousand miles. One great city (Alexandria) lost fifty thousand persons.f The second, a series of earthquakes ; some of which were felt all over the empire. Constantinople was thus shaken above forty days together. At Antioch 250,000 persons perished in another. And in the third place a plague, which lasted (languish- ing and reviving) through the long period of fifty-two years. In Constantinople, during three months, there died daily 5,000, and. at length 10,000 persons. I give these facts from a modern writer, who is neither favour- able to Christianity, nor credulous in matters of histori- cal testimony. In some countries the population was wasted away altogether, and has not recovered to this day.+ Such were the scourges by which the fourth monster * A.D. 430. Vide Gibbon, Hist. vol. vi. chap. 33. t A.D. 365. Ibid. vol. iv. chap. 26. \ A.D. 540. Ibid. vol. vii. chap. 43. The City of Antichrist. 85 of Daniel's vision was brought low, " the Lord God's sore judgments, the sword, the famine, and the pesti- lence." * Such was the process by which " that which withholdeth," (in St. Paul's language) began to be " taken away ; " though not altogether removed even now. And, while the world itself was thus plagued, not less ivas the offending city which had ruled it. Rome was taken and plundered three several times. The inhabit- ants were murdered, made captives, or obliged to fly all over Italy. The gold and jewels of the queen of the nations, her precious silk and purple, and her works of art, were carried off or destroyed. 4- These are great and notable events, and certainly form part of the predicted judgment upon Rome ; at the same time they do not adequately fulfil the prophecy, which says expressly, on the one hand, that the ten portions of the Empire itself which had almost been slain, shall rise up against the city, and " make her desolate and burn her with fire," which they have not yet done ; and, on the other hand, that the city shall experience a total destruction, which has not yet befallen her, for she still exists. St. John's words on the latter point are clear and determinate. " Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen ; and is become the habitation of devils, and the hole of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird ;"t words which would seem to refer us to the curse upon the literal Babylon ; and we know how that curse was fulfilled. The prophet Isaiah had said, that in Babylon " wild beasts of the desert should lie there, and their houses be full of doleful creatures, and owls should dwell there, and satyrs," or wild beasts " dance there/'t * ilzek. xiv. a I. t Rev. xviii. 2. % Isa. xiii. 91. 86 The Patristical Idea of Antichrist. And we know that all this has in fact happened to Babylon ; it is a heap of ruins ; no man dwells there ; nay, it is difficult to say even where exactly it was placed, so great is the desolation. Such a desolation St. John seems to predict, concerning the guilty persecuting city we are considering; and in spite of what she has suffered, such a desolation has not come upon her yet. Again, "she shall be utterly burnt with fire, for strong is the Lord God, who judgeth her." Surely this implies utter destruction, annihilation. Again, " a mighty Angel took up a stone, like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying. Thus with violence, shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found 7to more at air: To these passages I would add this reflection. Surely Rome is spoken of in Scripture as a more inveterate enemy of God and His saints even than Babylon, as the great pollution and bane of the earth : if then Babylon has been destroyed wholly, much more, according to all reasonable conjecture, will Rome be destroyed one day. It may be farther observed that holy men in the early Church certainly thought that the barbarian invasions were not all that Rome was to receive in the way of vengeance, but that God would one day destroy it by the fury of the elements. " Rome," says Pope Gregory, at a time when a barbarian conqueror had possession of the city, and all things seemed to threaten its de- struction, " Rome shall not be destroyed by the nations, but shall consume away internally, worn out by storms of lightning, whirlwinds, and earthquakes." * In accord- ance with this is the prophecy ascribed to St. Malachi of Armagh, a mediaeval Archbishop (a.d. i 130), which declares, " In the last persecution of the Holy Church, * Greg. Dial. ii. 15. The City of Antichrist, 87 Peter of Rome shall be on the throne, who shall feed his flock in many tribulations. When these are past, the city upon seven hills shall be destroyed, and the awful Judge shall judge the people."* 5. This is what may be said on the one side, but after all something may be said on the other ; not indeed to show that the prophecy is already fully accomplished, for it certainly is not, but to show that, granting this, such accomplishment as has to come has reference, not to Rome, but to some other object or objects of divine vengeance. I shall explain my meaning under two heads. First, why has Rome not been destroyed hitherto ? how was it that the barbarians left it } Babylon sank under the avenger brought against it — Rome has not : why is this } for if there has been a something to pro- crastinate the vengeance due to Rome hitherto, perad- venture that obstacle may act again and again, and stay the uplifted hand of divine wrath till the end come. The cause of this unexpected respite seems to be simply this, that when the barbarians came down, God had a people in that city. Babylon was a mere prison of the Church ; Rome had received her as a guest. The Church dwelt in Rome, and while her children suffered in the heathen city from the barbarians, so again they were the life and the salt of that city where they suffered. Christians understood this at the time, and availed themselves of their position. They remembered Abra- ham's intercession for Sodom, and the gracious an- nouncement made him, that, had there been ten righteous men therein, it would have been saved. ♦ Yi4e Py. Burton, Antiq. of Rome, p. 475. 88 The Patristical Idea of Antichrist. When the city was worsted, threatened, and at length overthrown, the Pagans had cried out that Christianity was the cause of this. They said they had always flourished under their idols, and that these idols or devils (gods as they called them) were displeased with them for the numbers among them who had been converted to the faith of the Gospel, and had in consequence deserted them, given them over to their enemies, and brought vengeance upon them. On the other hand, they scoffed at the Christians, saying in effect, " Where is now your God ? Why does He not save you ? You are not better off than we ; " they said, with the impenitent thief, " If thou be the Christ, save Thyself and us ; " or with the multitude, " If He be the Son of God, let Him come down from the Cross." This was during the time of one of the most celebrated bishops and doctors of the Church, St. Augustine, and he replied to their challenge. He re- plied to them, and to his brethren also, some of whom were offended and shocked that such calamities should have happened to a city which had become Christian.* He pointed to the cities which had already sinned and been visited, and showed that they had altogether perished, whereas Rome was still preserved. Here, then, he said, was the very fulfilment of the promise of God, announced to Abraham ; — for the sake of the Christians in it, Rome was chastised, not overthrown utterly. Historical facts support St Augustine's view of things. God provided visibly, not only in His secret counsels, that the Church should be the salvation of the city. The fierce conqueror Alaric, who first came against it, exhorted his troops " to respect the Churches of the Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul, as holy and inviolable sanctuaries ; " ;ind he gave orders that a quantity of plate, consecrated * 4up;ust, de Urbis Excidio, vol. vi. p. 622. ed, Ben. et de Civ. Pei, i- I— 7. The City of Antichrist. 89 to St. Peter, should be removed into his Church from the place where it had been discovered.* Again, fifty years afterwards, when Attila was advanc- ing against the city, the Bishop of Rome of the day, St. Leo, formed one of a deputation of three, who went out to meet him, and was successful in arresting his purpose. A few years afterwards, Genseric, the most savage of the barbarian conquerors, appeared before the defenceless city. The same fearless pontiff went out to meet him at the head of his clergy, and though he did not succeed in saving the city from pillage, yet he gained a promise that the unresisting multitude should be spared, the buildings protected from fire, and the captives from torture, f Thus from the Goth, Hun, and Vandal did the Christian Church shield the guilty city in which she dwelt. What a wonderful rule of God's providence is herein displayed (vhich occurs daily ! — the Church sanctifies, yet suffers with, the world, — sharing its sufferings, yet lightening them. In the case before us, she has (if we may humbly say it) suspended, to this day, the vengeance destined to fall upon that city which was drunk with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. That vengeance has never fallen ; it is still suspended ; nor can reason be given why Rome has not fallen under the rule of God's general dealings with His rebellious creatures, and suffered (according to the prophecy) the fulness of God's wrath begun in it, except that a Christian Church is still in that city, sanc- tifying it, interceding for it, saving it. We in England consider that the Christian Church there has in process of time become infected with the sins of Rome itself, and has learned to be ambitious and cruel after the fashion of those who possessed the place aforetimes. Yet, if it were what many would make it, if it were as reprobate as * yide Gibbon, Hist. vol. v. chap. 31. f Ibid. vol. vi. chap. 35, 36, 90 The Patristical Idea of Antichrist, heathen Rome itself, what stays the judgment long ago begun ? why does not the Avenging Arm, which made its first stroke ages since, deal its second and its third, till the city has fallen ? Why is not Rome as Sodom and Gomorrah, if there be no righteous men in it ? This then is the first remark I would make as to that fulfilment of the prophecy which is not yet come ; perhaps through divine mercy, it may be procrastinated even to the end, and never be fulfilled. Of this we can know nothing one way or the other. Secondly, let it be considered, that as Babylon is a type of Rome, and of the world of sin and vanity, so Rome in turn may be a type also, whether of some other city, or of a proud and deceiving world. The woman is said to be Babylon as well as Rome, and as she is some- thing more than Babylon, namely, Rome, so again she may be something more than Rome, which is yet to come. Various great cities in Scripture are made, in their ungodliness and ruin, types of the world itself. Their end is described in figures, which in their fulness apply only to the end of the world ; the sun and moon are said to fall, the earth to quake, and the stars to fall from heaven.* The destruction of Jerusalem in our Lord's prophecy is associated with the end of all things. As then their ruin prefigures a greater and wider judgment, so the chapters, on which I have been dwelling, may have a further accomplishment, not in Rome, but in the world itself, or some other great city to which we cannot at present apply them, or to all the great cities of the world together, and to the spirit that rules in them, their avari- cious, luxurious, self-dependent, irreligious spirit. And in this sense is already fulfilled a portion of the chapter before us, which does not apply to heathen Rome ; — I • Vide Isaiah xiii, lo, etc The City oj AntichrisL qt mean the description of the woman as making men drunk with her sorceries and delusions ; for such, surely, and nothing else than an intoxication, is that arrogant, ungodly, falsely liberal, and worldly spirit, which great cities make dominant in a country. 6. To sum up what I have said. The question asked was, Is it not true (as is commonly said and believed among us) that Rome is mentioned in the Apocalypse, as having especial share in the events which will come at the end of the world by means, or after the time, of Antichrist } I answer this, that Rome's judgments have come on her in great measure, when her Empire was taken from her ; that her persecutions of the Church have been in great measure avenged, and the Scripture predictions concerning her fulfilled ; that whether or not she shall be further judged depends on two circum- stances, first, whether "the righteous men" in the city who saved her when her judgment first came, will not, through God's great mercy, be allowed to save her still ; next, whether the prophecy relates in its fulness to Rome or to some other object or objects of which Rome is a type. And further, I say, that if it is in the divine counsels that Rome should still be judged, this must be before Antichrist comes, because Antichrist comes upon and destroys the ten kings, and lasts but a short space, but it is the ten kings who are to destroy Rome. On the other hand, so far would seem to be clear, that the prophecy itself has not been fully accomplished, what- ever we decide about Rome's concern in it. The Roman Empire has not yet been divided into ten heads, nor has it yet risen against the woman, whomsoever she stands for, por has the woman yet received her ultimate judgment. 92 The Patristical Jdea of Antic krisL We are warned against sharing in her sins and in her punishment ; — against being found, when the end comes, mere children of this world and of its great cities ; with tastes, opinions, habits, such as are found in its cities ; with a heart dependent on human society, and a reason moulded by it ; — against finding ourselves at the last day, before our Judge, with all the low feelings, principles, and aims which the world encourages ; with our thoughts wandering (if that be possible then), wandering after vanities ; with thoughts which rise no higher than the consideration of our own comforts, or our gains ; with a haughty contempt for the Church, her ministers, her lowly people ; a love of rank and station, an admiration of the splendour and the fashions of the world, an affec- tation of refinement, a dependence upon our powers of reason, an habitual self-esteem, and an utter ignorance of the number and the heinousness of the sins which lie against us. If we are found thus, when the end comes, where, when the judgment is over, and the saints have gone up to heaven, and there is silence and darkness where all was so full of life and expectation, where shall we find ourselves then ? And what good could the great Babylon do us then, though it were as immortal as we are immortal ourselves ? 93 4- The Persecution of Antichrist, WE have been so accustomed to hear of the per- secutions of the Church, both from the New Testament and from the history of Christianity, that it is much if we have not at length come to regard the account of them as words of course, to speak of them without understanding what we say, and to receive no practical benefit from having been told of them ; much less are we likely to take them for what they really are, a characteristic mark of Christ's Church. They are not indeed the necessary lot of the Church, but at least one of her appropriate badges ; so that, on the whole, looking at the course of history, you might set down persecution as one of the peculiarities by which you recognize her. And our Lord seems to intimate how becoming, how natural persecution is to the Church, by placing it among His Beatitudes. " Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness* sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven ; " giving it the same high and honourable rank in the assemblage of evangelical graces, which the Sabbath holds among the Ten Command- ments, — I mean, as a sort of sign and token of His followers, and, as such, placed in the moral code, though in itself external to it. He seems to show us this in another way, viz., by in- timating to us the fact, that in persecution the Church begins and in persecution she ends. He left her in perse- 94 The Patristical Idea of Antic nrist, cution, and He will find her in persecution. He recog- nizes her as His own, — He framed, and He will claim her, — as a persecuted Church, bearing His Cross. And that awful relic of Him which He gave her, and which she is found possessed of at the end, she cannot have lost by the way. The prophet Daniel, who shadows out for us so many things about the last time, speaks of the great perse- cution yet to come. He says, " There shall be a time of trouble, such as never was, since there was a nation, even to that same time : and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the Book." To these words our Lord seems to refer, in His solemn prophecy before His passion, in which He comprises both series of events, both those which at- tended His first, and those which will attend at His second coming — both persecutions of His Church, the early and the late. He speaks as follows : " Then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning: of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be ; and ex- cept those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved ; but for the elect's sake, those days shall be shortened." * Now I shall conclude what I have to say about the coming of Antichrist by speaking of the persecution which will attend it. In saying that a persecution will attend it, I do but speak the opinion of the early Church, as I have tried to do all along, and as I shall do in what follows. I. First, I will cite some of the principal texts which seem to refer to this last persecution. * Matt. xxiv. 21, 22. The Persecution of Antichrist. 95 " Another shall rise after them, and ... he shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws ; and they shall be given into his hand until a time, times, and the dividing of time : " * that is, three years and a half. *' They shall pollute the Sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the Daily Sacrifice, and they shall place the Abomination that maketh desolate, and such as do wickedly against the Covenant shall he corrupt by flat- teries ; but the people that do know their God shall be strong and do exploits. And they that understand among the people, shall instruct many ; yet they shall fall by the sword, and by flame, by captivity, and by spoil, many days." f " Many shall be purified, and' made white, and tried ; but the wicked shall do wickedly ; . . . . and from the time that the Daily Sacrifice shall be taken away, and the Abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days." J: " Then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world," § and so on, as I just now read it. " And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies ; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blas- pheme His name, and His tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven : and it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them .... and all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose * Dan. vii. 24, 25. X t)an. xii. 10, 11. t Dan. xi. 31 — 33. § Matt, xxiv, 21. 9^ The Patristual Idea of Antichrist, names are not written in the book of life of the Lamt slain from the foundation of the world ." * " I saw an Angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand ; and he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, and bound him a thousand years .... and after that he must be loosed a little season .... and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle : the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about and the beloved city." f These passages were understood by the early Chris- tians to relate to the Persecution which was to come in the last times ; and they seem evidently to bear upon them that meaning. Our Lord's words, indeed, about the fierce trial which was coming, might seem at first sight to refer to the early persecutions, those to which the first Christians were exposed ; and doubtless so they do also : yet, violent as these persecutions were, they were not considered by those very men who underwent them to be the proper fulfilment of the prophecy; and this surely is itself a strong reason for thinking they were not so. And we are confirmed by parallel passages, such as the words of Daniel quoted just now, which certainly speak of a persecution still future ; if then our Lord used those very words of Daniel, and was speaking of what Daniel spoke of, therefore, whatever partial accomplish- ment His prediction had in the history of the early Church, He surely speaks of nothing short of the last persecution, when His words are viewed in their full scope. He says, " There shall be great tribulation, such * Kev. xiii. 5 — 8. f Rev. xx. 1—9. The Persecution of Antichrist, 97 as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be : and except those days should be shortened, there shall no flesh be saved ; but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened." And imme- diately after, " There shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders ; inso- much that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect." In accordance with this language, Daniel says, " There shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation, even to that same time : and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book." One of the passages I quoted from the Revelation says the same, and as strongly : " It was given him to make war with the Saints, and to overcome them .... and all that dwell on the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life ." * Let us then apprehend and realize the idea, thus clearly brought before us, that, sheltered as the Church has been from persecution for 1 500 years, yet a persecu- tion awaits it, before the end, fiercer and more perilous than any which occurred at its first rise. Further, this persecution is to be attended with the cessation of all religious worship. " They shall take away the Daily Sacrifice," — words which the early Fathers in- terpret to mean, that Antichrist will suppress for three years and a half all religious worship. St. Augustine questions whether baptism even will be administered to infants during that season. And further we are told : " They shall place the Abomination that maketh desolate " in the Holy Place • Rev. xiiu 7, 8. • 7 gS The Patristical Idea of Antichrist. —they shall " set it up : " our Saviour declares the same. What this means we cannot pronounce. In the former fulfilment of this prophecy, it has been the introduction of heathen idols into God's house. Moreover the reign of Antichrist will be supported, it would appear, with a display of miracles, such as the magicians of Egypt effected against Moses. On this subject, of course, we wait for a fuller explanation of the prophetical language, such as the event alone can give us. So far, however, is clear, that whether false miracles or not, whether pretended, or the result, as some have conjectured, of discoveries in physical science, they will produce the same effect as if they were real, — viz., the overpowering the imaginations of such as have not the love of God deeply lodged in their hearts, — of all but the elect." Scripture is remarkably precise and con- sistent in this prediction. " Signs and wonders," says our Lord, " insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect." St. Paul speaks of Antichrist as one " whose coming is after the work of Satan, with all powers and signs, and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish ; because they received not the love of the Truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie."* And St. John : " He doeth great wonders, so that He maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, and deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which He had power to do in the sight of the beast."t In these four respects, then, not to look for others, will the last persecution be more awful than any of the earlier ones : in its being in itself fiercer and more hor- • 2 Thess. ii. 9— ll. f Rev. xiii. 13, 14. The Persecution of Antichrist, 99 rible ; in its being attended by a cessation of the Ordi- nances of grace, " the Daily Sacrifice ; " and by an open and blasphemous establishment of infidelity, or some such enormity, in the holiest recesses of the Church ; lastly, in being supported by a profession of working miracles. Well is it for Christians that the days are shortened ! — shortened for the elect's sake, lest they should be overwhelmed, — shortened, as it would seem, to three years and a half. 3. Much might be said, of course, on each of these four particulars ; but I will confine myself to making one remark on the first of them, the sharpness of the perse- cution. — It is to be worse than any persecution before it. Now, to understand the force of this announcement, we should understand in some degree what those former persecutions were. This it is very difficult to do in a few words ; yet a very slight survey of the history of the Church would con- vince us that cruelties more shocking than those which the early Christians suffered from their persecutors, it is very difficult to conceive. St. Paul's words, speaking of the persecutions prior to his time, describes but faintly the trial which came upon the Church in his own day and afterwards. He says of the Jewish saints, " They were tortured, not accepting deliverance" . . . they "had trials of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea moreover, of bonds and imprisonment : they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goat- skins ; being destitute, afflicted, tormented." Such were the trials of the Prophets under the Law, who in a mea- sure anticipated the Gospel, as in creed, so in suffering ; lOO The Patristical Idea of Antichrist. yet the Gospel suffering was as much sharper as the Gospel creed was fuller than their foretaste of either. Let me take, as a single specimen, a portion of a letter, giving an account of some details of one of the perse- cutions in the south of France. It is written by eye- witnesses. "... The rage of the populace, governor, and soldiers es- pecially lighted on Sanctus, a deacon ; on Maturus, a late convert ; on Attalus, and on Blandina, a slave, through whom Christ showed that the things which are lowly esteemed among men have high account with God. For when we were all in fear, and her own mistress was in agony for her, lest she should be unable to make even one bold confession, from the weakness of her body, Blandina was filled with such strength, that even those who tortured her by turns, in every possible way, from morning till evening, were wearied and gave it up, confessing she had conquered them. And they wondered at her remaining still alive, her whole body being mangled and pierced in every part. But that blessed woman, like a brave combatant, renewed her strength in confessing ; and it was to her a recovery, a rest, and a respite, to say, * I am a Christian.' . . Sanctus also endured exceedingly all the cruelties of men with a noble patience . . and to all questions would say nothing but ' I am a Christian.' When they had nothing left to do to him, they fastened red-hot plates of brass on the tenderest parts of his body. But though his limbs were burning, he remained upright and unshrinking, steadfast in his confession, bathed and strengthened from Heaven with that fountain of living water that springs from the well of Christ. But his body bore witness of what had been done to it, being one entire wound, and deprived of the external form of man." After some days they were taken to the shows where the wild beasts were, and went through every torture again, as though they had suffered nothing before. Again they were scourged, forced into the iron chair (which was red hot), dragged about by the beasts, and so came to their end. " But Blandina was hung up upon a cross, and placed to be devoured by the beasts that were turned The Persecution of Antichrist. - lOl in." Afterwards she was scourged ; at last placed in a basket and thrown to a bull, and died under the tossings of the furious animal. But the account is far too long and minute, and too dreadful, to allow of my going through it. I give this merely as a specimen of the sufferings of the early Christians from the malice of the devil. As another instance, take again the sufferings which the Arian Vandals inflicted at a later time. Out of four hundred and sixty Bishops in Africa, they sent forty-six out of the country to an unhealthy place, and confined them to hard labour, and three hundred and two to dif- ferent parts of Africa. After an interval of ten years they banished two hundred and twenty more. At another time they tore above four thousand Christians, clergy and laity, from their homes, and marched them across the sands till they died either of fatigue or ill-usage. They lacerated others with scourges, burned them with hot iron, and cut off their limbs.* Hear how one of the early Fathers, just when the early persecutions were ceasing, meditates on the pros- pect lying before the Church, looking earnestly at the events of his own day, in order to discover from them, if he could, whether the predicted evil was coming : " There will be a time of affliction, such as never happened since there was a nation upon the earth till that time. The fearful monster, the great serpent, the unconquerable enemy of mankind, ready to devour. . . The Lord knowing the greatness of the enemy, in mercy to the religious, says, ' Let those that are in Judea flee to the mountains.' However, if any feel within him a strong heart to wrestle with Satan, let him remain, (for I do not despair of the Church's strength of nerve,) let him remain, and let him say, * Who shall separate us from the love of Christ .'"... Thanks to God, who limits the greatness of the affliction to a few days ; * for the elect's sake those days shall be cut short.' Antichrist shall reign * Gibbon, Hist., chap. 37. 102 The Patristiciil Idea of Antichrist. only three years and a half, a time, times, and the dividing of times. . . . "Blessed surely he who then shall be a martyr for Christ ! I consider that the martyrs at that season will be greater than all martyrs ; for the former ones wrestled with man only, but these, in the time of Antichrist, will battle with Satan himself per- sonally. Persecuting emperors slaughtered the former ; but they did not pretend to raise the dead, nor make show of signs and wonders : but here there will be the persuasion both of force and of fraud, so as to deceive, if possible, even the elect. Let no one at that day say in his heart, * What could Christ do more than this or that ? by what virtue worketh he these things ? Unless God willed it, He would not have permitted it.' No : the Apostle forewarns you, saying beforehand, * God shall send them a strong delusion,* — not that they may be excused, but condemned — viz., those who believe not in the Truth, that is, the true Christ, but take pleasure in unrighteousness, that is, in Antichrist. . . . Prepare thyself, therefore, O man ! thou hearest the signs of Antichrist ; nor remind only thyself of them, but communicate them liberally to all around thee. If thou hast a child according to the flesh, delay not to in- struct him. If thou art a teacher, prepare also thy spiritual children, lest they take the false for the True. * For the mystery of iniquity doth already work.' I fear the wars of the nations, I fear the divisions among Christians, I fear the hatred among brethren. Enough ; but God forbid that it should be fulfilled in our day However, let us be prepared." — Cyr. Catech. xv. i6, 17. 4. I have two remarks to add : first, that it is quite cer- tain, that if such a persecution has been foretold, it has not yet come, and therefore is to come. We may be wrong in thinking that Scripture foretells it, though it has been the common belief, I may say, of all ages ; but if there be a persecution, it is still future. So that every generation of Christians should be on the watch-tower, looking out, — nay, more and more, as time goes on. Next, I observe that signs do occur from time to time, not to enable us to fix the day, for that is hidden, but to show us it is coming. The world grows old — the earth The Persecution of Antichrist. 103 is crumbling away— the night is far spent— the day is at hand. The shadows begin to move— the old forms of empire, which have lasted ever since our Lord was with us, heave and tremble before our eyes, and nod to their fall. These it is that keep Him from us— He is behind them. When they go. Antichrist will be released from " that which withholdeth," and after his short but fearful season, Christ will come. For instance : one sign is the present state of the Roman Empire, if it may be said to exist, though it does exist ; but it is like a man on his death-bed, who after many throes and pangs at last goes off when you least expect, or perhaps you know not when. You watch the sick man, and you say every day will be the last; yet day after day goes on — you know not when the end will come — he lingers on — gets better — relapses, — yet you are sure after all he must die — it is a mere matter of time, you call it a matter of time : so is it with the Old Roman Empire, which now lies so still and helpless. It is not dead, but it is on its death-bed. We suppose indeed that it will not die without some violence even yet, without convulsions. Antichrist is to head it ; yet in another sense it dies to make way for Antichrist, and this latter form of death is surely hasten- ing on, whether it comes sooner or later. It may outlast our time, and the time of our children ; for we are crea- tures of a day, and a generation is like the striking of a clock ; but it tends to dissolution, and its hours are numbered. Again, another anxious sign at the present time is what appears in the approaching destruction of the Mahometan power. This too may outlive our day; still it tends visibly to annihilation, and as it crumbles, per- chance the sands of the world's life are running out I04 The Patristical Idea of Antichrist, And lastly, not to mention many other tokens which might be observed upon, here is this remarkable one. In one of the passages I just now read from the book of Revelation, it is said that in the last times, and in order to the last persecution, Satan, being loosed from his prison, shall deceive the nations in the extremities of the earth, Gog and Magog, and bring them to battle against the Church. These appellations had been already used by the prophet Ezekiel, who borrows the latter of them from the tenth chapter of Genesis. We read in that chapter, that after the flood the sons of Japheth were " Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras." Magog is supposed to be the ancestor of the nations in the north, the Tar- tars or Scythians. Whatever then Gog means, which is not known, here is a prophecy that the northern nations should be stirred up against the Church, and be one of the instruments of its suffering. And it is to be observed, that twice since that prophecy was delivered the northern nations have invaded the Church, and both times they have brought with them, or rather (as the text in the Revelation expresses it) they have been deceived into, an Antichristian delusion, — been deceived into it, not invented it. The first irruption was that of the Goths and Vandals in the early times of the Church, and they were deceived into and fought for the Arian heresy. The next was that of the Turks, and they in like manner were deceived into and fought for Mahometanism. Here then the after history, as in other instances, is in part a comment upon the prophecy Now, I do not mean that as to the present time, we see how this is to be accomplished in its fulness, after the pattern of the Shadows which have gone before. But thus much we see — we see that in matter of fact the The Pe7^secutiofi uj Antichrist, 105 nations of the North * are gathering strength, and be- ginning to frown over the seat of the Roman Empire as they never have done since the time when the Turks came down. Here then we have a sign of Antichrist's appearance — I do not say of his instant coming, or his certain coming, for it may after all be but a type or shadow of things far future ; still, so far as it goes, it is a preparation, a warning, a call to sober thought — just as a cloud in the sky (to use our Lord's instance) warns us about the weather. It is no sure proof that it pre- cedes a storm, but we think it prudent to keep our eye upon it 5. This is what I have to say about the last persecution and its signs. And surely it is profitable to think about it, though we be quite mistaken in the detail. For in- stance, after all perhaps it may not be a persecution of blood and death, but of craft and subtlety only — not of miracles, but of natural wonders and powers of human skill, human acquirements in the hands of the devil. Satan may adopt the more alarming weapons of deceit — he may hide himself — he may attempt to seduce us in little things, and so to move Christians, not all at once, but by little and little from their true position. We know he has done much in this way in the course of the last centuries. It is his policy to split us up and divide us, to dislodge us gradually from off our rock of strength. And if there is to be a persecution, perhaps it will be then ; then, perhaps, when we are all of us in all parts of Christendom so divided, and so reduced, so full of schism, so close upon heresy. When we have cast our- selves upon the world, and depend for protection upon * {E. g.. The Chinese ?] io6 The Patristical Idea of Antichrist, it, and have given up our independence and our strength, then he may burst upon us in fury, as far as God allows him. Then suddenly the Roman Empire may break up, and Antichrist appear as a persecutor, and the barbarous nations around break in. But all these things are in God's hand and God's knowledge, and there let us leave them. This alone I will say, in conclusion, as I have already said several times, that such meditations as these may be turned to good account. It will act as a curb upon our self-willed, selfish hearts, to believe that a persecu- tion is in store for the Church, whether or not it comes in our days. Surely, with this prospect before us, we cannot bear to give ourselves up to thoughts of ease and comfort, of making money, settling well, or rising in the world. Surely, with this prospect before us, we cannot but feel that we are, what all Christians really are in the best estate (nay, rather would wish to be, had they their will, if they be Christians in heart), pilgrims, watchers waiting for the morning, waiting for the light, eagerly straining our eyes for the first dawn of day — looking out for our Lord's coming. His glorious advent, when He will end the reign of sin and wickedness, accomplish the number of His elect, and perfect those who at pre- sent struggle with infirmity, yet in their hearts love and obey Him. I07 POSTSCRIPT. The above expositions of the teaching of the Fathers on the subject treated, were preached by the Author in the form of Sermons in Advent, 1835, and are ilkis- trated by the following remarkable passage in a letter of Bishop Horsley's, written before the beginning of this century ; vide British Magazine ^ May, 1834. " The Church of God on earth will be greatly reduced, as we may well imagine, in its apparent numbers, in the times of Antichrist, by the open desertion of the powers of the world. This desertion will begin in a professed indifference to any particular form of Christianity, under the pretence of universal toleration ; which toleration will proceed from no true spirit of charity and forbear- ance, but from a design to undermine Christianity, by multiplying and encouraging sectaries. The pretended toleration will go far beyond a just toleration, even as it regards the different sects of Christians. For govern- ments will pretend an indifference to all, and will give a protection in preference to none. All establishments will be laid aside. From the toleration of the most pes- tilent heresies, they will proceed to the toleration of Mahometanism, Atheism, and at last to a positive per- secution of the truth of Christianity. In these times the Temple of God will be reduced almost to the Holy Place, that is, to the small number of real Christians who worship the Father in spirit and in truth, and regulate their doctrine and their worship, and their whole con- duct, strictly by the word of God. The merely nominal io8 The Patristical Idea of Antichrist. Christians will all desert the profession of the truth, when the powers of the world desert it. And this tragi- cal event I take to be typified by the order to St. John to measure the Temple and the Altar, and leave the outer court (national Churches) to be trodden under foot by the Gentiles. The property of the clergy will be pillaged, the public worship insulted and vilified by these deserters of the faith they once professed, who are not called apostates because they never were in earnest in their profession. Their profession was nothing more than a compliance with fashion and public authority. In principle they were always, what they now appear to be, Gentiles. When this general desertion of the faith takes place, then will commence the sackcloth ministry of the witnesses. . . . There will be nothing of splendour in the external appearance of their churches ; they will have no support from governments, no honours, no emolu- ments, no immunities, no authority, but that which no earthly power can take away, which they derived from Him, who commissioned them to be His witnesses." — B. M.y vol. v., p. 52a Jtme, 1838. ro9 ni. HOLY SCRIPTURE IN ITS RELATION TO THE CATHOLIC CREED. IN EIGHT LECTURES. I. Difficulties in the Scripture Proof of the Catholic Creed, I PRO POSE in the following Lectures to suggest some thoughts by way of answering an objection, which often presses on the mind of those who are inquiring into the claims of the Church, and the truth of that system of doctrine which she especially represents, and which is at once her trust and her charter. They hear much stress laid upon that Church system of doctrine ; they see much that is beautiful in it, much that is plausible in the proof advanced for it, much which is agreeable to the analogy of nature — which bespeaks the hand of the Creator, and is suitable to the needs and expectations of the creature, — much that is deep, much that is large and free, fearless in its course, sure in its stepping, and singularly true, consistent, entire, harmonious, in its adjustments ; but they seem to ask for more rigid proof in behalf of the simple elementary propositions on which it rests ; or, in other words, by way of speaking more clearly, and as a chief illustration of what is meant (though it is no Scripture and the Creed, not quite the same thing), let me say, they desire more adequate and explicit Scripture proof oi its truth. They find that the proof is rested by us on Scripture, and therefore they require more explicit Scripture proof. They say, " All this that you say about the Church is very specious, and very attractive ; but where is it to be found in the inspired Volume ? " And that it is not found there (that is, I mean not found as fully as it might be), seems to them proved at once by the simple fact, that all persons (I may say all, for the exceptions are very few), — all those who try to form their Creed by Scripture only, fall away from the Church and her doc- trines, and join one or other sect c/ party, as if showing that, whatever is or is not scriptural, at least the Church, by consent of all men, is not so. I am stating no rare or novel objection : it is one which, I suppose, all of us have felt, or perhaps still feel : it is one which, before now (I do not scruple to say), I have much felt myself, and that without being able satisfac- torily to answer : and which I believe to be one of the main difficulties, and (as I think) one of the intended difficulties, which God's providence puts at this day in the path of those who seek Him, for purposes known or unknown, ascertainable or not. Nor am I at all sanguine that I shall be able, in what I have to say, to present anything like a full view of the difficulty itself, even as a phenomenon ; which different minds feel differently, and do not quite recognize as their own when stated by another, and which it is difficult to bring out even ac- cording to one s own idea of it. Much less shall I be able to assign it its due place in that great Catholic system which nevertheless I hold to be true, and in which it is but a difficulty. I do not profess to be able to account for it, to reconcile the mind to it, and to dis- Difficulties in Scripture Proof of Doctrine, 1 1 1 miss it as a thing which was in a man's way, but is henceforth behind him ; — yet, subdued as my hopes may be, I have too great confidence in that glorious .Creed, which I believe to have been once delivered to the Saints, to wish in any degree to deny the difficulty, or to be unfair to it, to smooth it over, misrepresent it, or defraud it of its due weight and extent. Though I were to grant that the champions of Israel have not yet rescued this portion of the sacred territory from the Philistine, its usurping occupant, yet was not Jerusalem in the hands of the Jebusites till David's time ? — and shall I, seeing with my eyes and enjoying the land of promise, be over- troubled with one objection, which stands unvanquished (supposing it) ; and, like haughty Haman, count the King's favour as nothing till I have all my own way, and nothing to try me ? In plain terms, I conceive I have otherwise most abundant evidence given me of the divine origin of the Church system of doctrine: how then is that evidence which is given, not given because, though given in Scripture, it might be there given more explicitly and fully, and (if I may so say) more consistently ? One consideration alone must create an anxiety in entering on the subject I propose. It is this : — Those who commonly urge the objection which is now to be con- sidered, viz., the want of adequate Scripture evidence for the Church creed, have, I feel sure, no right to make it ; that is, they are inconsistent in making it ; inasmuch as they cannot consistently find fault with a person who believes more than they do, unless they cease to believe just so much as they do believe. They ought, on their own principles, to doubt or disown much which happily they do not doubt or disown. This then is the direct, appropriate, polemical answer to them, or (as it is called) an argumentum ad hominem, " Look at home, and say, 1 1 2 Scripture and the Creed. if you can, why you believe this or that, which you do beheve : whatever reasons you give for your own behef in one point, this or that article, of your Creed, those parallel reasons we can give for our belief in the articles of our Creed. If you are reasonable in believing the one, we are reasonable in believing the other. Either we are reasonable, or you are not so. You ought not to stand where you are ; you ought to go further one way or the other." Now it is plain that if this be a sound argument against our assailants, it is a most convincing one ; and it is obviously very hard and very unfair if we are to be deprived of the use of it. And yet a cautious mind will ever use it with anxiety ; not that it is not most effective, but because it may be (as it were) too effective : it may drive the parties in question the wrong way, and make things worse instead of better. It only undertakes to show that they are inconsistent in their present opinions ; and from this inconsistency it is plain they can escape, by going further either one way or the other — by adding to their creed, or by giving it up alto- gether. It is then what is familiarly called a kill-or-cure remedy. Certainly it is better to be inconsistent, than to be consistently wrong — to hold some truth amid error, than to hold nothing but error — to believe than to doubt. Yet when I show a man that he is inconsistent, I make him decide whether of the two he loves better, the por- tion of truth or the portion of error, which he already holds. If he loves the truth better, he will abandon the error ; if the error, he will abandon the truth. And this is a fearful and anxious trial to put him under, and one cannot but feel loth to have recourse to it One feels that perhaps it may be better to keep silence, and to let him, in shallowness and presumption, assail one's own position with impunity, than to retort, however justly, Difficulties in Scripture Proof of Doctrine, 1 13 his weapons on himself ; — better for oneself to seem a bigot, than to make him a scoffer. Thus, for instance, a person who denies the Apostolical Succession of the Ministry, because it is not clearly taught in Scripture, ought, I conceive, if consistent, to deny the divinity of the Holy Ghost, which is nowhere literally stated in Scripture. Yet there is something so dreadful in his denying the latter, that one may often feel afraid to show him his inconsistency ; lest, rather than admit the Apostolical Succession, he should consent to deny that the Holy Ghost is God. This is one of the great delicacies of disputing on the subject before us : yet, all things considered, I think, it only avails for the cautious use, not the abandonment, of the argument in question. For it is our plain duty to preach and defend the truth in a straightforward way. Those who are to stumble must stumble, rather than the heirs of grace should not hear. While we offend and alienate one man, we secure another ; if we drive one man further the wrong way, we drive another further the right way. The cause of truth, the heavenly company of saints, gains on the whole more in one way than in the other. A wavering or shallow mind does perhaps as much harm to others as a mind that is consistent in error, nay, is in no very much better state itself; for if it has not developed into systematic scepticism, merely because it has not had the temptation, its present conscientiousness is not worth much. Whereas he who is at present obeying God under imperfect knowledge has a claim on His Ministers for their doing all in their power towards his obtaining further knowledge. He who admits the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, in spite of feeling its difficulties, whether in itself or in its proof, — who submits to the indirectness of the Scripture evidence as regards that particular r 14 Scripture and the Creeds doctrine, — has a right to be told those other doctrines, such as the Apostolical Succession, which are as certainly declared in Scripture, yet not more directly and promi- nently, and which will be as welcome to him, when known, because they are in Scripture, as those which he already knows. It is therefore our duty to do our part, and leave the event to God, begging Him to bless, yet aware that, whenever He visits, He divides. In saying this, I by no means would imply that the only argument in behalf of our believing more than the generality of men believe at present, is, that else we ought in consistency to believe less — far from it indeed ; but this argument is the one that comes first, and is the most obvious and the most striking. Nor do I mean to say — far from it also — that all on whom it is urged, will in fact go one way or the other ; the many will remain pretty much where education and habit have placed them, and at least they will not confess that they are affected by any new argument at all. But of course when one speaks of anxiety about the effect of a certain argument, one speaks of cases in which it will have effect, not of those in which it will not. Where it has effect, I say, that effect may be for good or for evil, and that is an anxious thing. I. Now then, first, let me state the objection itself, which is to be considered. It may be thrown into one or other of the following forms : that " if Scripture laid such stress, as we do, upon the ordinances of Baptism, Holy Eucharist, Church Union, Ministerial Power, Apostolical Succession, Absolution, and other rites and ceremonies, — upon external, or what is sometimes called formal religion,— it would not in its general tenor make such Difficulties in Scripture Proof of Doctrine, 115 merely indirect mention of them ; — that it would speak of them as plainly and frequently as we always speak of them now ; whereas every one must allow that there is next to nothing on the surface of Scripture about them, and very little even under the surface of a satisfactory character." Descending into particulars, we shall have it granted us, perhaps, that Baptism is often mentioned in the Epistles, and its spiritual benefits ; but " its pecu- liarity as the one plenary remission of sin," it will be urged, " is not insisted on with such frequency and earnestness as might be expected — chiefly in one or two passages of one Epistle, and there obscurely" (in Heb. vi. and x.) Again, " the doctrine of Absolution is made to rest on but one or two texts (in Matt. xvi. and John xx.), with little or no practical exemplification of it in the Epistles, where it was to be expected. Why," it may be asked, "are not the Apostles continually urging their converts to rid themselves of sin after Baptism, as best they can, by penance, confession, absolution, satisfaction ? Again, why are Christ's ministers nowhere called Priests? or, at most, in one or two obscure passages (as in Rom. xv. 16).? Why is not the Lord's Supper expressly said to be a Sacrifice } why is the Lord's Table called an Altar but once or twice (Matt. v. and Heb. xiii.), even granting these passages refer to it } why is consecration of the elements expressly mentioned only in one passage (i Cor. X.) in addition to our Lord's original institution of them.? why is there but once or twice express mention made at all of the Holy Eucharist, all through the Apostolic Epistles, and what there is said, said chiefly in one Epistle } why is there so little said about Ordination } about the appointment of a Succession of Ministers? about the visible Church (as in i Tim. iii. 15)? why but one or two passages on the duty of fasting ? " 1 1 6 Scripture and the Creed. " In short, is not (it may be asked) the state of the evidence for all these doctrines just this — a few striking texts at most, scattered up and down the inspired Volume, or one or two particular passages of one particular Epistle, or a number of texts which may mean, but need not mean, what they are said by Churchmen to mean, which say something looking like what is needed, but with little strength and point, inadequately and unsatisfactorily ? Why then are we thus to be put off? why is our earnest desire of getting at the truth to be trifled with? is it conceivable that, if these doctrines were from God, He would not tell us plainly ? why does He make us to doubt ? why does *He keep us in suspense ? ' * — it is im- possible He should do so. Let us, then, have none of these expedients, these makeshift arguments, this patch- work system, these surmises and conjectures, and here a little and there a little, but give us some broad, trust- worthy, masterly view of doctrine, give us some plain in- telligible interpretation of the sacred Volume, such as will approve itself to all educated minds, as being really gained from the text, and not from previous notions which are merely brought to Scripture, and which seek to find a sanction in it. Such a broad comprehensive view of Holy Scripture is most assuredly fatal to the Church doctrines." "But this (it will be urged) is not all ; there are texts in the New Testament actually inconsis- tent with the Church system of teaching. For example, what can be stronger against the sanctity of particular places, nay of any institutions, persons, or rites at all, than our Lord's declaration, that 'God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him, must worship Him in spirit and in truth'? or against the Eucharistic Sacrifice, than St. Paulas contrast in Heb. x. between the Jewish sacrifices * John X. 24 Difficulties of Sci ipture Proof of Doctrhu. 117 and the one Christian Atonement ? or can Baptism really have the gifts which are attributed to it in the Catholic or Church system, considering how St. Paul says, that all rites are done away, and that faith is all in all ? " Such is the sort of objection which it is proposed now to consider. 2. My first answer to it is grounded on the argumentum ad hominem of which I have already spoken. That is, I shall show that, if the objection proves anything, it proves too much for the purposes of those who use it ; that it leads to conclusions beyond those to which they would confine it; and if it tells for them, it tells for those whom they would not hesitate to consider heretical or unbelieving. Now the argument in question proves too much, first, in this way, that it shows that external religion is not only not important or necessary, but not allowable. If, for instance, when our Saviour said, "Woman, believe Me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. . . The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth : for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth,"* — if He means that the external local worship of the Jews was so to be abolished that no ex- ternal local worship should again be enjoined, that the Gospel worship was but mental, stripped of everything material or sensible, and offered in that simple spirit and truth which exists in heaven, if so, it is plain that all external religion is not only not imperative under the . • John iy. ?i— 94. r 1 8 Scripture and the Creed. Gospel, but forbidden. This text, if it avails for any thing against Sacraments and Ordinances, avails entirely; it cuts them away root and branch. It says, not that they are unimportant, but that they are not to be. It does not leave them at our option. Any interpretation which gives an opening to their existing, gives so far an opening to their being important. If the command to worship in spirit and truth is consistent with the permis- sion to worship through certain rites, it is consistent with the duty to worship through them. Why are we to have a greater freedom, if I may so speak, than God Himself.'' why are we to choose what rites we please to worship in, and not He choose them i* — as if spirituaHty consisted, not in doing without rites altogether, (a notion which at least is intelligible,) but in our forestalling our Lord and Master in the choice of them. Let us take the text to mean that there shall be no external worship at all, if we will (we shall be wrong, but we shall speak fairly and intelligibly); but, if there may be times, places, ministers, ordinances of worship, although the text speaks of wor- shipping in spirit and in truth, then, what is there in it to negative the notion of God's having chosen those times places, ministers, and ordinances, so that if we attempt to choose, we shall be committing the very fault of the Jews, who were ever setting up golden calves, planting groves, or consecrating ministers, without authority from God.? And what has been observed of this text, holds good of all arguments drawn, whether from the silence of Scripture about, or its supposed positive statements against, the rites and ordinances of the Church. If obscurity of texts, for instance, about the grace of the Eucharist, be taken as a proof that no great benefit i? therein given, it is an argument against there being Difficulties in Scripture Proof of Doctrine. 119 any benefit. On the other hand, when certain passages are once interpreted to refer to it, the emphatic language used in those passages shows that the benefit is not small. We cannot say that the subject is unimportant, without saying that it is not mentioned at all. Either no gift is given in the Eucharist, or a great gift. If only the sixth chapter of St. John, for instance, does allude to it, it shows it is not merely an edifying rite, but an awful communication beyond words. Again, if the phrase, " the communication of the Body of Christ," used by St. Paul, means any gift, it means a great one. You may say, if you will, that it does not mean any gift at all, but means only a representation or figure of the com- munication ; this I call explaining away, but still it is intelligible ; but I do not see how, if it is to be taken literally as a real communication of something, it can be other than a communication of His Body. Again, though the Lord's Table be but twice called an Altar in Scrip- ture, yet, granting that it is meant in those passages, it is there spoken of so solemnly, that it matters not though it be nowhere else spoken of. " We have an Altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the taber- nacle." We do not know of the existence of the Ordi- nance except in the knowledge of its importance ; and in corroboration and explanation of this matter of fact, let it be well observed that St. Paul expressly declares that the Jewish rites are notX.o be practised because they are not important. This is one way in which this argument proves too much ; so that they who for the sake of decency or edi- fication, or from an imaginative turn of mind, delight in Ordinances, yet think they may make them for them- selves, in that those ordinances bring no special blessing with them, such men contradict the Gospel ^s plainly ^§ 1 20 Scripture and the Creed, those who attribute a mystical virtue to them, — nay more so ; for if any truth is clear, it is, that such ordinances as are without virtue are abolished by the Gospel, this being St. Paul's very argument against the use of the Jewish rites. 3. Now as to the other point of view in which the argu- ment in question proves too much for the purpose of those who use it : — If it be a good argument against the truth of the Apostolical Succession and similar doctrines, that so little is said about them in Scripture, this is quite as good an argument against nearly all the doctrines which are held by any one who is called a Christian in any sense of the word ; as a few instances will show. (i.) First, as to Ordinances and Precepts. There is not a single text in the Bible enjoining infant baptism : the Scripture warrant on which we baptize infants con- sists of inferences carefully made from various texts. How is it that St. Paul does not in his Epistles remind parents of so great a duty, if it is a duty } Again, there is not a single text telling us to keep holy the first day of the week, and that instead of the seventh. God hallowed the seventh day, yet we now observe the first. Why do we do this } Our Scripture warrant for doing so is such as this : " since the Apostles met on the first day of the week, therefore the first day is to be hallowed ; and since St. Paul says the Sabbath is abolished, therefore the seventh day (which is the Sabbath) is not to be hallowed : " — these are true in- ferences, but very indirect surely. The duty is not on the surface of Scripture. We might infer, — though incor- rectly, still we might infer, — that St. Paul meant that the command iji the secpnd chapter pf Genesis was repealed, Difficulties in Scripture Proof of Doctrine, 1 2 1 and that now there is no sacred day at all in the seven, though meetings for prayer on Sunday are right and proper. There is nothing on the surface of Scripture to prove that the sacredness conferred in the beginning on the seventh day now by transference attaches to the first. Again, there is scarcely a text enjoining our going to Church for joint worship. St. Paul happens in one place of his Epistle to the Hebrews, to warn us against forgetting to assemble together for prayer. Our Saviour says that where two or three are gathered together. He is in the midst of them ; yet this alludes in the first in- stance not to public worship, but to Church Councils and censures, quite a distinct subject. And in the Acts and Epistles we meet with instances or precepts in favour of joint worship ; yet there is nothing express to show that it is necessary for all times, — nothing more express than there is to show that in i Cor. vii. St. Paul meant that an unmarried state is better at all times, — nothing which does not need collecting and inferring with minute carefulness from Scripture. The first disci- ples did pray together, and so in like manner the first disciples did not marry. St. Paul tells those who were in a state of distress to pray together so much the more as they see the day approaching — and he says that celi- bacy is " good for the present distress!' The same re- marks might be applied to the question of community of goods. On the other hand, our Lord did not use social prayer : even when with His disciples He prayed "by Himself ; and His directions in Matt. vi. 2i}CiO\xt private prayer, with the silence which He observes 2i}Q0\xt public, might be as plausibly adduced as an argument against public, as the same kind of silence in Scripture concerning turning to the east, or making the sign of the Cross, or QPjaperning cpninieinor^tioi>s for the dead in Christ, 122 Scripture and the Creed, accompanied with its warnings against formality and ceremonial abuses, is now commonly urged as an argu- ment against these latter usages. Again: — there is no text in the New Testament which enjoins us to " establish " Religion (as the phrase is), or to make it national, and to give the Church certain honour and power ; whereas our Lord's words, " My kingdom is not of this world " (John xviii. 36), may be interpreted to discountenance such a proceeding. We consider that it is right to establish the Church on the ground of mere deductions, though of course true ones, from the sacred text ; such as St. Paul's using his rights as a Roman citizen. There is no text which allows us to take oaths. The words of our Lord and St. James look plainly the other way. Why then do we take them } We infer that it is allowable to do so, from finding that St. Paul uses such expressions as " I call God for a record upon my soul " — " The things which I write unto you, behold, before God, I lie not " (2 Cor. i. 23; Gal. i. 20) ; these we argue^ and rightly, are equivalent to an oath, and a precedent for us. Again, considering God has said, " Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed," it seems a very singular power which we give to the Civil Magis- trate to take away life. It ought to rest, one might sup- pose, on some very clear permission given in Scripture. Now, on what does it rest } on one or two words of an Apostle casually introduced into Scripture, as far as anything is casual, — on St. Paul's saying in a paren- thesis, " he (the magistrate) beareth not the sword in vain ; " and he is speaking of a heathen magistrate, not of Christian. Once more: — On how many texts does the prohibition pf polygamy depend, if we set about counting then^ ? / Difficulties in Scripture Proof of Doctrine, 123 (2.) So much for ordinances and practices : next, con- sider how Doctrine will stand, if the said rule of interpre- tation is to hold. If the Eucharist is never distinctly called a Sacrifice, or Christian Ministers never called Priests, still, let me ask (as I have already done), is the Holy Ghost ever expressly called God in Scripture? Nowhere; we infer it from what is said then ; we compare parallel passages. If the words Altar, Absolution, or Succession, are not in Scripture (supposing it), neither is the word Trinity. Again : how do we know that the New Testament is inspired } does it anywhere declare this of itself.? no- where ; how^ then, do we know it } we infer it from the cir- cumstance that the very office of the Apostles who wrote it was to publish the Christian Revelation, and from the Old Testament being said by St. Paul to be inspired. Again : whence do Protestants derive their common notion, that every one may gain his knowledge of revealed truth from Scripture for himself t Again : consider whether the doctrine of the Atone- ment may not be explained away by those who explain away the doctrine of the Eucharist : if the expressions used concerning the latter are merely figurative, so may be those used of the former. Again : on how many texts does the doctrine of Origi- nal Sin rest, that is, the doctrine that we are individually born under God's displeasure, in consequence of the sin of Adam t on one or two. Again ; how do we prove the doctrine of justification by faith only } it is nowhere declared in Scripture. St. Paul does but speak of justification by faith, not by faith only, and St. James actually denies that it is by faith only. Vet we think right to ipfer, that there is a correct 1 24 Scripture and the Creed, sense in which it is by faith only ; though an Apostle has in so many words said just the contrary. Is any of the special Church doctrines about the power of Abso- lution, the Christian Priesthood, or the danger of sin after Baptism, so disadvantageously circumstanced in point of evidence as this, " articulus," as Luther called it, "stantis ut cadentis ecclesise " ? On the whole, then, I ask, on how many special or palmary texts do any of the doctrines or rites which we hold depend ? what doctrines or rites would be left to us, if we demanded the clearest and fullest evidence, before we believed anything ? what would the Gospel consist of? would there be any Revelation at all left ? Some all- important doctrines indeed at first sight certainly would remain in the New Testament, such as the divinity of Christ, the unity of God, the supremacy of divine grace, our election in Christ, the resurrection of the body, and eternal life or death to the righteous or sinners ; but little besides. Shall we give up the divinity of the Holy Ghost, original sin, the Atonement, the inspiration of the New Testament, united worship, the Sacraments, and Infant Baptism ? Let us do so. Well : — I will venture to say, that then we shall go on to find difficulties as regards those other doctrines, as the divinity of Christ, which at first sight seem to be in Scripture certainly ; they are only more clearly there than the others, not so clearly stated as to be secured from specious objections. We shall have difficulties about the meaning of the word " everlasting," as applied to punishment, about the com- patibility of divine grace with free-will, about the possi- bility of the resurrection of the body, and about the sense in which Christ is God. The inquirer who rejects a doc- trine which has but one text in its favour, on the ground that if it were important it would have more, may, even Difficulties tn Scripture Proof of Doctrine, 125 in a case when a doctrine is mentioned often, always find occasion to wonder that still it is not mentioned in this or that particular place, where it might be ex- pected. When he is pressed with such a text as St. Thomas's confession, " My Lord and my God," he will ask, But why did our Lord say but seven days before to St. Mary Magdalen, " I ascend to My Father and your Father, to My God and your God " } When he is pressed with St. Peter's confession, '* Lord, Thou knowest all things, — Thou knowest that I love Thee," he will ask, " But why does Christ say of Himself, that He does not know the last day, but only the Father ? " Indeed, I may truly say, the more arguments there are for a certain doctrine found in Scripture, the more objections will be found against it; so that, on the whole, after all, the Scripture evidence, even for the divinity of Christ, will be found in fact as little able to satisfy the cautious reasoner, when he is fairly engaged to discuss it, as that for Infant Baptism, great as is the difference of strength in the evidence for the one and for the other. And the history of these last centuries bears out this remark. I conclude, then, that there must be some fault some- where in this specious argument ; that it does not follow that a doctrine or rite is not divine, because it is not directly stated in Scripture; that there are somewise and unknown reasons for doctrines being, as we find them, not clearly stated there. To be sure, I might take the other alternative, and run the full length of scepticism, and openly deny that any doctrine or duty, whatever it is, is divine, which is not stated in Scripture beyond all contradiction and objection. But for many reasons I can- not get myself to do this, as I shall proceed to show. 126 a. The Difficulties of Latittidinarianism, NO one, I think, will seriously maintain, that any other definite religious system is laid down in Scripture at all more clearly than the Church system. It may be maintained, and speciously, that the Church system is not there, or that this or that particular doc- trine of some other system seems to be there more plainly than the corresponding Church doctrine ; but that Presbyterianism as a whole, or Independency as a whole, or the religion of Lutherans, Baptists, Wesleyans, or Friends, as a whole, is more clearly laid down in Scripture, and with fewer texts looking the other way — that any of these denominations has less difficulties to encounter than the Creed of the Church, — this I do not think can successfully be maintained. The arguments which are used to prove that the Church system is not in Scripture, may as cogently be used to prove that no system is in Scripture. If silence in Scripture, or ap- parent contrariety, is an argument against the Church system, it is an argument against system altogether. No system is on the surface of Scripture ; none, but has at times to account for the silence or the apparent opposition of Scripture as to particular portions of it I. This, then, is the choice of conclusions to which we are brought ; — either Christianity contains no definite mes- The Difficulties of Latitudinarianism, 127 sage, creed, revelation, system, or whatever other name we give it, nothing which can be made the subject of belief at all ; or^ secondly, though there really is a true creed or system in Scripture, still it is not on the surface of Scripture, but is found latent and implicit within it, and to be maintained only by indirect arguments, by comparison of texts, by inferences from what is said plainly, and by overcoming or resigning oneself to difficulties ; — or again, though there is a true creed or system revealed, it is not revealed in Scripture, but must be learned collaterally from other sources. I wish in- quirers to consider this statement steadily. I do not see that it can be disputed ; and if not, it is very important. I repeat it; we have a choice of three conclusions. Either there is no definite religious information given us by Christianity at all, or it is given in Scripture in an indirect and covert way, or it is indeed given, but not in Scripture. The first is the Latitudinarian view which has gained ground in this day ; the second is our own Anglican ground ; the third is the ground of the Roman Church. If then we will not content ourselves with merely probable, or (what we may be disposed to call) insufficient proofs of matters of faith and worship, we must become either utter Latitudinarians or Roman Catholics. If we will not submit to the notion of the doctrines of the Gospel being hidden under the text of Scripture from the view of the chance reader, we must submit to believe either that there are no doctrines at all in Christianity, or that the doctrines are not in Scripture, but elsewhere, as in Tradition. I know of no other alternative. Many men, indeed, will attempt to find a fourth way, thus : they would fain discern one or two doctrines in Scripture clearly, and no more ; or some generalized T28 Scripture and the Creed, form, yet not so much as a body of doctrine of any character. They consider that a certain message, consist- ing of one or two great and simple statements, makes up the whole of the Gospel, and that these are plainly in Scripture ; accordingly, that he who holds and acts upon these is a Christian, and ought to be acknowledged by all to be such, for in holding these he holds all that is necessary. These statements they sometimes call the essentials, the peculiar doctrines, the vital doctrines, the leading idea, the great truths of the Gospel, — and all this sounds very well ; but when we come to realize what is abstractedly so plausible, we are met by this insurmountable difficulty, that no great number of per- sons agree together what are these great truths, simple views, leading ideas, or peculiar doctrines of the Gospel. Some say that the doctrine of the Atonement is the leading idea ; some, the doctrine of spiritual influence ; some, that both together are the peculiar doctrines ; some, that love is all in all ; some, that the acknowledg- ment that Jesus is the Christ; and some, that the resur- rection from the dead ; some, that the announcement of the soul's immortality, is after all the essence of the Gospel, and all that need be believed. Moreover, since, as all parties must confess, the Catho- lic doctrine of the Trinity is not brought out in form upon the surface of Scripture, it follows either that it is not included in the leading idea, or that the leading idea is not on the surface. And if the doctrine of the Trinity is not to be accounted as one of the leading or funda- mental truths of Revelation, the keystone of the mys- terious system is lost ; and, that being lost, mystery will, in matter of fact, be found gradually to fade away from the Creed altogether ; that is, the notion of Christianity as being a revelation of new truths, will gradually fade Difficulties of L atitudinariamsm. 129 away, and the Gospel in course of time will be considered scarcely more than the republication of the law of na- ture. This, I think, will be found to be the historical progress and issue of this line of thought. It is but one shape of Latitudinarianism. If we will have it so, that the doctrines of Scripture should be on the surface of Scripture, though I may have my very definite notion what doctrines are on the surface, and you yours, and another his, yet you and he and I, though each of us in appearance competent to judge, though all serious men, earnest, and possessed of due attainments, nevertheless will not agree together what those doctrines are ; so that, practically, what I have said will come about in the end, — that (if we are candid) we shall be forced to allow, that there is no system, no creed, no doctrine at all lucidly and explicitly set forth in Scripture ; and thus we are brought to the result, which I have already pointed out : if we will not seek for revealed truth under the surface of Scripture, we must either give up seeking for it, or must seek for it in Tradition, — we must become Latitu- dinarians or Roman Catholics. 2. Now of these alternatives, the Roman idea or the Lati- tudinarian, the latter I do really conceive to be quite out of the question with every serious mind. The Latitudin- arian doctrine is this: that every man's view of Revealed Religion is acceptable to God, if he acts up to it ; that no one view is in itself better than another, or at least that we cannot tell which is the better. All that we have to do then is to act consistently with what we hold, and to value others if they act consistently with what they hold ; that to be consistent constitutes sincerity ; that where there is this evident sincerity, it is no matter 9 130 Scripture and the Creed, whether we profess to be Romanists or Protestants, Catholics or Heretics, Calvinists or Arminians, Angli- cans or Dissenters, High Churchmen or Puritans, Episco- palians or Independents, Wesleyans or Socinians. Such seems to be the doctrine of Latitude. Now, I can conceive such a view of the subject to be maintainable, supposing God had given us no Revelation, — though even then, (by the way,) and were we even left to the light of nature, belief in His existence and moral government would, one should think, at least be necessary to please Him. "He that cometh to God must beHeve that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them which diligently seek Him." * But however, not to press this point, one may conceive that, before God had actually spoken to us. He might accept as sufficient a sincere acting on religious opinions of whatever kind ; but that, after a Revelation is given, there is nothing to believe, nothing (to use an expressive Scripture word) to "hold," to "hold fast,*' that a message comes from God, and contains no subject-matter, or that, containing it (as it must do), it is not important to be received, and is not capable of being learned by any one who takes the proper means of learn- ing it, that there is in it nothing such, that we may de- pend on our impression of it to be the true impression, may feel we have really gained something, and continue in one and one only opinion about it, — all this is so ex- travagant, that I really cannot enter into the state of mind of a person maintaining it. I think he is not aware what he is saying. Why should God speak, unless He meant to say something t Why should He say it, unless He meant us to hear.? Why should we be made to hear if it mattered not whether we accepted it or no ? What the doptrine is, is another and distinct (juestion \ but ^ Heb, xi. 6, Difficulties of Latitudinarianism. 1 3 1 that there is some doctrine revealed, and that it is re- vealed in order that it may be received, and that it really is revealed, (I mean, not so hidden that it is a mere matter of opinion, a mere chance, what is true and what is not, and that there are a number of opposite modes of holding it, one as good as another, but) that it is plain in one and the same substantial sense to all who sincerely and suitably seek for it, and that God is better pleased when we hold it than when we do not, — all this seems a truism. Again, where it is given us, whether entirely in Scripture, or partly elsewhere, — this too is another and secondary question ; though, if some doc- trine or other is really given, that it must be given some- where, is a proposition which cannot be denied, with- out some eccentricity or confusion of mind, or without some defect in seriousness and candour. I say, first, if there be a Revelation, there must be some essential doctrine proposed by it to our faith ; and, if so, the question at once follows, what is it, and how much, and w/iere? and we are forthwith involved in researches of some kind or other, somewhere or other ; for the doctrine is not written on the sun. For reasons such as the above, I really cannot con- ceive a serious man, who realized what he was speaking about, to be a consistent Latitudinarian. He always will reserve from the general proscription his own favourite doctrine, whatever it is ; and then holding it, he will be at once forced into the difficulty, which is ours also, but which he would fain make ours only and not his, that of stating clearly what this doctrine of his is, and what are those grounds of it, such, as to enable him to take in just so much of dogmatic teaching as he does take in, and nothing more, to hold so much firmly, and to treat all the rest as comparatively unimportant. 132 Scripture and the Creed, Revelation implies a something revealed, and what is revealed is imperative on our faith, because it is revealed. Revelation implies imperativeness ; it limits in its very notion our liberty of thought, because it limits our liberty of error, for error is one kind of thought. If then I am not allowed to hold that Scripture, however implicit in its teaching, is really dogmatic, I shall be led to be, not a Latitudinarian, but a Roman Catholic. You tell me, that " no creed is to be found in Scripture, — />^^ The Creed is no opinion in the mind, but a form of words pronounced many times a day, at every baptism, at every communion, by every member of the Church :— is it not common property as much as Scripture } Once more ; if Church doctrine is but a hazy opinion, how is it there can be such a thing at all as Catholic consent about it ? If, in spite of its being subjective to the mind, Europe, Asia, and Africa could agree together in doctrine in the fourth and fifth centuries (to say nothing of earlier times), why should its subjective character be an antecedent objection to a similar agree- ment in it between the fourth century and the first ? And does not this agreement show that we are able to tell when we agree together, and when we do not ? Is it a mere accident, and perhaps a mistake, that Christians JJiJ/iculties 0/ yewish and Christian Faith, 243 then felt sure that they agreed together in creed, and we now feel sure that we do not agree together ? Granting, then, that external facts can be discriminated in a way in which opinions cannot be, yet the Church doctrines are not mere opinions, but ordinances also : and though the books of Scripture themselves are an external fact, yet they are not all of them witnessed by all writers till a late age, and their canonicity and in- spiration are but doctrines, not facts, and open to the objections, whatever they are, to which doctrines lie open. 3- And now, having said as much as is necessary on these subjects, I will make some remarks on the state of the case as I have represented it, and thus shall bring to an end the train of thought upon which I have been engaged. Let us suppose it proved, then, as I consider it has been proved, that many difficulties are connected with the evidence for the Canon, that we might have clearer evidence for it than we have ; and again, let us grant that there are many difficulties connected with the evidence for the Church doctrines, that they might be more clearly contained in Scripture, nay, in the ex- tant writings of the first three centuries, than they are. This being assumed, I observe as follows : — I. There is something very arresting and impressive in the fact, that there should be these difficulties attend- ing those two great instruments of religious truth which we possess. We are all of us taught from the Bible, and from the Creed or the Prayer Book : it is from these that we get our knowledge of God. We are sure they contain a doc- trine which is from Him. We are sure of it ; but how do we know it ? We are sure the doctrine is from Him, and 244 Scripture and the Creed, (I hesitate not to say) by a supernatural divinely inspired assurance; but how do we know the doctrine is from Him? When we go to inquire into the reasons in argument, we find that the Creed or the Prayer Book with its various doctrines rests for its authority upon the Bible, and that these might be more clearly stated in the Bible than they are ; and that the Bible, with its various books, rests for its authority on ancient testimony, and that its books might have been more largely and strongly attested than they are. I say, there is something very subduing to a Christian in this remarkable coincidence, which can- not be accidental. We have reason to believe that God, our Maker and Governor, has spoken to us by Revela- tion ; yet why has He not spoken more distinctly } He has given us doctrines which are but obscurely gathered from Scripture, and a Scripture which is but obscurely gathered from history. It is not a single fact, but a double fact ; it is a coincidence. We have two inform- ants, and both leave room, if we choose, for doubt. God's ways surely are not as our ways. 2. This is the first reflection which rises in the mind on the state of the case. The second is this : that, most remarkable it is, the Jews were left in the same uncer- tainty about Christ, in which we are about His doctrine. The precept, *' Search the Scriptures," and the com- mendation of the Beroeans, who " searched the Scriptures daily," surely implies that divine truth was not on the surface of the Old Testament. We do not search for things which are before us, but for what we have lost or have to find. The whole system of the prophecies left the Jews (even after Christ came) where we are — in un- certainty. The Sun of Righteousness did not at once clear up the mists from the Prophetic Word. It was a dark saying to the many, after He came, as well as Difficulties of Jewish and Christiari Faith. 245 before. It is not to be denied that there were and are many real difficulties in the way of the Jews admitting that Jesus Christ is their Messiah. The Old Testament certainly does speak of the Messiah as a temporal monarch, and a conqueror of this world. We are accus- tomed to say that the prophecies must be taken spiritually ; and rightly do we say so. True : yet does not this look like an evasion, to a Jew 1 Is it not much more like an evasion, though it be not, than to say (what the Church does say and rightly) that rites remain, though Jewish rites are done away, because our rites are not Jewish, but spiritual, gifted with the Spirit, channels of grace } The Old Testament certainly spoke as if, when the Church expanded into all nations, still those nations were to be inferior to the Jews, even if ad- mitted into the Church ; and so St. Peter understood it till he had the vision. Yet when the Jews complained, instead of being soothed and consoled, they were met with language such as this : " Friend, I do thee no wrong. ... Is it not lawful for Me to do what I will with Mine own } Is thine eye evil because I am good t " And, " Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God } Shall the thing formed say to Him that formed it. Why hast Thou made me thus t " * Again ; why were the Jews discarded from God's election } for keeping to their Law. Why, this was the very thing they were told to do, the very thing which, if not done, was to be their ruin. Consider Moses words : " If thou wilt not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that thou maycst fear this glorious and fearful Name, The Lord thy God ; then the Lord will make thy plagues wonderful, and the plagues of thy seed, even great plagues, and of • Matt XX. 13—15. Rom. ix. ao. 246 Scripture and the Creed. long continuance, and sore sicknesses, and of long con- tinuance." * Might they not, or rather did they not, bring passages like this as an irrefragable argument against Christianity, that they were told to give up their Law, that Law which was the charter of their religious prosperity? Might not their case seem a hard one, judging by the surface of things, and without refer- ence to " the hidden man of the heart " ? We know how to answer this objection ; we say, Christianity lay beneath the letter ; that the letter slew those who for whatever cause went by it ; that when Christ came, He shed a light on the sacred text and brought out its secret meaning. Now, is not this just the case I have been stating, as regards Catholic doctrines, or rather a more difficult case ? The doctrines of the Church are not hidden so deep in the New Testament, as the Gospel doctrines are hidden in the Old ; but they are hidden ; and I am persuaded that were men but consistent, who oppose the Church doctrines as being unscriptural, they would vindicate the Jews for rejecting the Gospel. Much might be said on this subject : I will but add, by way of specimen, how such interpretations as our Lord's of " I am the God of Abraham," etc., would, were we not accustomed to them, startle and offend rea- soning men. Is it not much further from the literal force of the words, than the doctrine of the Apostolical Succession is from the words, " I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world " ? In the one case we argue, " Therefore, the Apostles are in one sense now on earth, because Christ says ' with you alway ; ' " in the other, Christ Himself argues, " therefore in one sense the bodies of the patriarchs are still alive ; for God calls Himself ' their God.' " We say, " therefore th^ Apostles • Deut. xxviii. 58, 59. Difficulties of Jewish and Christian Faith, 247' live in their successors." Christ implies, "therefore the body never died, and therefore it will rise again." His own divine mouth hereby shows us that doctrines may be in Scripture, though they require a multitude of links to draw them thence. It must be added that the Sadducees did profess (what they would call) a plain and simple creed ; they recurred to Moses and went by Moses, and rejected all additions to what was on the surface of the Mosaic writings, and thus they rejected what really was in the mind of Moses, though not on his lips. They denied the Resurrection ; they had no idea that it was contained in the books of Moses. Here, then, is another singular instance of the same procedure on the part of Divine Providence. That Gos- pel which was to be " the glory of His people Israel,"* was a stumblingblock to them, as for other reasons, so especially because it was not on the surface of the Old Testament. And all the compassion (if I may use the word) that they received from the Apostles in their per- plexity was, " because they knew Him not, nor yet the voice of the Prophets which are read every Sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in condemning Him."f Or again: "Well spake the Holy Ghost by Isaias the prophet unto our fathers, saying, Go unto this people, and say. Hearing, ye shall hear, and shall not under- stand," X etc. Or when the Apostles are oiildest : " I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsman according to the flesh ; " or " I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge." § Moreover, it is observable that the record of their anxiety is preserved *Luke ii. 32. % lb. xxviii. 25, 26. f Acts xiii. 27. § Rom. ix. 2,3: x, :?, 248 Scripture and the Creed, to us ; an anxiety which many of us would call just and rational,- many would pity, but which the inspired writers treat with a sort of indignation and severity. *' Then came the Jews round about Him, and said unto Him, How long dost Thou make us to doubt?"* or more literally, " How long dost Thou keep our soul in sus- pense ? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly!' Christ answers by referring to His works, and by declaring that His sheep do hear and know Him, and follow Him. If any one will seriously consider the intercourse between our Lord and the Pharisees, he will see that, not denying their immorality and miserable pride, still they had reason for complaining (as men now speak) that " the Gospel was not preached to them," — that the Truth was not placed before them clearly, and fully, and uncom- promisingly, and intelligibly, and logically, — that they were bid to believe on weak arguments and fanciful de- ductions, t This then, I say, is certainly a most striking coincidence in addition. Whatever perplexity any of us may feel about the evidence of Scripture or the evidence of Church doctrine, we see that such perplexity is represented in Scripture as the lot of the Jews too ; and this circum- stance, while it shows that it is a sort of law of God's providence, and thereby affords an additional evidence of the truth of the Revealed System by showing its harmony, also serves to quiet and console, and moreover to awe and warn us. Doubt and difficulty, as regards evidence, seems our lot ; the simple question is. What is our duty under it ? Difficulty is our lot, as far as we take on our- selves to inquire ; the multitude are not able to inquire, and so escape the trial ; but when men inquire, this trial at once comes upon them. And surely we may use the • John X. 24. t [This is too strongly worded.] Difficulties oj Jewish and Chrisiiajt Faith, 249 parable of the Talents to discover what our duty is under the trial. Do not those who refuse to go by the hints and probable meaning of Scripture hide their talent in a napkin ? and will they be excused ? 3. Now in connexion with what has been said, observe the singular coincidence, or rather appositeness, of what Scripture enjoins, as to the duty of going by faitk in religious matters. The difficulties which exist in the evidence give a deep meaning to that characteristic enunciation. Scripture is quite aware of those difficulties. Objections can be brought against its own inspiration, its canonicity, its doctrines in our case, as in the case of the Jews against the Messiahship of Jesus Christ. It knows them all : it has provided against them, by re- cognizing them. It says, " Believe," because it knows that, unless we believe, there is no means of our arriving at a knowledge of divine things. If we will doubt, that is, if we will not allow evidence to be sufficient for us which mainly results, considered in its details, in a balance preponderating on the side of Revelation ; if we will determine that no evidence is enough to prove re- vealed doctrine but what is simply overpowering ; if we will not go by evidence in which there are (so to say) a score of reasons for Revelation, yet one or two against it, we cannot be Christians ; we shall miss Christ either in His inspired Scriptures, or in His doctrines, or in His ordi- nances. 4. To conclude : our difficulty and its religious solution are contained in the sixth chapter of St. John. After our Lord had declared what all who heard seemed to feel to be a hard doctrine, some in surprise and offence left Him. Our Lord said to the Twelve most tenderly, " Will ye also go away ? " St, Peter promptly answeced, 250 Scripture and the Creed, No : but observe on what ground he put it : " Lord, to ivhom shall we go?" He did not bring forward evi- dences of our Lord's mission, though he knew of such. He knew of such in abundance, in the miracles which our Lord wrought : but, still, questions might be raised about the so-called miracles of others, such as of Simon the sorcerer, or of vagabond Jews, or about the force of the evidence from miracles itself. This was not the evidence on which he rested personally, but this, — that if Christ were not to be trusted, there was nothing in the world to be trusted ; and this was a conclusion repugnant both to his reason and to his heart. He had within him ideas of greatness and goodness, holiness and eternity, — he had a love of them — he had an instinctive hope and longing after their possession. Nothing could con- vince him that this unknown good was a dream. Divine life, eternal life was the object which his soul, as far as it had learned to realize and express its wishes, supremely longed for. In Christ he found what he wanted. He says, " Lord, to whom shall we go ? " implying he must go somewhere. Christ had asked, *^ Will ye also go azuay?" He only asked about Peter's leaving Himself; but in Peter's thought to leave Him was to go somewhere else. He only thought of leaving Him by taking another god. That negative state of neither believing nor disbelieving, neither acting this way nor that, which is so much in esteem now, did not occur to his mind as possible. The fervent Apostle ignored the existence of scepticism. With him, his course was at best but a choice of difficulties — of difficulties perhaps, but still a choice. He knew of no course without a choice, — choice he must make. Somewhither he must go : whither else } If Christ could deceive him, to whom should he go ? Christ's ways might be dark, His words Difficulties of Jewish and Christian Faith. 251 often perplexing, but still he found in Him what he found nowhere else, — amid difficulties, a realization of his inward longings. " Thou hast the words of eternal life." So far he saw. He might have misgivings at times ; he might have permanent and in themselves insuperable objections ; still, in spite of such objections, in spite of the assaults of unbelief, on the whole, he saw that in Christ which was positive, real, and satisfying. He saw it nowhere else. " Thou," he says, " hast the words of eternal life ; and we have believed and have known that thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God." As if he said, "We will stand by what we believed and knew yesterday, — what we believed and knew the day before. A sudden gust of new doctrines, a sudden inroad of new perplexities, shall not unsettle us. We have believed, we have known : we cannot collect together all the evidence, but this is the abiding deep conviction of our minds. We feel that it is better, safer, truer, pleasanter, mor 2 blessed to cling to Thy feet, O merciful Saviour, than to leave Thee. Thou canst not deceive us : it is impossible. We will hope in Thee against hope, and believe in Thee against doubt, and obey Thee in spite of gloom." Now what are the feelings I have described but the love of Christ ? Thus love is the parent of faith.* We * [To say that ** love is the parent of faith " is true, if by *' love " is meant, not evangelical charity, the theological virtue, but that desire for the knowledge and drawing towards the service of our Maker, which precedes religious conversion. Such is the main outline, personally and historically, of the inward acceptance of Revelation on the part of individuals, and does not at all exclude, but actually reqa.res, the exercise of Reason, and the presence of grounds for believing, as an incidental and necessary part of the process. The preliminaiy, called in the text "love," but more exactly, a "pia affectio," or " bona voluntas," does not stand in antagonism or in contrast to Reason, but is a sovereign con i ition without which Reason cannot be brought to bear upon the great work in liand. — Vid. Univ. Serm. xii., ao.J 2^2 Scripture and the Creed. believe in things we see not from love of them : if we did not love, we should not believe. Faith is reliance on the word of another ; the word of another is in itself a faint evidence compared with that of sight or reason. It is influential only when we cannot do without it. We cannot do without it when it is our informant about things which we cannot do without. Things we cannot do without, are things which we desire. They who feel they cannot do without the next world, go by faith (not that sight would not be better), but because they have no other means of knowledge to go by. " To whom shall they go 1 " If they will not believe the word preached to them, what other access have they to the next world t Love of God led St. Peter to follow Christ, and love of Christ leads men now to love and follow the Church, as His representative and voice. Let us then say, If we give up the Gospel, as we have received it in the Church, to whom shall we go } It has the words of eternal life in it : where else are they to be found } Is there any other Religion to choose but that of the Church 1 Shall we go to Mahometanism or Pagan- ism .'' But we may seek some heresy or sect : true, we may ; but why are they more sure } are they not a part, while the Church is the whole ? Why is the part true, if the whole is not .'' Why is not that evidence trustworthy for the whole, which is trustworthy for a part } Sectaries commonly give up the Church doctrines, and go by the Church's Bible ; but if the doctrines cannot be proved true, neither can the Bible ; they stand or fall together. If we begin, we must soon make an end. On what con- sistent principle can I give up part and keep the rest } No : I see a work before me, which professes to be the work of that God whose being and attributes I feel with- in me to be real. Why should not this great sight be, — Difficulties of Jewish and Christian Faith. 253 what it professes to be — His presence ? Why should not the Church be divine ? The burden of proof surely is on the other side. I will accept her doctrines, and her rites, and her Bible, — not one, and not the other, but all, — til) I have clear proof, which is an impossibility, that she is mistaken. It is, I feel, God's will that I should do so ; and besides, I love all that belong to her, — I love her Bible, her doctrines, her rites, and therefore I believe. September, 1838. 254 IV. THE TAMWORTH READING ROOM. {Addressed to the Editor of the Times. By Catholicus.) Secular Knowledge in contrast with Religion. Sir, — Sir Robert Peel's position in the country, and his high character, render it impossible that his words and deeds should be other than public property. This alone would furnish an apology for my calling the atten- tion of your readers to the startling language, which many of them doubtless have already observed, in the Address which this most excellent and distinguished man has lately delivered upon the establishment of a Library and Reading-room at Tamworth ; but he has superseded the need of apology altogether, by proceeding to present it to the public in the form of a pamphlet. His speech, then, becomes important, both from the name and the express act of its author. At the same time, I must allow that he has not published it in the fulness in which it was spoken. Still it seems to me right and fair, or rather imperative, to animadvert upon it as it has appeared in your columns, since in that shape it will have the widest circulation. A public man must not claim to harangue the whole world in newspapers, and then to offer his second thoughts to such as choose to buy them at a bookseller's. Secular Knowledge not Religion, 255 I shall surprise no one who has carefully read Sir Robert's Address, and perhaps all who have not, by stating my conviction, that, did a person take it up without looking at the heading, he would to a certainty set it down as a production of the years 1827 and 1828, — the scene Gower Street, the speaker Mr. Brougham or Dr. Lushington, and the occasion, the laying the first stone, or the inauguration, of the then-called London University. I profess myself quite unable to draw any satisfactory line of difference between the Gower Street and the Tamworth Exhibition, except, of course, that Sir Robert's personal religious feeling breaks out in his Address across his assumed philosophy. I say assumed, I might say affected ; — for I think too well of him to believe it genuine. On the occasion in question. Sir Robert gave expres- sion to a theory of morals and religion, which of course, in a popular speech, was not put out in a very dogmatic form, but which, when analyzed and fitted together, reads somewhat as follows : — Human nature, he seems to say, if left to itself, becomes sensual and degraded. Uneducated men live in the indulgence of their passions ; or, if they are merely taught to read, they dissipate and debase their minds by trifling or vicious publications. Education is the cultivation of the intellect and heart, and Useful Know- ledge is the great instrument of education. It is the parent of virtue, the nurse of religion ; it exalts man to his highest perfection, and is the sufficient scope of his most earnest exertions. Physical and moral science rouses, transports, exalts, enlarges, tranquillizes, and satisfies the mind. Its at- tractiveness obtains a hold over us ; the excitement attending it supersedes grosser excitements ; it makes 256 The Tammorili Reading Roo?n, us know our duty, and thereby enables us to do it ; by taking the mind off itself, it destroys anxiety ; and by providing objects of admiration, it soothes and subdues us. And, in addition, it is a kind of neutral ground, on which men of every shade of politics and religion may meet together, disabuse each other of their prejudices, form intimacies, and secure co-operation. This, it is almost needless to say, is the very theory, expressed temperately, on which Mr. Brougham once expatiated in the Glasgow and London Universities. Sir R. Peel, indeed, has spoken with somewhat of his characteristic moderation ; but for his closeness in sen- timent to the Brougham of other days, a few parallels from their respective Discourses will be a sufficient voucher. For instance, Mr. Brougham, in his Discourses upon Science, and in his Pursuit of Knowledge under Diffi- culties,* wrote about the " pure delight " of physical knowledge, of its " pure gratification," of its " tendency to purify and elevate man's nature," of its "elevating and refining it," of its " giving a dignity and importance to the enjoyment of life." Sir Robert, pursuing the idea, shows us its importance even in death, observing, that physical knowledge supplied the thoughts from which ** a great experimentalist professed in his last illness to derive some pleasure and some consolation, when most other sources of consolation and pleasure were closed to him." Mr. Brougham talked much and eloquently of "the sweetness of knowledge," and "the charms of philosophy," of students "smitten with the love of knowledge," of ♦ /^This latter work is wrongly ascribed to Lord Brougham in this passage. It is, however, of the Brougham school.] Secular Knowledge not Religion. 257 " wooing truth with the unwearied ardour of a lover!' o^ " keen and overpowering emotion, of ecstasy',' of " the absorbing /<2jj-/^« of knowledge/' of "the strength of the passion, and the exquisite pleasure of its gratification^ And Sir Robert, in less glowing language, but even in a more tender strain than Mr. Brougham, exclaims, " If I can only persuade you to enter upon that delightful path, I am sanguine enough to believe that there will be opened to you gradual charms and temptations which will induce you to persevere." Mr. Brougham naturally went on to enlarge upon " bold and successful adventures in the pursuit ;" — such, perhaps, as in the story of Paris and Helen, or Hero and Leander ; of daring ambition in its course to greatness," of " enterprising spirits," and their " brilliant feats," of "adventurers of the world of intellect," and of "the illustrious vanquishers of fortune." And Sir Robert, not to be outdone, echoes back " aspirations for knowledge and distinction," "simple determination of overcoming difficulties," " premiums on skill and intel- ligence," " mental activity," " steamboats and railroads," " producer and consumer," " spirit of inquiry afloat ; " and at length he breaks out into almost conventical eloquence, crying, " Every newspaper teems with notices of publications written upon popular principles, detailing all the recent discoveries of science, and their connexion with improvements in arts and manufactures. Let me earnestly entreat you not to neglect the opportunity which we are now willing to afford you ! // will not be our fault if the ample page of knowledge, rich with the spoils of time, is not unrolled to you ! We tell you" etc., etc. Mr. Brougham pronounces that a man by "learning truths wholly new to him," and by "satisfying himself of the grounds on which known truths rest," "will enjoy 17 258 The Tamworth Reading Room. a proud consciousness of having, by his own exertions, become a wiser, and therefore a more exalted creature/' Sir Robert runs abreast of this great sentiment. He tells us, in words which he adopts as his own, that a man "in becoming wiser will become better:'' he will "rise at once in the scale of intellectual and moral existence, and by being accustomed to such contem- plations, he will feel the moral dignity of his nature exalted." Mr. Brougham, on his inauguration at Glasgow, spoke to the ingenuous youth assembled on the occasion, of " the benefactors of mankind, when they rest from their pious labours, looking down upon the blessings with which their toils and sufferings have clothed the scene of their former existence ; " and in his Discourse upon Science declared it to be " no mean reward of our labour to become acquainted with the prodigious genius of those who have almost exalted the nature of man above his destined sphere ; " and who " hold a station apart, rising over all the great teachers of mankind, and spoken of reverently, as if Newton and La Place were not the names of mortal men." Sir Robert cannot, of course, equal this sublime flight ; but he succeeds in calling Newton and others " those mighty spirits which have made the greatest (though imperfect) advances towards the understanding of ' the Divine Nature and Power.' " Mr. Brougham talked at Glasgow about putting to flight the " evil spirits of tyranny and persecution which haunted the long night now gone down the sky," and about men " no longer suffering themselves to be led blindfold in ignorance ; " and in his Pursuit of Knowledge he speaks of Pascal having, " under the influence of certain religious views, during a period of Secular Knowledge not Religion. 259 depression^ conceived scientific pursuits " to be little better than abuse of his time and faculties." Sir Robert, fainter in tone, but true to the key, warns his hearers, — " Do not be deceived by the sneers that you hear against knowledge, which are uttered by men who want to depress yoUy and keep you depressed to the level of their own contented ignorance!^ Mr. Brougham laid down at Glasgow the infidel principle, or, as he styles it, "the great truth," which '* has gone forth to all the ends of the earth, that man shall no more render account to man for his belief, over which he has himself no control." And Dr. Lushington applied it in Gower Street to the College then and there rising, by asking, " Will any one argue for establishing a monopoly to be enjoyed by the few who are of one denomination of the Christian Church only ? " And he went on to speak of the association and union of all without exclusion or restriction, of "friendships cementing the bond of charity, and softening the asperities which ignorance and separatio?th.2LVQios\.QrQd" Long may it be before Sir Robert Peel professes the great principle itself ! even though, as the following passages show, he is inconsistent enough to think highly of its application in the culture of the mind. He speaks, for instance, of " this preliminary and fundamental rule, that no works of controversial divinity shall enter into the library (applause)," — of " the institution being open to all per- sons of all descriptions, without reference to political opinions, or religious creed'' — and of " an edifice in which men of all political opinions and all religious feelings may unite in the furtherance of knowledge, without the asperities of party feeling." Now, that British society should consist of persons of different religions, is this a positive standing evil, to be endured at best as una void- 26o The Taniworth Reading Room. able, or a topic of exultation ? Of exultation, answers Sir Robert ; the greater differences the better, the more the merrier. So we must interpret his tone. It is reserved for few to witness the triumph of their own opinions ; much less to witness it in the instance of their own direct and personal opponents. Whether the Lord Brougham of this day feels all that satisfaction and inward peace which he attributes to success of what- ever kind in intellectual efforts, it is not for me to decide ; but that he has achieved, to speak in his own style, a mighty victory, and is leading in chains behind his chariot-wheels, a great captive, is a fact beyond question. Such is the reward in 1841 for unpopularity in 1S27. What, however, is a boast to Lord Brougham, is in the same proportion a slur upon the fair fame of Sir Robert Peel, at least in the judgment of those who have hitherto thought well of him. Were there no other reason against the doctrine propounded in the Address which has been the subject of these remarks, (but I hope to be allowed an opportunity of assigning others,) its parentage would be a grave primd facie difficulty in receiving it. It is, indeed, most melancholy to see so sober and experienced a man practising the antics of one of the wildest performers of this wild age ; and taking off the tone, manner, and gestures of the versatile ex-Chancellor, with a versatility almost equal to his own. Yet let him be assured that the task of rivalling such a man is hopeless, as well as unprofitable. No one can equal the great sophist. Lord Brougham is inimi- table in his own line. 26l 2. Secular Knowledge not the Principle of Moral Improvement, A DISTINGUISHED Conservative statesman tells us from the town-hall of Tamworththat "in becoming wiser a man will become better ; " meaning by wiser more conversant with the facts and theories of physical science ; and that such a man will " rise at once in the scale of intellectual and moral existence." "That," he adds, "is my belief" He avows, also, that the fortunate individual whom he is describing, by being " accustomed to such contempla- tions, will feel the moral dignity of his 7tature exalted^ He speaks also of physical knowledge as " being the means of useful occupation and rational recreation ; " of " the pleasures of knowledge " superseding " the indulg- ence of sensual appetite," and of its "contributing to the intellectual and moral improvement of the commu- nity." Accordingly, he very consistently wishes it to be set before " the female as well as the male portion of the population ; " otherwise, as he truly observes^, " great injustice would be done to the well-educated and virtuous women " of the place. They are to " have equal power and equal influence with others." It will be difficult to exhaust the reflections which rise in the mind on reading avowals of this nature. The first question which obviously suggests itself is how these wonderful moral effects are to be wrought under the instrumentality of the physical sciences. Can 262 The Tamwortk Readi nor Room t> the process be analyzed and drawn out, or does it act like a dose or a charm which comes into general use empirically ? Does Sir Robert Peel mean to say, that whatever be the occult reasons for the result, so it is ; you have but to drench the popular mind with physics, and moral and religious advancement follows on the whole, in spite of individual failures ? Yet where has the experiment been tried on so large a scale as to justify such anticipations ? Or rather, does he mean, that, from the nature of the case, he who is imbued with science and literature, unless adverse influences inter- fere, cannot but be a better man ? It is natural and becoming to seek for some clear idea of the meaning of so dark an oracle. To know is one thing, to do is another ; the two things are altogether distinct. A man knows he should get up in the morning, — he lies a-bed ; he knows he should not lose his temper, yet he cannot keep it. A labouring man knows he should not go to the ale-house, and his wife knows she should not filch when she goes out charing ; but, nevertheless, in these cases, the consciousness of a duty is not all one with the performance of it. There are, then, large families of instances, to say the least, in which men may become wiser, without becoming better ; what, then, is the meaning of this great maxim in the mouth of its pro- mulgators ? Mr. Bentham would answer, that the knowledge which carries virtue along with it, is the knowledge how to take care of number one — a clear appreciation of what is pleasurable, what painful, and what promotes the one and prevents the other. An uneducated man is ever mistaking his own interest, and standing in the way of his own true enjoyments. Useful Knowledge is that which tends to make us more useful to ourselves ; — a Nor the Principle of Moral Improvement, 263 most definite and intelligible account of the matter, and needing no explanation. But it would be a great injustice, both to Lord Brougham and to Sir Robert, to suppose, when they talk of Knowledge being Virtue, that they are Benthamizing. Bentham had not a spark of poetry in him ; on the contrary, there is much of high aspiration, generous sentiment, and impassioned feeling in the tone of Lord Brougham and Sir Robert. They speak of knowledge as something " pulchrum," fair and glorious, exalted above the range of ordinary humanity, and so little connected with the personal interest of its votaries, that, though Sir Robert does obiter talk of improved modes of draining, and the chemical properties of manure, yet he must not be supposed to come short of the lofty enthusiasm of Lord Brougham, who expressly panegyrizes certain ancient philosophers who gave up riches, retired into solitude, or embraced a life of travel, smit with a sacred curiosity about physical or mathema- tical truth. Here Mr. Bentham, did it fall to him to offer a criticism, doubtless would take leave to inquire whether such language was anything better than a fine set of words " signifying nothing," — flowers of rhetoric, which bloom, smell sweet, and die. But it is impossible to suspect so grave and practical a man as Sir Robert. Peel of using words literally without any meaning at all ; and though I think at best they have not a very profound meaning, yet, such as it is, we ought to attempt to draw it out. Now, without using exact theological language, we may surely take it for granted, from the experience of facts, that the human mind is at best in a very unformed or disordered state ; passions and conscience, likings and reason, conflicting, — might rising against right, with the prospect of things getting worse. Under these circum- 264 The Tamworth Reacting Room, stances, what is it that the School of philosophy in which Sir Robert has enrolled himself proposes to accomplish ? Not a victory of the mind over itself — not the supremacy of the law — not the reduction of the rebels — not the unity of our complex nature — not an harmonizing of the chaos — but the mere lulling of the passions to rest by turning the course of thought ; not a change of character, but a mere removal of temptation. This should be carefully observed. When a husband is gloomy, or an old woman peevish and fretful, those who are about them do all they can to keep dangerous topics and causes of offence out of the way, and think themselves lucky, if, by such skilful management, they get through the day without an outbreak. When a child cries, the nurserymaid dances it about, or points to the pretty black horses out of window, or shows how ashamed poll-parrot or poor puss must be of its tantarums. Such is the sort of prescrip- tion which Sir Robert Peel offers to the good people of Tamworth. He makes no pretence of subduing the giant nature, in which we were born, of smiting the loins of the domestic enemies of our peace, of overthrowing passion and fortifying reason ; he does but offer to bribe the foe for the nonce with gifts which will avail for that purpose just so long as they will avail, and no longer. This was mainly the philosophy of the great Tully, except when it pleased him to speak as a disciple of the Porch. Cicero handed the recipe to Brougham, and Brougham has passed it on to Peel. If we examine the old Roman's meaning in " O philosophia, vitce dux,'' it was neither more nor less than this ; — that, while we were thinking of philosophy, we were not thinking of anything else ; we did not feel grief, or anxiety, or passion, or ambition, or hatred all that time, and the only point was to keep thinking of it. How to keep thinking of it was Nor J he Prmciple of Moral Improvement. 265 extra artem. If a man was in grief, he was to be amused ; if disappointed, to be excited ; if in a rage, to be soothed ; if in love, to be roused to the pursuit of glory. No inward change was contemplated, but a change of exter- nal objects ; as if we were all White Ladies or Undines, our moral life being one of impulse and emotion, not subjected to laws, not consisting in habits, not capable of growth. When Cicero was outwitted by Caesar, he solaced himself with Plato ; when he lost his daughter, he wrote a treatise on Consolation. Such, too, was the philosophy of that Lydian city, mentioned by the his- torian, who in a famine played at dice to stay their stomachs. And such is the rule of life advocated by Lord Brougham; and though, of course, he protests that know- ledge " must invigorate the mind as well as entertain it, and refine and elevate the character, while it gives listless- ness and weariness their most agreeable excitement and relaxation," yet his notions of vigour and elevation, when analyzed, will be found to resolve themselves into a mere preternatural excitement under the influence of some stimulating object, or the peace which is attained by there being nothing to quarrel with. He speaks of phi- losophers leaving the care of their estates, or declining public honours, from the greater desirableness of Know- ledge ; envies the shelter enjoyed in the University of Glasgow from the noise and bustle of the world ; and, apropos of Pascal and Cowper, " so mighty," says he, ** is the power of intellectual occupation, to make the heart forget, for the time, its most prevailing griefs, and to change its deepest gloom to sunshine." Whether Sir Robert Peel meant all this, which others before him have meant, it is impossible to say ; but I will be bound, il he did not mean this, he meant nothing 266 The Tamworth Reading Room. else, and his words will certainly insinuate this meaning, wherever a reader is not content to go without any meaning at all. They will countenance, with his high authority, what in one form or other is a chief error of the day, in very distinct schools of opinion, — that our true excellence comes not from within, but from without ; not wrought out through personal struggles and suffer- ings, but following upon a passive exposure to influences over which we have no control. They will countenance the theory that diversion is the instrument of improve- ment, and excitement the condition of right action ; and whereas diversions cease to be diversions if they are con- stant, and excitements by their very nature have a crisis and run through a course, they will tend to make novelty ever in request, and will set the great teachers of morals upon the incessant search after stimulants and sedatives, by which unruly nature may, pro re natd, be kept in order. Hence, be it observed. Lord Brougham, in the last quoted sentence, tells us, with much accuracy of state- ment, that " intellectual occupation made the heart " of Pascal or Cowper "for the time forget its griefs." He frankly offers us a philosophy of expedients : he shows us how to live by medicine. Digestive pills half an hour before dinner, and a posset at bedtime at the best ; and at the worst, dram-drinking and opium, — the very remedy against broken hearts, or remorse of conscience, which is in request among the many, in gin-palaces not intellectual. And if these remedies be but of temporary effect at the utmost, more commonly they will have no effect at all. Strong liquors, indeed, do for a time succeed in their object ; but who was ever consoled in real trouble by the small beer of literature or science } " Sir," said Rasselas, to the philosopher who had lost his daughter. Nor the Principle of Moral Improvement. 267 " mortality is an event by which a wise man can never be surprised." "Young man," answered the mourner, " you speak like one that hath never felt the pangs of separation. What comfort can truth or reason afford me } of what effect are they now but to tell me that my daughter will not be restored .?" Or who was ever made more humble or more benevolent by being told, as the same practical moralist words it, " to concur with the great and unchangeable scheme of universal felicity, and co-operate with the general dispensation and tendency of the present system of things " t Or who was made to do any secret act of self-denial, or was steeled against pain, or peril, by all the lore of the infidel La Place, or those other " mighty spirits " which Lord Brougham and Sir Robert eulogize ? Or when was a choleric tempera- ment ever brought under by a scientific King Canute planting his professor's chair before the rising waves t And as to the "keen" and "ecstatic" pleasures which Lord Brougham, not to say Sir Robert, ascribes to in- tellectual pursuit and conquest, I cannot help thinking that in that line they will find themselves outbid in the market by gratifications much closer at hand, and on a level with the meanest capacity. Sir Robert makes it a boast that women are to be members of his institution ; it is hardly necessary to remind so accomplished a classic, that Aspasia and other learned ladies in Greece are no very encouraging precedents in favour of the purifying effects of science. But the strangest and most painful topic which he urges, is one which Lord Brougham has had the good taste altogether to avoid, — the power, not of religion, but of scientific knowledge, on a death- bed ; a subject which Sir Robert treats in language which it is far better to believe is mere oratory than is said in earnest. :^68 Tke Ta7nworth Reading Rooin. Such is this new art of living, offered to the labouring classes, — we will say, for instance, in a severe winter, snow on the ground, glass falling, bread rising, coal at 2od. the cwt, and no work. It does not require many words, then, to determine that, taking human nature as it is actually found, and assuming that there is an Art of life, to say that it con- sists, or in any essential manner is placed, in the cultiva- tion of Knowledge, that the mind is changed by a dis- covery, or saved by a diversion, and can thus be amused into immortality, — that grief, anger, cowardice, self- conceit, pride, or passion, can be subdued by an ex- amination of shells or grasses, or inhaling of gases, or chipping of rocks, or calculating the longitude, is the veriest of pretences which sophist or mountebank ever professed to a gaping auditory. If virtue be a mastery over the mind, if its end be action, if its perfection be inward order, harmony, and peace, we must seek it in graver and holier places than in Libraries and Reading- rooms. 269 3. Secular Knowledge not a direct Means of Moral Improvement. There are two Schools of philosophy, in high esteem, at this day, as at other times, neither of them accepting Christian principles as the guide of Hfe, yet both of them unhappily patronized by many whom it would be the worst and most cruel uncharitableness to suspect of un- belief Mr. Bentham is the master of the one ; and Sir Robert Peel is a disciple of the other. Mr. Bentham's system has nothing ideal about it ; he is a stern realist, and he limits his realism to things which he can see, hear, taste, touch, and handle. He does not acknowledge the existence of anything which he cannot ascertain for himself. Exist it may nevertheless, but till it makes itself felt, to him it exists not ; till it comes down right before him, and he is very short-sighted, it is not recognized by him as having a co-existence with himself, any more than the Emperor of China is received into the European family of Kings. With him a being out of sight is a being simply out of mind ; nay, he does not allow the traces or glimpses of facts to have any claim on his regard, but with him to have a little and not much, is to have nothing at all. With him to speak truth is to be ready with a definition, and to imagine, to guess, to doubt, or to falter, is much the same as to lie. What opinion will such an iron thinker entertain of Cicero's " glory," or Lord Brougham's " truth," or Sir 270 The Tamworth Reading Room, Robert's "scientific consolations," and all those other airy nothings which are my proper subject of remark and which I have in view when, by way of contrast, I make mention of the philosophy of Bentham ? And yet the doctrine of the three eminent orators, whom I have ventured to criticise, has in it much that is far nobler than Benthamism ; their misfortune being, not that they look for an excellence above the beaten path of life, but that whereas Christianity has told us what that excellence is, Cicero lived before it was given to the world, and Lord Brougham and Sir Robert Peel prefer his involuntary error to their own inherited truth. Surely, there is something unearthly and superhuman in spite of Ben- tham ; but it is not glory, or knowledge, or any abstract idea of virtue, but great and good tidings which need not here be particularly mentioned, and the pity is, that these Christian statesmen cannot be content with what is divine without as a supplement hankering after what was heathen. Now, independent of all other considerations, the great difference, in a practical light, between the object of Christianity and of heathen belief, is this — that glory, science, knowledge, and whatever other fine names we use, never healed a wounded heart, nor changed a sinful one ; but the Divine Word is with power. The ideas which Christianity brings before us are in themselves full of influence, and they are attended with a supernatural gift over and above themselves, in order to meet the special exigencies of our nature. Knowledge is not " power," nor is glory " the first and only fair ; " but " Grace," or the " Word," by whichever name we call it, has been from the first a quickening, renovating, organizing prin- ciple. It has new created the individual, and transferred and knit him into a social body, composed of members Nor a direct Means of Moral Improvement. 27 1 each similarly created. It has cleansed man of his moral diseases, raised him to hope and energy, given him to pro- pagate a brotherhood among his fellows, and to found a family or rather a kingdom of saints all over the earth ; — it introduced a new force into the world, and the im- pulse which it gave continues in its original vigour down to this day. Each one of us has lit his lamp from his neighbour, or received it from his fathers, and the lights thus transmitted are at this time as strong and as clear as if 1800 years had not passed since the kindling of the sacred flame. What has glory or knowledge been able to do like this ? Can it raise the dead } can it create a polity.? can it do more than testify man's need and typify God's remedy.? And yet, in spite of this, when we have an instrument given us, capable of changing the whole man, great orators and statesmen are busy, forsooth, with their heathen charms and nostrums, their sedatives, correc- tives, or restoratives ; as preposterously as if we were to build our men-of-war, or conduct our iron-works, on the principles approved in Cicero's day. The utmost that Lord Brougham seems to propose to himself in the edu- cation of the mind, is to keep out bad thoughts by means of good — a great object, doubtless, but not so great in philosophical conception, as is the destruction of the bad in Christian fact. " If it can be a pleasure," he says, in his Discourse upon the Objects and Advan- tages of Science, "if it can be a pleasure to gratify curiosity, to know what we were ignorant of, to have our feelings of wonder called forth, how pure a delight of this very kind does natural science hold out to its students ! How wonderful are the laws that regulate the motions of fluids ! Is there anything in all the idle books of tales and horrors, more truly astonish* 272 The Tamworth Reading Room. ing that the fact, that a few pounds of wat^r may, by mere pressure, without any machinery, by merely being placed in one particular way, produce very irresistible force ? What can be more strange, than that an ounce weight should balance hundreds of pounds by the in- tervention of a few bars of thin iron ? Can anything sur- prise us more than to find that the colour white is a mixture of all others ? that water should be chiefly com- posed of an inflammable substance ? Akin to this pleasure of contemplating new and extraordinary truths is the gratification of a more learned curiosity, by tracing resemblances and relations between things which to com- mon apprehension seem widely different," etc., etc. And in the same way Sir Robert tells us even of a devout curiosity. In all cases curiosity is the means, diversion of mind the highest end ; and though of course I will not assert that Lord Brougham, and certainly not that Sir Robert Peel, denies any higher kind of morality, yet when the former rises above Benthamism, in which he often indulges, into what may be called Broughamism proper, he commonly grasps at nothing more real and substantial than these Ciceronian ethics. In morals, as in physics, the stream cannot rise higher than its source. Christianity raises men from earth, for it comes from heaven ; but human morality creeps, struts, or frets upon the earth's level, without wings to rise. The Knowledge School does not contemplate rais- ing man above himself; it merely aims at disposing of his existing powers and tastes, as is most convenient, or is practicable under circumstances. It finds him, like the victims of the French Tyrant, doubled up in a cage in which he can neither lie, stand, sit, nor kneel, and its highest desire is to find an attitude in which his unrest may be least. Or it finds him like some musical instru- Nor a direct Means of Moral Improvement. 2 /o ment, of great power and compass, but imperfect ; from its very structure some keys must ever be out of tune, and its object, when ambition is highest, is to throw the fault of its nature where least it will be observed. It leaves man where it found him — man, and not an Angel — a sinner, not a Saint ; but it tries to make him look as much like what he is not as ever it can. The poor in- dulge in low pleasures ; they use bad language, swear loudly and recklessly, laugh at coarse jests, and are rude and boorish. Sir Robert would open on them a wider range of thought and more intellectual objects, by teaching them science ; but what warrant will he give us that, if his object could be achieved, what they would gain in decency they would not lose in natural humility and faith } If so, he has exchanged a gross fault for a more subtle one. " Temperance topics " stop drinking ; let us suppose it ; but will much be gained, if those who give up spirits take to opium .? Naturam expellas fiircd, iamen usque recurret, is at least a heathen truth, and universities and libraries which recur to heathenism may reclaim it from the heathen for their motto. Nay, everywhere, so far as human nature remains hardly or partially Christianized, the heathen law remains in force ; as is felt in a measure even in the most reli- gious places and societies. Even there, where Christi- anity has power, the venom of the old Adam is not subdued. Those who have to do with our Colleges give us their experience, that in the case of the young com- mitted to their care, external discipline may change the fashionable excess, but cannot allay the principle of sin- ning. Stop cigars, they will take to drinking parties ; stop drinking, they gamble ; stop gambling, and a worse license follows. You do not get rid of vice by human expedients ; you can but use them according to circum- i8 2 74 1^^ Tamworth Reading Roo7n, stances, and in their place, as making the best of a bad matter. You must go to a higher source for renovation of the heart and of the will. You do but play a sort of " hunt the slipper " with the fault of our nature, till you go to Christianity. I say, you must use human methods ifi their place^ and there they are useful ; but they are worse than useless out of their place. I have no fanatical wish to deny to any whatever subject of thought or method of reason a place altogether, if it chooses to claim it, in the cultivation of the mind. Mr. Bentham may despise verse-making, or Mr. Dugald Stewart logic, but the great and true maxim is to sacrifice none — to combine, and therefore to adjust, all. All cannot be first, and therefore each has its place, and the problem is to find it. It is at least not a lighter mistake to make what is secondary first, than to leave it out altogether. Here then it is that the Knowledge Society, Gower Street College, Tam worth Reading-room, Lord Brougham and Sir Robert Peel, are all so deplor- ably mistaken. Christianity, and nothing short of it, must be made the element and principle of all education. Where it has been laid as the first stone, and acknow- ledged as the governing spirit, it will take up into itself, assimilate, and give a character to literature and science. Where Revealed Truth has given the aim and direction to Knowledge, Knowledge of all kinds will minister to Revealed Truth. The evidences of Religion, natural theology, metaphysics, — or, again, poetry, history, and the classics, — or physics and mathematics, may all be grafted into the mind of a Christian, and give and take by the grafting. But if in education we begin with nature before grace, witb evidences before faith, with science before conscience, with poetry before practice, we shall be doing much the same as if we were to Nor a direct Means of Moral I^nprovement. 275 indulge the appetites and passions, and turn a deaf ear to the reason. In each case we misplace what in its place is a divine gift. If we attempt to effect a moral improvement by means of poetry, we shall but mature into a mawkish, frivolous, and fastidious sentimentalism ; — if by means of argument, into a dry, unamiable long- headedness; — if by good society, into a polished outside, with hollowness within, in which vice has lost its gross- ness, and perhaps increased its malignity; — if by experi- mental science, into an uppish, supercilious temper, much inclined to scepticism. But reverse the order of things : put Faith first and Knowledge second ; let the University minister to the Church, and then classical poetry becomes the type of Gospel truth, and physical science a comment on Genesis or Job, and Aristotle changes into Butler, and Arcesilas into Berkeley.* Far from recognizing this principle, the teachers of the Knowledge School would educate from Natural Theology up to Christianity, and would amend the heart through literature and philosophy. Lord Brougham, as if faith came from science, gives out that " henceforth nothing shall prevail over us to praise or to blame any one for " his belief, " which he can no more change than he can the hue of his skin, or the height of his stature." And Sir Robert, whose profession and life give the lie to his philosophy, founds a library into which "no works of controversial divinity shall enter," that is, no Christian doctrine at all ; and he tells us that ** an increased saga- city will make men not merely believe in the cold doctrines of Natural Religion, but that it will so prepare * [On the supremacy of each science in its own field of thought, and the encroachmenis upon it of other sciences, vide the author's "University Teaching," Disc. 3, and "University Subjects," No. 7 and 10.] 276 The Taniworth Reading Room, and temper the spirit and understanding that they will be better qualified to comprehend the great scheme of human redemption^ And again, Lord Brougham considers that " the pleasures of science tend not only to make our lives more agreeable, but better ; " and Sir Robert responds, that " he entertains the hope that there will be the means afforded of useful occupation and rational recreation; that men will prefer the pleasures of knowledge above the indulgence of sensual appetite, and that there is a prospect of contributing to the intellectual and moral improvement of the neighbourhood." Can the nineteenth century produce no more robust and creative philosophy than this? '^n 4. Secular Knowledge not the Antecedent of Moral Improvement. Human nature wants recasting, but Lord Brougham is all for tinkering it. He does not despair of making something of it yet. He is not, indeed, of those who think that reason, passion, and whatever else is in us, are made right and tight by the principle of self-interest. He understands that something more is necessary for man's happiness than self-love ; he feels that man has affections and aspirations which Bentham does not take account of, and he looks about for their legitimate objects. Christianity has provided these; but, un- happily, he passes them by. He libels them with the name of dogmatism, and conjures up instead the phantoms of Glory and Knowledge ; idola theatric as his famous predecessor calls them. " There are idols," says Lord Bacon, "which have got into the human mind, from the different tenets of philosophers, and the per- verted laws of demonstration. And these we denomi- nate idols of the theatre ; because all the philosophies that have been hitherto invented or received, are but so many stage plays, written or acted, as having shown nothing but fictitious and theatrical worlds. Idols of the theatre, or theories, are many, and will probably grow much more numerous ; for if men had not, through many ages, been prepossessed 'with religion and theology^ 278 The Ta?n'Wortk Reading Room, and if civil governments, but particularly monarchies," (and, I suppose, their ministers, counsellors, functionaries, inclusive,) " had not been averse to innovations of this kind^ though but intended, so as to make it dangerou? and prejudicial to the private fortunes of such as take the bent of innovating, not only by depriving them ot advantages, but also of exposing them to contempt and hatred, there would doubtless have been numerous other sects of philosophies and theories, introduced, of kin to those that in great variety formerly flourished among the Greeks. And these theatrical fables have this in common with dramatic pieces, that the fictitious narrative is neater, more elegant and pleasing, than the true history." I suppose we may readily grant that the science of the day is attended by more lively interest, and issues in more entertaining knowledge, than the study of the New Testament. Accordingly, Lord Brougham fixes upon such science as the great desideratum of human nature, and puts aside faith under the nickname of opinion. I wish Sir Robert Peel had not fallen into the snare, in- sulting doctrine by giving it the name of " controversial divinity." However, it will be said that Sir Robert, in spite of such forms of speech, differs essentially from Lord Brougham : for he goes on, in the latter part of the Address which has occasioned these remarks, to speak of Science as leading to Christianity. " I can never think it possible," he says, "that a mind can be so constituted, that after being familiarized with the great truth of observing in every object of contemplation that nature presents the manifest proofs of a Divine Intel- ligence, if you range even from the organization of the meanest weed you trample upon, or of the insect that Nor the Antecedent of Moral Improvement. 279 'ives but for an hour, up to the magnificent structure of the heavens, and the still more wonderful phenomena of the soul, reason, and conscience of man ; I cannot believe that any man, accustomed to such contemplations, can return from them with any other feelings than those of enlarged conceptions of the Divine Power, and greater reverence for the name of the Almighty Creator of the universe." A long and complicated sentence, and no unfitting emblem of the demonstration it promises. It sets before us a process and deduction. Depend on it, it is not so safe a road and so expeditious a journey from premiss and conclusion as Sir Robert anticipates. The way is long, and there are not a few half-way houses and traveller's rests along it ; and who is to warrant that the members of the Reading-room and Library will go steadily on to the goal he would set before them } And when at length they come to " Christianity," pray how do the roads lay between it and *' controversial divinity " t Or, grant the Tamworth readers to begin with " Christianity" as well as science, the same question suggests itself. What is Christianity .? Universal bene- volence.? Exalted morality? Supremacy of law? Conservatism ? An age of light ? An age of reason } — Which of them all ? Most cheerfully do I render to so religious a man as Sir Robert Peel the justice of disclaiming any insinua- tion on my part, that he has any intention at all to put aside Religion ; yet his words either mean nothing, or they do, both on their surface, and when carried into efifect, mean something very irreligious. And now for one plain proof of this. It is certain, then, that the multitude of men have neither time nor capacity for attending to many subjects. If they attend to one, they will riot attend to the other ; 2 So The Tamworth Reading Room, if they give their leisure and curiosity to this world, they will have none left for the next. We cannot be every- thing ; as the poet says, " non om7tia possumus omnes." We must make up our minds to be ignorant of much, if we would know anything. And we must make our choice between risking Science, and risking Religion. Sir Robert indeed says, " Do not believe that you have not time for rational recreation. It is the idle man who wants time for everything." However, this seems to me rhetoric ; and what I have said to be the matter of fact, for the truth of which I appeal, not to argument, but to the proper judges of facts, — common sense and practical experience ; and if they pronounce it to be a fact, then Sir Robert Peel, little as he means it, does unite with Lord Brougham in taking from Christianity what he gives to Science. I will make this fair offer to both of them. Every member of the Church Established shall be eligible to the Tamworth Library on one condition — that he brings from the " public minister of religion," to use Sir Robert's phrase, a ticket in witness of his proficiency in Christian knowledge. We will have no " controversial divinity" in the Library, but a little out of it. If the gentlemen of the Knowledge School will but agree to teach town and country Religion first, they shall have a carte blanche from me to teach anything or everything else second. Not a word has been uttered or intended in these Letters against Science; I would treat it, as they do not treat " controversial divinity," with respect and gratitude. They caricature doctrine under the name of controversy. I do not nickname science in- fidelity. I call it by their own name, " useful and entertaining knowledge;" and I call doctrine "Christian knowledge ; " and, as thinking Christianity somethmg Nor the Antcctdefit of Moral Improvement. 281 more than useful and entertaining, I want faith to come first, and utility and amusement to follow. That persons indeed are found in all classes, high and low, busy and idle, capable of proceeding from sacred to profane knowledge, is undeniable ; and it is desirable they should do so. It is desirable that talent for particular departments in literature and science should be fostered and turned to account, wherever it is found. But what has this to do with this general canvass of " all persons of all descriptions without refer- ence to religious creed, who shall have attained the age of fourteen " ? Why solicit " the working classes, without distinction of party, poHtical opinion, or religious profession ; " that is, whether they have heard of a God or no ? Whence these cries rising on our ears, of " Let me entreat you ! " " Neglect not the opportunity ! " " It will not be our fault ! " " Here is an access for you!" very like the tones of a street preacher, or the cad of an omnibus, — little worthy of a great statesman and a religious philosopher ? However, the Tamworth Reading-room admits of one restriction, which is not a little curious, and has no very liberal sound. It seems that all " virtuous women " may be members of the Library ; that "great injustice would be done to the well-educated and virtuous women of the town and neighbourhood " had they been excluded. A very emphatic silence is maintained about women not virtuous. What does this mean } Does it mean to exclude them, while bad men are admitted } Is this accident, or design, sinister and insidious, against a portion of the community ? What has virtue to do with a Reading-room ? It is to make its members virtuous ; it is to " exalt the moral dignity of their nature ; " it is to provide " charms and temptations " to allure them 282 The Tamworth Readino- Room. from sensuality and riot. To whom but to the vicious ought Sir Robert to discourse about "opportunities," and " access," and " moral improvement ; " and who else would prove a fitter experiment, and a more glorious triumph, of scientific influences ? And yet he shuts out all but the well-educated and virtuous. Alas, that bigotry should have left the mark of its hoof on the great " fundamental principle of the Tamworth Institution " ! Sir Robert Peel is bound in consistency to attempt its obliteration. But if that is impossible, as many will anticipate, why, O why, while he is about it, why will he not give us just a little more of it } Cannot we prevail on him to modify his principle, and to admit into his library none but "well-educated and virtuous" 283 Sectilar Knozvledge not a Principle of Social Unity, Sir Robert Peel proposes to establish a Library which " shall be open to all persons of all descriptions, without reference to political opinions or to religious creed." He invites those who are concerned in manufactories, or who have many workmen, " without distinction of party, political opinions, or religious profession." He promises that "in the selection of subjects for public lectures everything calculated to excite religious or political animosity shall be excluded." Nor is any "discussion on matters connected with religion, politics, or local party differences" to be permitted in the reading-room. And he congratulates himself that he has "laid the foundation of an edifice in which men of all poHtical opinions and of all religious feelings may unite in fur- therance of Knowledge, without the asperities of " party feeling." In these statements religious differences are made synonymous with " party feeling ; " and, whereas the tree is "known by its fruit," their characteristic symptoms are felicitously described as " asperities," and " animosi- ties." And, in order to teach us more precisely what these differences are worth, they are compared to differ- ences between Whig and Tory — nay, even to " locai party differences ; " such, I suppose, as about a munici- pal election, or a hole-and-corner meeting, or a parish job, or a bill in Parliament for a railway. But, to give him the advantage of the more honour- 284 The Tamworth Reading Room. able parallel of the two, are religious principles to be put upon a level even with political ? Is it as bad to be a republican as an unbeliever ? Is it as magnanimous to humour a scoffer as to spare an opponent in the House ? Is a difference about the Reform Bill all one with a difference about the Creed ? Is it as polluting to hear arguments for Lord Melbourne as to hear a scoff against the Apostles ? To a statesman, indeed, like Sir Robert, to abandon one's party is a far greater sacrifice than to unparliamentary men; and it would be uncandid to doubt that he is rather magnifying politics than degrad- ing Religion in throwing them together ; but still, when he advocates concessions in theology and politics, he must be plainly told to make presents of things that belong to him, nor seek to be generous with other people's substance. There are entails in more matters than parks and old places. He made his poHtics for himself, but Another made theology. Christianity is faith, faith implies a doctrine ; a doctrine propositions ; propositions yes or no, yes or no differences. Differences, then, are the natural attendants on Christi- anity, and you cannot have Christianity, and not have differences. When, then. Sir Robert Peel calls such differences points of " party feeling," what is this but to insult Christianity } Yet so cautious, so correct a man, cannot have made such a sacrifice for nothing ; nor does he long leave us in doubt what is his inducement. He tells us that his great aim is the peace and good order of the community, and the easy working of the national machine. With this in view, any price is cheap, every- thing is marketable ; all impediments are a nuisance. He does not undo for undoing's sake ; he gains more than an equivalent. It is a mistake, too, to say that he considers all differences of opinion as ecj^ual in import- Nor a Principle of Social Unity, 285 ance; no, they are only equally in the way. He only compares them together where they are comparable, — in their common inconvenience to a minister of State. They may be as little homogeneous as chalk is to cheese, or Macedon to Monmouth, but they agree in interfering with social harmony ; and, since that har- mony is the first of goods and the end of life, what is left us but to discard all that disunites us, and to culti- vate all that may amalgamate ? Could Sir Robert have set a more remarkable example of self-sacrifice than in thus becoming the disciple of his political foe, accepting from Lord Brougham his new principle of combination, rejecting Faith for the fulcrum of Society, and proceeding to rest it upon Knowledge t " 1 cannot help thinking," he exclaims at Tamworth, " that by bringing together in an institution of this kind intelligent men of all classes and conditions of life, by uniting together, in the committee of this institution, the gentleman of ancient family and great landed posses- sions with the skilful mechanic and artificer of good character, I cannot help believing that we are harmoniz- ing the gradations of society, and binding men together by a new bond, which will have more than ordinary strength on account of the object which unites us." The old bond, he seems to say, was Religion ; Lord Brougham's is Knowledge. Faith, once the soul of social union, is now but the spirit of division. Not a single doctrine but is " controversial divinity ; " not an abstraction can be ima- gined (could abstractions constrain), not a comprehen- sion projected (could comprehensions connect), but will leave out one or other portion or element of the social fabric. We must abandon Religion, if we aspire to be statesmen. Once, indeed, it was a living power, kindling hearts, leavening them with one idea, moulding them on 286 Tne Tamworth Readi7ig Room, one model, developing them into one polity. Ere now it has been the life of morality : it has given birth to heroes ; it has wielded empire. But another age has come in, and Faith is effete ; let us submit to what we cannot change ; let us not hang over our dead, but bury it out of sight. Seek we out some young and vigorous principle, rich in sap, and fierce in hfe, to give form to elements which are fast resolving into their inorganic chaos ; and where shall we find such a principle but in Knowledge } Accordingly, though Sir Robert somewhat chivalrously battles for the appointment upon the Book Committee of what he calls two " public ministers of religion, holding prominent and responsible offices, endowed by the State," and that ex officio^ yet he is untrue to his new principle only in appearance : for he couples his concession with explanations, restrictions, and safeguards quite sufficient to prevent old Faith becoming insurgent against young Knowledge. First he takes his Vicar and Curate as "conversant with literary subjects and with literary works," and then as having duties " immediately con- nected with the moral condition and improvement " of the place. Further he admits " it is perfectly right to be jealous of all power held by such a tenure : " and he insists on the "fundamental" condition that these sacred functionaries shall permit no doctrinal works to be in- troduced or lectures to be delivered. Lastly, he reserves in the general body the power of withdrawing this in- dulgence " if the existing checks be not sufficient, and the power be abused!' — abused, that is, by the vicar and curate ; also he desires to secure Knowledge from being perverted to ^^ evil or immoral purposes" — such perversion of course, if attempted, being the natural Nor a Principle of Social Unity, 287 antithesis, or pendant, to the vicars contraband intro- troduction of the doctrines of Faith. Lord Brougham will make all this clearer to us. A work of high interest and varied information, to which I have already referred, is attributed to him, and at least is of his school, in which the ingenious author, who- ever he is, shows how Knowledge can do for Society what has hitherto been supposed the prerogative of Faith. As to Faith and its preachers, he had already compli- mented them at Glasgow, as "the evil spirits of tyranny and persecution," and had bid them good morning as the scared and dazzled creatures of the '* long night now gone down the sky." "The great truth," he proclaimed in language borrowed from the records of faith (for after parsons no men quote Scripture more familiarly than Liberals and Whigs), has finally gone forth to all the ends of the earth, that man shall no more render account to man for his belief, over which he has himself no control. Henceforth nothing shall prevail on us to praise or to blame any one for that which he can no more change than he can the hue of his skin or the height of his stature." And then he or his scholar proceeds to his new Vitce Sanctorum, or, as he calls it, "Illustrations of the Pursuit of Knowledge ; " and, whereas the badge of Christian saintliness is con- flict, he writes of the " Pursuit of Knowledge under diffi- culties ; " and, whereas this Knowledge is to stand in the place of Religion, he assumes a hortatory tone, a species of eloquence in which decidedly he has no rival but Sir Robert. " Knowledge," he says, " is happiness, as well as power and virtue;" and he demands "the dedication of our faculties" to it. "The struggle',' he gravely observes, which its disciple "has to wage may be a 288 The Tamwortfi Readinp Room ^> protracted, but it ought not to be a cheerless one : for, if he do not relax his exertions^ every movement he makes is necessarily a step forward, if not towards that distinction which intellectual attainments sometimes confer, at least to that inward satisfaction and enjoyment which is always their reward. No one stands in the way of another, or can deprive him of any part of his chance, we should rather say of his certainty, of success ; on the contrary, they are all fellow-workers, and may materially help each other forward." And he enumerates in various places the virtues which adorn the children of Knowledge — ardour united to humility, childlike alacrity, teachable- ness, truthfulness, patience, concentration of attention, husbandry of time, self-denial, self-command, and heroism. Faith, viewed in its history through past ages, presents us with the fulfilment of one great idea in particular — that, namely, of an aristocracy of exalted spirits, drawn together out of all countries, ranks, and ages, raised above the condition of humanity, specimens of the capa- bilities of our race, incentives to rivalry and patterns for imitation. This Christian idea Lord Brougham has borrowed for his new Pantheon, which is equally various in all attributes and appendages of mind, with this one characteristic in all its specimens, — the pursuit of Know- ledge. Some of his worthies are low born, others of high degree ; some are in Europe, others in the Anti- podes ; some in the dark ages, others in the ages of light ; some exercise a voluntary, others an involuntary toil ; some give up riches, and others gain them ; some are fixtures, and others adventure much ; some are pro- fligate, and others ascetic ; and some are believers, and others are infidels. Alfred, severely good and Christian, takes his place in Nor a Principle of Social Unity. 289 this new hagiology beside the gay and graceful Lorenzo de Medicis ; for did not the one " import civilization into England," and was not the other " the wealthy and munificent patron of all the liberal arts " ? Edward VI. and Haroun al Raschid, Dr. Johnson and Dr. Franklin, Newton and Protagoras, Pascal and Julian the Apostate, Joseph Milner and Lord Byron, Cromwell and Ovid, Bayle and Boyle, Adrian pope and Adrian emperor. Lady Jane Grey and Madame Roland, — human beings who agreed in nothing but in their humanity and in their love of Knowledge, are all admitted by this writer to one beatification, in proof of the Catholic character of his substitute for Faith. The persecuting Marcus is a " good and enlightened emperor," and a "delightful" spectacle, when "mixing in the religious processions and ceremonies" of Athens, " re-building and re-endowing the schools," whence St. Paul was driven in derision. The royal Alphery, on the contrary, " preferred his humble parsonage " to the throne of the Czars. West was " nurtured among the quiet and gentle affections of a Quaker family." Kirke White's "feelings became ardently devotional, and he determined to give up his life to the preaching of Chris- tianity." Roger Bacon was "a brother of the Franciscan Order, at that time the great support and ornament of both Universities." Belzoni seized "the opportunity" of Bonaparte's arrival in Italy to " throw off his monastic habit," " its idleness and obscurity," and to engage himself as a performer at Astley's. Duval, " a very able anti- quarian of the last century," began his studies as a peasant boy, and finished them in a Jesuits' College. Mr. Davy, " having written a system of divinity," effected the printing of it in thirteen years " with a press of his own construction," ap4 the assistance of hi§ female servant, 19 290 The Tamworth Reading Room, working off page by page for twenty-six volumes 8vo, of nearly 500 pages each. Raleigh, in spite of ** immoderate ambition," was " one of the very chief glories of an age crowded with towering spirits." Nothing comes amiss to this author ; saints and sinners, the precious and the vile, are torn from their proper homes and recklessly thrown together under the category of Knowledge. 'Tis a pity he did not extend his view, as Christianity has done, to beings out of sight of man. Milton could have helped him to some angelic personages, as patrons and guardians of his intellectual temple, who of old time, before faith had birth, " Apart sat on a hill retired In thoughts more elevate, and reasoned high Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate, Passion and apathy, and glory, and shame, — Vain wisdom all, and false philosophy." And, indeed, he does make some guesses that way, speaking most catholically of being '* admitted to a fellowship with those loftier minds " who " by universal consent held a station apart^' and are " spoken of rever- ently y' as if their names were not those "of mortal men;'* and he speaks of these " benefactors of mankind, when they rest from their pious labours, looking down " upon the blessings with which their " toils and sufferings have clothed the scene of their former existence." Such is the oratory which has fascinated Sir Robert ; yet we must recollect that in the year 1832, even the venerable Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge herself, catching its sound, and hearing something about sublimity, and universality, and brotherhood, and effort, and felicity, was beguiled into an admission of this singularly irreligious work into the list of publications Nor a Principle of Social Unity. 291 which she had delegated to a Committee to select in usum laicorum. That a Venerable Society should be caught by the vision of a Church Catholic is not wonderful ; but what could possess philosophers and statesmen to dazzle her with it, but man's need of some such support, and the divine excellence and sovereign virtue of that which Faith once created? 292 Secular Knowledge not a Principle of Action. People say to me, that it is but a dream to suppose that Christianity should regain the organic power in human society which once it possessed. I cannot help that ; I never said it could. I am not a politician ; 1 am proposing no measures, but exposing a fallacy, and resisting a pretence. Let Benthamism reign, if men have no aspirations ; but do not tell them to be romantic, and then solace them with glory ; do not attempt by philosophy what once was done by religion. The ascendency of Faith may be impracticable, but the reign of Knowledge is incomprehensible. The problem for statesmen of this age is how to educate the masses, and literature and science cannot give the solution. Not so deems Sir Robert Peel ; his firm belief and hope is, " that an increased sagacity will administer to an exalted faith ; that it will make men not merely believe in the cold doctrines of Natural Religion, but that it will so prepare and temper the spirit and understand- ing, that they will be better qualified to comprehend the great scheme of human redemption." He certainly thinks that scientific pursuits have some considerable power of impressing religion upon the mind of the mul- titude. I think not, and will now say why. Science gives us the grounds or premisses from which religious truths are to be inferred ; but it does not set about inferring them, much less does it reach the inference ; — that Nor a Principle of Action. 293 is not its province. It brings before us phenomena, and it leaves us, if we will, to call them works of design, wisdom, or benevolence ; and further still, if we will, to proceed to confess an Intelligent Creator. We have to take its facts, and to give them a meaning, and to draw our own conclusions from them. First comes Knowledge, then a view, then reasoning, and then belief. This is why Science has so little of a religious tendency ; deductions have no power of persuasion. The heart is commonly reached, not through the reason, but through the imagi- nation, by means of direct impressions, by the testimony of facts and events, by history, by description. Persons influence us, voices melt us, looks subdue us, deeds inflame us. Many a man will live and die upon a dogma : no man will be a martyr for a conclusion. A conclusion is but an opinion ; it is not a thing which w", but which we are ''certain about ; " and it has often been observed, that we never say we are certain without implying that we doubt. To say that a thing must be, is to admit that it may not be. No one, I say, will die for his own calculations ; he dies for realities. This is why a literary religion is so little to be depended upon ; it looks well in fair weather, but its doctrines are opinions, and, when called to suffer for them, it slips them between its folios, or burns them at its hearth. And this again is the secret of the distrust and raillery with which moral- ists have been so commonly visited. They say and do not. Why ? Because they are contemplating the fitness of things, and they live by the square, when they should be realizing their high maxims in the concrete. Now Sir Robert thinks better of natural history, chemistry, and astronomy, than of such ethics ; but they too, what are they more than divinity in posse ? He protests against " controversial divinity : " is inferential much better ? 294 The Tamworth Reading Room, I have no confidence, then, in philosophers who cannot help being religious, and are Christians by im- plication. They sit at home, and reach forward to distances which astonish us ; but they hit without grasp- ing, and are sometimes as confident about shadows as about realities. They have worked out by a calculation the lie of a country which they never saw, and mapped it by means of a gazetteer; and like blind men, though they can put a stranger on his way, they cannot walk straight themselves, and do not feel it quite their business to walk at all. Logic makes but a sorry rhetoric with the multitude ; first shoot round corners, and you may not despair of converting by a syllogism. Tell men to gain notions of a Creator from His works, and, if they were to set about it (which nobody does), they would be jaded and wearied by the labyrinth they were tracing. Their minds would be gorged and surfeited by the logical operation. Logi- cians are more set upon concluding rightly, than on right conclusions. They cannot see the end for the process. Few men have that power of mind which may hold fast and firmly a variety of thoughts. We ridicule " men of one idea ; " but a great many of us are born to be such, and we should be happier if we knew it. To most men argument makes the point in hand only more doubtful, and considerably less impressive. After all, man is not a reasoning animal ; he is a seeing, feeling, contemplating, acting animal. He is influenced by what is direct and precise. It is very well to freshen our impressions and convictions from physics, but to create them we must go elsewhere. Sir Robert Peel " never can think it possible that a mind can be so constituted, that, after being familiarized with the wonderful discoveries which have been made in every part of experimental science, it can Nor a Principle of Action, 2 95 retire from such contemplations without more enlarged conceptions of God's providence, and a higher reverence for His name." If he speaks of religious minds, he perpetrates a truism ; if of irreligious, he insinuates a paradox. Life is not long enough for a religion of inferences ; we shall never have done beginning, if we determine to begin with proof We shall ever be laying our foundations ; we shall turn theology into evidences, and divines into textuaries. We shall never get at our first principles. Resolve to believe nothing, and you must prove your proofs and analyze your elements, sinking further and further, and finding " in the lowest depth a lower deep," till you come to the broad bosom of scepticism. I would rather be bound to defend the reasonableness of assuming that Christianity is true, than to demonstrate a moral governance from the physical world. Life is for action. If we insist on proofs for everything, we shall never come to action : to act you must assume, and that assumption is faith. Let no one suppose that in saying this I am maintain- ing that all proofs are equally difficult, and all proposi- tions equally debatable. Some assumptions are greater than others, and some doctrines involve postulates larger than others, and more numerous. I only say that im- pressions lead to action, and that reasonings lead from it. Knowledge of premisses, and inferences upon them, — this is not to live. It is very well as a matter of liberal curiosity and of philosophy to analyze our modes of thought ; but let this come second, and when there is leisure for it, and then our examinations will in many ways even be subservient to action. But if we commence with scientific knowledge and argumentative proof, or lay any great stress upon it as the basis of personal 296 The Tamworth Reading Room. Christianity, or attempt to make man moral and religious by Libraries and Museums, let us in consistency take chemists for our cooks, and mineralogists for our masons. Now I wish to state all this as matter of fact, to be judged by the candid testimony of any persons whatever. Why we are so constituted that Faith, not Knowledge or Argument, is our principle of action, is a question with which I have nothing to do ; but I think it is a fact, and if it be such, we must resign ourselves to it as best we may, unless we take refuge in the intolerable paradox, that the mass of men are created for nothing, and are meant to leave life as they entered it. So well has this practically been understood in all ages of the world, that no Religion has yet been a Religion of physics or of phi- losophy. It has ever been synonymous with Revelation. It never has been a deduction from what we know : it has ever been an assertion of what we are to believe. It has never lived in a conclusion ; it has ever been a message, or a history, or a vision. No legislator or priest ever dreamed of educating our moral nature by science or by argument. There is no difference here between true Religions and pretended. Moses was instructed, not to reason from the creation, but to work miracles. Christianity is a history supernatural, and almost scenic: it tells us what its Author is, by telling us what He has done. I have no wish at all to speak otherwise than respectfully of conscientious Dissenters, but I have heard it said by those who were not their enemies, and who had known much of their preaching, that they hac often heard narrow-minded and bigoted clergymen, and often Dissenting ministers of a far more intellectual cast; but that Dissenting teaching came to nothing, — that it was dissipated in thoughts which had no point, and inquiries which converged to no centre, that it ended as Nor a Principle of Action. 297 it began, and sent away its hearers as it found them ;— whereas the instruction in the Church, with all its defects and mistakes, comes to some end, for it started from some beginning. Such is the difference between the dogmatism of faith and the speculations of logic. Lord Brougham himself, as we have already seen, has recognized the force of this principle. He has not left his philosophical religion to argument; he has committed it to the keeping of the imagination. Why should he depict a great republic of letters, and an intellectual Pantheon, but that he feels that instances and patterns, not logical reasonings, are the living conclusions which alone have a hold over the affections, or can form the character ? 29^ Secular Knowledge without Personal Religion tends to Unbelief. When Sir Robert Peel assures us from the Town -hall at Tamworth that physical science must lead to religion, it is no bad compliment to him to say that he is unreal. He speaks of what he knows nothing about. To a religious man like him, Science has ever suggested religious thoughts ; he colours the phenomena of physics with the hues of his own mind, and mistakes an inter- pretation for a deduction. " I am sanguine enough to believe," he says, " that that superior sagacity which is most conversant with the course and constitution of Nature will be first to turn a deaf ear to objections and presumptions against Revealed Religion, and to acknow- ledge the complete harmony of the Christian Dispensation with all that Reason, assisted by Revelation, tells us of the course and constitution of Nature." Now, considering that we are all of us educated as Christians from infancy, it is not easy to decide at this day whether Science creates Faith, or only confirms it ; but we have this remarkable fact in the history of heathen Greece against the former supposition, that her most eminent empiri- cal philosophers were atheists, and that it was their atheism which was the cause of their eminence. " The natural philosophies of Democritus and others," says Lord Bacon, " who allow no God or mind in the frame of things, but attribute the structure of the uuiverse to But a Temptation to Unbelief, 299 infinite essays and trials of nature, or what they call fate or fortune, and assigned the causes of particular things to the necessity of matter, without any intermixture of final causes, seem, as far as we can judge from the remains of their philosophy, much more solid, and to have ^one deeper into nature, with regard to physical causes, than the philosophies of Aristotle or Plato: and this only because they never m,eddled with final causes, which the others were perpetually inculcating." Lord Bacon gives us both the fact and the reason for it. Physical philosophers are ever inquiring whence things are, not why ; referring them to nature, not to mind ; and thus they tend to make a system a substitute for a God. Each pursuit or calling has its own dangers, and each numbers among its professors men who rise superior to them. As the soldier is tempted to dissi- pation, and the merchant to acquisitiveness, and the lawyer to the sophistical, and the statesman to the expe- dient, and the country clergyman to ease and comfort, yet there are good clergymen, statesmen, lawyers, mer- chants, and soldiers, notwithstanding ; so there are religious experimentalists, though physics, taken by themselves, tend to infidelity ; but to have recourse to physics to make men religious is like recommending a canonry as a cure for the gout, or giving a youngster a commission as a penance for irregularities. The whole framework of Nature is confessedly a tissue of antecedents and consequents ; we may refer all things forwards to design, or backwards on a physical cause. La Place is said to have considered he had a formula which solved all the motions of the solar system ; shall we say that those motions came from this formula or from a Divine Fiat ? Shall we have recourse for our theory to physics or to theology ? Shall we assume 300 The Tamworth Reading Room, Matter and its necessary, properties to be eternal, or Mind with its divine attributes ? Does the sun shine to warm the earth, or is the earth warmed because the sun shines ? The one hypothesis will solve the phenomena as well as the other. Say not it is but a puzzle in ar- gument, and that no one ever felt it in fact. So far from it, I believe that the study of Nature,, when re- ligious feeling is away, leads the mind, rightly or wrongly, to acquiesce in the atheistic theory, as the simplest and easiest. It is but parallel to that tendency in anatomical studies, which no one will deny, to solve all the phenomena of the human frame into material elements and powers, and to dispense with the soul. To those who are conscious of matter, but not conscious of mind, it seems more rational to refer all things to one origin, such as they know, than to assume the existence of a second origin such as they know not. It is Reli- gion, then, which suggests to Science its true conclusions ; the facts come from Knowledge, but the principles come of Faith.* There are two ways, then, of reading Nature — as a machine and as a work. If we come to it with the assumption that it is a creation, we shall study it with awe ; if assuming it to be a system, with mere curiosity. Sir Robert does not make this distinction. He sub- scribes to the belief that the man " accustomed to such contemplations, struck with awe by the manifold proofs of infinite power and infinite wisdom, will yield more ready and hearty assent — yes, the assent of the heart, and not only of the understanding, to the pious ex- * [This is too absolute, if it is to be taken to mean that the legitimate, and what may be called the objective, conclusion from the fact of Nature viewed in the concrete is not in favour of the being and providence of God. — Vide " Essay on Assent," pp. 336, 345, 369, and "Univ. Serm." p. 194 .] But a Temptation to Unbelief, 301 clamation, 'O Lord, how glorious are Thy works!'" He considers that greater insight into Nature will lead a man to say, " How great and wise is the Creator, who has done this ! " True : but it is possible that his thoughts may take the form of " How clever is the creature who has discovered it ! " and self-conceit may stand proxy for adoration. This is no idle apprehension. Sir Robert himself, religious as he is, gives cause for it ; for the first reflection that rises in his mind, as expressed in the above passage, before his notice of Divine Power and Wisdom, is, that "the man accustomed to such contemplations will feel the moral dignity of his nature exalted^ But Lord Brougham speaks out. "The delight," he says, "is inexpressible of being able to follow, as it were, with our eyes, the marvellous works of the Great Architect of Nature." And more clearly still: " One of the most gratifying treats which science affords us is the knowledge of the extraordinary powers with which the human mind is endowed. No man, until he has studied philosophy, can have a just idea of the great things for which Providence has fitted his understanding, the extraordinary disproportion which there is between his natural strength and the powers of his mind, and the force which he derives from these powers. When we survey the marvellous truths of astronomy, we are first of all lost in the feeling of immense space, and of the comparative insignificance of this globe and its inhabit- ants. But there soon arises a sense of gratification and of new wonder at perceiving how so insignificant a creature has been able to reach such a knowledge of the unbounded system of the universe." So, this is the religion we are to gain from the study of Nature ; how miserable I The god we attain is our own mind ; our veneration is even professedly the worship of self. 302 The Tamwortk Reading Room. The truth is that the system of Nature is just as much connected with ReHgion, where minds are not religious, as a watch or a steam-carriage. The material world, indeed, is infinitely more wonderful than any human contrivance ; but wonder is not religion, or we should be worshipping our railroads. What the physical crea- tion presents to us in itself is a piece of machinery, and when men speak of a Divine Intelligence as its Author, this god of theirs is not the Living and True, unless the spring is the god of a watch, or steam the creator of the engine. Their idol, taken at advantage (though it is not an idol, for they do not worship it), is the animating principle of a vast and complicated system ; it is sub- jected to laws, and it is connatural and co-extensive with matter. Well does Lord Brougham call it " the great architect of nature ; " it is an instinct, or a soul of the world, or a vital power ; it is not the Almighty God * It is observable that Lord Brougham does not allude to any relation as existing between his god and ourselves. He is filled with awe, it seems, at the powers of the human mind, as displayed in their analysis of the vast creation. Is not this a fitting time to say a word about gratitude towards Him who gave them } Not a syllable. What we gain from his contemplation of Nature is "a gratifying treat," the knowledge of the " great things for which Providence has fitted man's understanding ; " our admiration terminates in man ; it passes on to no prototype.! I am not quarrelling with his result as illogical or unfair ; it is but consistent with the principles with which he started. Take the system of Nature by itself, detached from the axioms of Religion, and I am willing to confess — nay, I have been expressly urging — that it ♦ \yide " University Teaching," Disc. 2.] t \yide " Essays," vol. i. p. 37, etc.] But a Temptatio7i to Unbelief. 303 floes not force us to take it for more than a system ; but why, then, persist in calling the study of it religious, when it can be treated, and is treated, thus atheistically ? Say that Religion hallows the study, and not that the study creates Religion. The essence of Religion is the idea of a Moral Governor and a particular Pro- vidence ; now let me ask, is the doctrine of moral govern- ance and a particular providence conveyed to us through the physical sciences at all ? Would they be physical sciences if they treated of morals ? Can physics teach moral matters without ceasing to be physics ? But are not virtue and vice, and responsibility, and reward and punishment, anything else than moral matters, and are they not of the essence of Religion ? In what depart- ment, then, of physics are they to be found ? Can the problems and principles they involve be expressed in the differential calculus ? Is the galvanic battery a whit more akin to conscience and will, than the mechanical powers ? What we seek is what concerns us, the traces of a Moral Governor ; even religious minds cannot discern these in the physical sciences ; astronomy witnesses divine power, and physics divine skill ; and all of them divine beneficence ; but which teaches of divine holiness, truth, justice, or mercy? Is that much of a Religion which is silent about duty, sin, and its remedies ? Was there ever a Religion which was without the idea of an expiation ? Sir Robert Peel tells us, that physical science im- parts " pleasure and consolation " on a death-bed. Lord Brougham confines himself to the " gratifying treat ; " but Sir Robert ventures to speak of " consolation." Now, if we are on trial in this life, and if death be the time when our account is gathered in, is it at all serious or real to be talking of " consoling" ourselves at such a time 304 The Tamworth Reading Room. with scientific subjects ? Are these topics to suggest to us the thought of the Creator or not ? If not, are they better than story books, to beguile the mind from what lies before it ? But, if they are to speak of Him, can a dying man find rest in the mere notion of his Creator, when he knows Him also so awfully as His Moral Governor and his Judge ? Meditate indeed on the wonders of Nature on a death-bed ! Rather stay your hunger with corn grown in Jupiter, and warm yourself by the Moon. But enough on this most painful portion of Sir Robert's Address. As I am coming to an end, I suppose I ought to sum up in a few words what I have been saying. I consider, then, that intrinsically excellent and noble as are scientific pursuits, and worthy of a place in a liberal education, and fruitful in temporal benefits to the com- munity, still they are not, and cannot be, the instru- ment of an ethical training ; that physics do not supply a basis, but only materials for religious sentiment; that knowledge does but occupy, does not form the mind ; that apprehension of the unseen is the only known principle capable of subduing moral evil, educating the multitude, and organizing society ; and that, whereas man is born for action, action flows not from inferences, but from impressions, — not from reasonings, but from Faith. That Sir Robert would deny these propositions I am far from, contending ; I do not even contend that he has asserted the contrary at Tamworth. It matters little to me whether he spoke boldly and intelligibly, as the newspapers represent, or guarded his strong sayings with the contradictory matter with which they are interca- lated in his own report. In either case the drift and the effect of his Address are the same. He has given his respected name to a sophistical School, and condescended But a Temptation to Unbelief. 305 to mimic the gestures and tones of Lord Brougham. How melancholy is it that a man of such exemplary life. such cultivated tastes, such political distinction, such Parliamentary tact, and such varied experience, should have so little confidence in himself, so little faith in his own principles, so little hope of sympathy in others, so little heart for a great venture, so little of romantic aspi- ration, and of firm resolve, and stern dutifulness to the Unseen ! How sad that he who might have had tbo affections of many, should have thought, in a day like this, that a Statesman's praise lay in preserving the mean, not in aiming at the high ; that to be safe was his first merit, and to kindle enthusiasm his most disgraceful blunder ! How pitiable that such a man should not have understood that a body without a soul has no life, and a political party without an idea, no unity 1 February, 1841, 20 3o6 V. WHO'S TO BLAME? (Addressed to the Editor of The Catholic Standard. By Catholicus.) The British Constitution on its Trial, Sir, — I have been much shocked, as I suppose has been the case with most of your readers, at the weekly extracts you have made from the correspondents of the daily prints, descriptive of the state of the British army in the Crimea; and a conviction has been steadily growing, or rather has been formed, in my mind, which the run- ning comments of the Press continually strengthen, that we must go very deep indeed to get at the root of the evil, which lies, not in the men in authority, nor in sys- tems of administration simply in themselves, but in nothing short of the British Constitution itself. I do not expect I shall get others to agree with me in this conclusion at once; I do not ask you, Mr. Editor, to assent to it, but to be patient with me, if, in order to do justice to my own ideas on the subject, I ask for a long hearing — if I even ask to be diffuse, roundabout, dis- cursive, nay, perhaps, prosy, in support of what, at first sight, readers may call my paradox, — for I have no chance of establishing it in any other way. Our Constitution on its Trial, 307 Nor have I embraced it with any satisfaction to my feelings, certainly not to my Catholic feelings. Indeed, I have a decided view that Catholicism is safer and more free under a constitutional regimey such as our own, than under any other. I have no wish for " reforms " ; and should be sorry to create in the minds of your readers any sentiment favourable either to democracy or to absolutism. I have no liking for the tyranny whether of autocrat or mob ; no taste for being whirled off to Siberia, or tarred and feathered in the far West, by the enemies of my religion. May I live and die under the mild sway of a polity which certainly represses and dilutes the blind fanaticism of a certain portion of my country- men,— a fanaticism which, except for it, would sweep us off these broad lands, and lodge us, with little delay or compunction, in the German Sea ! Still, we cannot alter facts ; and, if the British Constitution is admirably adapted for peace, but not for war, which is the proposi- tion I shall support, and which seems dawning on the public mind, there is a lesson contained in that circum- stance which demands our attention. The lesson is this — that we were not wise to go to war, if we could possibly have avoided it, at a time when, by a lucky accident, the Duke of Wellington had gained for the nation a military prestige which it had little chance of preserving ; and the sooner we know our capabilities and our true mission among the nations of the earth, and get back into a state of peace, in which we are really and truly great, the better for us. It is not that I am doubting the heroic bravery and fortitude of the British soldier. I am not speaking of the individual soldier, whose great qualities I revere and marvel at, and whom I have been following with my anxieties and prayers ever since he set out on his foreign 3o8 PVko's to Blame? campaign. I am as little concerned here with the valour of our soldiers, as with the bigotry of our middle class ; with the heights of Inkerman, as with the depths of Exeter Hall. I am to speak of our Constitution and of Constitutional Government ; and I say that this said Constitutional Government of ours shows to extreme advantage in a state of peace, but not so in a state of war ; and that it cannot be otherwise from the nature of things. Surely it is not paradoxical to say as much as this ; for no one in this world can secure all things at once, but in every human work there is a maximum of good, short of the best possible. The wonder and the paradox rather would be, if the institutions of England were equally admirable for all contingencies, for war as well as for peace. Certainly martial law and constitutional freedom, the soldier's bayonet and the staff of the police- man, belong to antagonistic classes of ideas, and are not likely to co-operate happily with each other. Nor, again, do I therefore say that we must never go to war, or that we shall always get the worst off, if we do. I only mean, it is not our strong point. I suppose, if we had no fowling-pieces, we might still manage, like Philoctetes, to knock off our game with bow and arrows. There are always ways of doing things, where there is the will. I am not denying that, with great exertion, we are able to hoist up our complex Constitution, to ease it into position, and fire it off with uncommon effect ; but to do so is a most inconvenient, expensive, tedious process ; it takes much time, much money, many men, and many lives. We ought in consequence to think twice before we set it to work for a purpose for which it was never made ; and this I think we did not do a year ago. We hardly thought once about the matter. With intense self-conceit, we despised our foe. Our Constitution 07i its Trial, J09 We treated him as we treated the Pope four years be- fore, and we have caught it. The Times put out feelers, this time last year, as to the possibility of the British Lion being persuaded into a more good-humoured, as well as a more prudent course ; but that sagacious jour- nal was soon obliged to draw them in again, and to swim down the stream with the boldest. For the said Lion was bent on puffing the Muscovite into space with the mere breath of his growl ; and it did not occur to him at the moment, that perhaps it was his own wisdom, and not the Muscovite's merely, to let well alone, and to live upon the capital which a great military genius had made for him in the last war. And so, without reflection, the Lion did what, I am firmly persuaded, neither the Duke nor Sir Robert Peel would have let him do, had they been alive. He believed those counsellors who had the madness to tell him that it was a little war which he was beginning, and he stood rampant forthwith both in the Baltic and in the Black Sea. But there is a further view of the matter, and it sug- gests another unpleasant consideration. No one likes to use a cumbrous, clumsy instrument ; and, if at war we are, and with institutions not fitted for war, it is just possible we may alter our institutions, under the im- mediate pressure, in order to make them work easier for the object of war ; and then what becomes of King, Lords, and Commons ? There are abundant symptoms, on all sides of us, of the presence of a strong temptation to some such temerarious proceeding. Any one, then, who, like myself, is thankful that he is born under the British Constitution, — any Catholic who dreads the knout and the tar-barrel, will, for that very reason, look with great jealousy on a state of things which not only doubles prices and taxes, but which may bring about a sudd^Q 3IO Whos to Blame? infringement and an irreparable injury of that remarkable polity, which the world never saw before, or elsewhere, and which it is so pleasant to live under. I do not mean to say that anything serious will be sensibly experienced in our time, at least in the time of those who are gliding rapidly along to the evening of life ; but it would be no consola- tion to me to be told that the Constitution will last my day, if I know that the next generation, whom I am watch- ing as they come into active life, would fall under a form of government less favourable to the Church. And I do not think that the Catholics of England, who have shown no little exultation at the war, would gain much by rescu- ing Turkey from the Russo-Greeks, if, after planting Pro- testant Liberalism there instead, they found on looking homeward that despotism or democracy had mounted in these islands on the ruins of the aristocracy. However, it is not my business to prophesy, but to attempt to lay down principles, which I hope to be al- lowed to do in my next letter. 31X 9, States and Constitutions, The proposition I have undertaken to maintain is this : — That the British Constitution is made for a state of peace, and not for a state of war ; and that war tries it in the same way, to use a homely illustration, that it tries a spoon to use it for a knife, or a scythe or hay-fork to make it do the work of a spade. I expressed myself thus generally, in order to give to those who should do me the honour of reading me the most expeditious insight into the view which I wished to set before them. But, if I must speak accurately, my meaning is this, — ^that, whereas a Nation has two aspects, internal and external, one as regards its own members, and one as regards foreigners, and whereas its government has two duties, one towards its subjects, and one towards its allies or enemies, the British State is great in its home department, which is its primary object, foreign affairs being its secondary ; while France or Russia, Prussia or Austria, contemplates in the first place foreign affairs, and is great in their management, and makes the home department only its second object. And further, that, if England be great abroad, as she is, it is not so much the State, as the People or Nation, which is the cause of her great- ness, and that not by means but in spite of the Con- stitution, or, if by means of it in any measure, clumsily so and circuitously; on the other hand, that, if foreign powers arc ever great in the management of their own people, 312 Whos to Blame 1 and make men of them, this they do in spite of their polity, and rather by the accidental qualifications of the individual ruler ; or if by their polity, still with incon- venience and effort. Other explanations I may add to the above as I proceed, but this is sufficient for the present. Now I hope you will have patience with me, if I begin by setting down what I mean by a State, and by a Con- stitution. First of all, it is plain that every one has a power of his own to act this way or that, as he pleases. And, as not one or two, but every one has it, it is equally plain, that, if all exercised it to the full, at least the stronger part of mankind would always be in conflict with each other, and no one would enjoy the benefit of it ; so that it is the interest of every one to give up some portion of his birth-freedom in this or that direction, in order to secure more freedom on the whole ; exchanging a freedom which is now large and now narrow, according as the accidents of his conflicts with others are more or less favourable to himself, for a certain definite range of freedom prescribed and guaranteed by settled engagements or laws. In other words. Society is necessary for the well-being of human nature. The result, aimed at and effected by these mutual arrangements, is called a State or Standing; that is, in contrast with the appearance presented by a people before and apart from such arrangements, which is not a standing, but a chronic condition of commotion and disorder. And next, as this State or settlement of a people, is brought about by mutual arrangements, that is, by laws or rules, there is need, from the nature of the case, of some power over and above the People itself to maintain 9,nd enforce them, This living guardian of the la,ws |s States and Constitutions, 313 called the Government, and a governing power is thus involved in the very notion of Society. Let the Govern- ment be suspended, and at once the State is threatened with dissolution, which at best is only a matter of time. A lively illustration in point is furnished us by a clas- sical historian. When the great Assyrian Empire broke up, a time of anarchy succeeded; and, little as its late subjects liked its sway, they liked its absence less. The historian thus proceeds : " There was a wise man among the Medes, called Deioces. This Deioces, aspiring to be tyrant, did thus. He was already a man of reputation in his own country, and he now, more than ever, practised justice. The Medes, accordingly, in his neighbourhood, seeing his ways, made him their umpire in disputes. He, on the other hand, having empire in his eye, was upright and just As he proceeded thus, the dwellers in other towns, who had suffered from unjust decisions, were glad to go to him and to plead their causes, till at length they went to no one else. Deioces now had the matter in his own hands. Accordingly he would no longer proceed to the judgment-seat ; for it was not worth his while, he said, to neglect his private affairs for the sake of the affairs of others. When rapine and lawlessness returned, his friends said, ' We must appoint a king over us;' and then they debated who it should be, and Deioces was praised by every one. So they made him their king ; and he, upon this, bade them to build him a house worthy of his kingly power, and protect him with guards ; and the Medes did so." Now I have quoted this passage from history, because it carries us a step further in our investigation. It is for the good of the many that the one man, Deioces, is set up ; but who is to keep him in his proper work ? He puts down all little tyrants, but 314 W^V to Blame 1 what is to hinder his becoming a greater tyrant than them all ? This was actually the case ; first the Assyrian tyranny, then anarchy, then the tyranny of Deioces. Thus the unfortunate masses oscillate between two op- posite evils, — that of having no governor, and that of having too much of one ; and which is the lesser of the two ? This was the dilemma which beset the Horse in the fable. He was in feud with the Stag, by whose horns he was driven from his pasture. The Man promised him an easy victory, if he would let him mount him. On his assenting, the Man bridled him, and vaulted on him, and pursued and killed his enemy ; but, this done, he would not get off him. Now, then, the Horse was even worse off than before, because he had a master to serve, instead of a foe to combat. Here then is the problem : the social state is necessary for man, but it seems to contain in itself the elements of its own undoing. It requires a power to enforce the laws, and to rule the unruly ; but what law is to control that power, and to rule the ruler ? According to the common adage, " Quis custodiat ipsos custodes } " Who is to hinder the governor dispensing with the law in his own favour t History shows us that this problem is as ordinary as it is perplexing. The expedient, by which the State is kept in statu and its ruler is ruled, is called its Constitution ; and this has next to be explained. Now a Constitution really is not a mere code of laws, as is plain at once ; for the very problem is how to confine power within the law, and in order to the maintenance of law. The ruling power can, and may, overturn law and law-makers, as Cromwell did, by the same sword with which he protects them. Acts of Parliament, Magna Charta, the Bill of Rights, the Reform Bill, none of these are the British Constitution, States and Constitutions, 315 What then is conveyed in that word ? I would answer as follows : — As individuals have characters of their own, so have races. Most men have their strong and their weak points, and points neither good nor bad, but idiosyn- cratic. And so of races : one is brave and sensitive of its honour ; another romantic; another industrious, or long- headed, or religious. One is barbarous, another civilized. Moreover, growing out of these varieties or idiosyncrasies, and corresponding to them, will be found in these several races, and proper to each, a certain assemblage of beliefs, convictions, rules, usages, traditions, proverbs, and prin- ciples; some political, some social, some moral; and these tending to some definite form of government and modus Vivendi^ or polity, as their natural scope. And this being the case, when a given race has that polity which is in- tended for it by nature, it is in the same state of repose and contentment which an individual enjoys who has the food, or the comforts, the stimulants, sedatives, or resto- ratives, which are suited to his diathesis and his need. This then is the Constitution of a State: securing, as it does, the national unity by at once strengthening and controlling its governing power. It is something more than law ; it is the embodiment of special ideas, ideas perhaps which have been held by a race for ages, which are of imme- morial usage, which have fixed themselves in its inner- most heart, which are in its eyes sacred to it, and have practically the force of eternal truths, whether they be such or not. These ideas are sometimes trivial, and, at first sight, even absurd : sometimes they are supersti- tious, sometimes they are great or beautiful ; but to those to whom they belong they are first principles, watch- words, common property, natural ties, a cause to fight for, an occasion of self-sacrifice. They are the expres- 3i6 Wkos to Blame? sions of some or other sentiment, — of loyalty, of order, of duty, of honour, of faith, of justice, of glory. They are the creative and conservative influences of Society ; they erect nations into States, and invest States with Constitu- tions. They inspire and sway, as well as restrain, the ruler of a people, for he himself is but one of that people to which they belong. 317 3. Constitutional Principles and their Varieties. It is a common saying that political power is founded on opinion ; this is true, if the word " opinion " be understood in the widest sense of which it is capable. A State depends and rests, not simply on force of arms, not on logic, not on anything short of the sentiment and will of those who are governed. This doctrine does not imply instability and change as inherent characteristics of a body politic. Since no one can put off his opinions in a moment, or by willing it, since those opinions may be instincts, principles, beliefs, convictions, since they may be self-evident, since they may be religious truths, it may be easily understood how a national polity, as being the creation and development of a multitude of men having all the same opinions, may stand of itself, and be most firmly established, and may be practically secure against reverse. And thus it is that countries become settled, with a definite form of social union, and an ascendancy of law and order ; not as if that particular settlement, union, form, order, and law were self-sanc- tioned and self-supported, but because it is founded in the national mind, and maintained by the force of a living tradition. This, then, is what I mean by a State ; and, being the production and outcome of a people, it is necessarily for the good of the people, and it has two main elements, power and liberty, — for without power there is no protection, and without liberty there is 3i8 WAos to Blame? nothing to protect. The seat of power is the Govern- ment ; the seat of Hberty is the Constitution. You will say that this implies that every State must have a Constitution ; so I think it has, in the sense in which I have explained the word. As the governing power may be feeble and unready, so the check upon its arbitrary exercise may be partial and uncertain ; it may be rude, circuitous, abrupt, or violent ; it need not be scientifically recognized and defined ; but there never has been, there never can be, in any political body, an instance of unmiti- gated absolutism. Human nature does not allow of it. In pure despotisms, the practical limitation of the ruler's power lies in his personal fears, in the use of the dagger or the bowstring. These expedients have been brought into exercise before now, both by our foes, the Russians, and, still more so, by our friends, the Turks. Nay, when the present war began, some of our self-made politicians put forward the pleasant suggestion that the Czar's assassination at the hands of his subjects, maddened by taxes and blockades, was a possible path to the triumph of the allies. Such is the lawless remedy which nature finds for a lawless tyranny; and no one will deny that such a savage justice is national in certain states of Society, and has a traditional authority, and may in a certain sense be called Constitutional. As society becomes civilized, the checks on arbitrary power assume a form in ac- cordance with a more cultivated morality. We have one curious specimen of a Constitutional principle, pre- served to us in the Medo-Persian Empire. It was a wholesome and subtle provision, adopting the semblance of an abject servility suitable to the idea of a despotism, which proclaimed the judgment of the despot infallible, and his word irrevocable. Alexander felt what it was Varieties of Constitutional Principles, 319 to do irrevocable acts in the physical order, when, in the plenitude of his sovereignty, he actually killed his friend in the banquet ; and, as to the vulgar multitude, this same natural result, the remedy or penalty of reck- less power, is expressed in the unpolite proverb, ** Give a rogue rope enough, and he will hang himself." With a parallel significance, then, it was made a sacred prin- ciple among the Medo- Persians, which awed and sobered the monarch himself, from its surpassing inconvenience, that what he once had uttered had the force of fate. It was the punishment of his greatness, that, when Darius would have saved the prophet Daniel from the opera- tion of a law, which the king had been flattered into promulgating, he could not do so. A similar check upon the tyranny of power, assuming the character of veneration and homage, is the form and etiquette which is so commonly thrown round a monarch. By irresistible custom, a ceremonial more or less stringent has been made almost to enter into his essential idea, for we know majesty without its externals is a jest ; and, while to lay it aside is to relinquish the discriminating badge which is his claim upon the homage of his subjects, to observe it is to surrender himself manicled and fettered into their hands. It is said a king of Spain was roasted to death because the proper official was not found in time to wheel away his royal person from the fire. If etiquette hindered him from saving his own life, etiquette might also interpose an obstacle to his taking the life of another. If it was so necessary for Sancho Panza, governor of Barataria, to eat his dinner with the sanction of the court physician on every dish, other great function- aries of State might possibly be conditions of other in- dulgences on his part which were less reasonable and less imperative. As for our own most gracious Sovereign, 3^0 PVAo's to Blame '^ she is honoured with the Constitutional prerogative that ** the king can do no wrong ; " that is, he can do no political act of his own mere will at all. It is, then, no paradox to say that every State has in some sense a Constitution ; that is, a set of traditions, depending, not on formal enactment, but on national acceptance, in one way or other restrictive of the ruler's power ; though in one country more scientifically de- veloped than another, or more distinctly recognized, or more skilfully and fully adapted to their end. There is a sort of analogy between the political and the physical sense of the word. A man of good constitution is one who has something more than life, — viz., a bodily soundness, organic and functional, which will bring him safely through hardships, or illnesses, or dissipations. On the other hand, no one is altogether without a constitution : to say he has nothing to fall back upon, when his health is tried, is almost to pronounce that his life is an accident, and that he may at any moment be carried off. And, in like manner, that must be pronounced no State, but a mere fortuitous collection of individuals, which has no unity stronger than despotism, or deeper than law. I am not sure how far it bears upon the main proposi- tion to which these remarks are meant to conduct us, but at least it will illustrate the general subject, if I ask your leave to specify, as regards the depository of political power, four Constitutional principles, distinct in kind from each other, which, among other parallel ones, have had an historical existence. If they must have names given them, they may be called respectively the principles of co-ordination, subordination, delegation, and participa- tion. I. As all political power implies unity, the word co- ordination may seem inconsistent with its essential idea : Variety of Constitutional Principles. 3 2 1 and yet there is a state of society, in which the limita- tion of despotism is by the voice of the people so un- equivocally committed to an external authority, that we must speak of it as the Constitution of such a State, in spite of the seeming anomaly. Such is the recognition of the authority of Religion, as existing in its own sub- stantive institutions, external to the strictly political framework, which even in pagan countries has been at times successfully used to curb the extravagances of absolute power. Putting paganism aside, we find in the history both of Israel and of Judah the tyranny of kings brought within due limits by the priests and prophets, as by legitimate and self-dependent authorities. The same has been the case in'Christian times. The Church is essentially a popular institution, defending the cause and encouraging the talents of the lower classes, and interposing an external barrier in favour of high or low against the ambition and the rapacity of the temporal power. ** If the Christian Church had not existed," says M. Guizot, " the whole world would have been abandoned to unmitigated material force." However, as the cor- rective principle is in this instance external to the State, though having its root internally in national opinion, it cannot, except improperly, be termed Constitutional. 2. Next I come to the principle of subordination, which has been commonly found in young, semi-barbarous states both in Europe and Asia, and has attained its most perfect form in what is called the Feudal System. It has had a military origin ; and, after the pattern of an army, is carried out in an hierarchy of chiefs, one under the other, each of whom in consequence had direct juris- diction only over a few. First came the suzerain, or lord paramount, who had the allegiance of a certain number of princes, dukes, counts, or even kings. These were his V 21 . 322 Who's to Blamet feudatories, — that is, they owed him certain military services, and held their respective territories of him. Their vassals, in turn, were the barons, each under his own prince or duke, and owing him a similar service. Under the barons were the soldiers, each settled down on his own portion of land, with the peasants of the soil as his serfs, and with similar feudal duties to his own baron. A system like this furnished a most perfect expedient against absolutism. Power was distributed among many persons, without confusion or the chance of collision ; and, while the paucity of vassals under one and the same rule gave less scope to tyrannical excesses, it created an effective public opinion, which is strongest when the relation between governor and governed is most intimate. Moreover, if any one were disposed to play the tyrant, there were several distinct parties in a condition to unite against him ; the barons and lower class against the king, the king and the lower classs against the barons. The barbarities of the middle ages have been associated in men's minds with this system ; but, whatever they were, they surely took place in spite of it, not through it, — ^just as the anti-Catholic virulence of the present race of Englishmen is mitigated, not caused, by the British Constitution. 3. By the principle of delegation^ I mean that accord- ing to which power is committed for a certain time to individuals, with a commensurate responsibility, to be met whenever that time has expired. Thus the Roman Dictator, elected on great emergencies, was autocrat during the term of his rule. Thus a com- mander of an army has unfettered powers to do what he will, while his command continues ; or the captain of a ship ; but afterwards his acts are open to inquiry, and, if so be, to animadversion. There are great Variety of Constitutional Principles. 323 advantages to a system like this ; it is the mode of bringing out great men, and of working great measures. You choose the fittest man for each department ; you frankly trust him, you heap powers upon him, you generously support him with your authority, you let him have his own way, you let him do his best. Afterwards you review his proceedings ; you reward or censure him. Such, again, in fact, is with us the liberty of the press, censorship being simply unconstitutional, and the courts of law, the remedy against seditious, libellous, or de- moralizing publications. Here, too, your advantage is great ; you form public opinion, and you ascertain the national mind. 4. The very opposite to this is the principle of par- ticipation. It is that by which a People would leave nothing to its rulers, but has itself, or by its immediate instruments, a concurrent part in everything that is done. Acting on the notion that no one is to be trusted, even for a time, and that every act of its officials is to be jealously watched, it never commits power without embarrassing its exercise. Instead of making a venture for the transcendent, it keeps fast by a safe mediocrity. It rather trusts a dozen persons than one to do its work. This is the great principle of boards and officers, engaged in checking each other, with a second apparatus to check the first apparatus, and other functionaries to keep an eye on both of them, — Tom helping Jack, and Jack waiting for Bill, till the end is lost in the means. Such seems to have been the principle of the military duties performed by the Aulic Council in Germany, which virtually co-operated with Napoleon in his victories in that country. Such is the great principle of committees of taste, which have covered this fair land with architec- tural monstrosities. And as being closely allied to the 324 Whos to Blame ? principle of comprehension and compromise (a principle, necessary indeed, in some shape, but admitting of ruinous excess), it has had an influence on our national action in matters more serious than architecture or sculpture. And it has told directly upon our political efficiency. 325 4- Characteristics of the Athenians. Now at length 1 am drawing near the subject wliich I have undertaken to treat, though Athens is both in leagues and in centuries a great way off England after all. But first to recapitulate : — a State or polity im- plies two things, Power on the one hand, Liberty on the other; a Rule and a Constitution. Power, when freely developed, results in contralization ; Liberty in self- government. The two principles are in antagonism from their very nature ; so far forth as you have rule, you have not liberty ; so far forth as you have liberty, you have not rule. If a People gives up nothing at all, it remains a mere People, and does not rise to be a State. If it gives up everything, it could not be worse off, though it gave up nothing. Accordingly, it always must give up something ; it never can give up everything ; and in every case the problem to be decided is, what is the most advisable compromise, what point is the maximum of at once protection and independence. Those political institutions are the best which subtract as little as possible from a people's natural independence as the price of their protection. The stronger you make the Ruler, the more he can do for you, but the more he also can do against you ; the weaker you make him, the less he can do against you, but the less also he can do for you. The Man promised to kill the Stag ; but he fairly owned that he must be first allowed to mount the Horse. 326 Wko's to Blainet Put a sword into the Ruler's hands, it is at his option to use or not use it against you ; reclaim it, and who is to use it for you ? Thus, if States are free, they are feeble; if they are vigorous, they are high-handed. I am not speak- ing of a nation or a people, but of a State as such ; and I say, the more a State secures to itself of rule and cen- tralization, the more it can do for its subjects externally; and the more it grants to them of liberty and self- government, the less it can do against them internally : and thus a despotic government is the best for war, and a popular government the best for peace. Now this may seem a paradox so far as this ; — that I have said a State cannot be at once free and strong, whereas the combination of these advantages is the very boast which we make about our own island in one of our national songs, which runs, — " Britannia, rule the waves ! Britons never shall be slaves." I acknowledge the force of this authority; but I must re- call the reader's attention to the distinction which I have just been making between a Nation and a State. Britons are free, considered as a State; they are strong, considered as a Nation ; — and, as a good deal depends on this distinc- tion, I will illustrate it, before I come to the considera- tion of our own country, by the instance of that ancient and famous people whose name I have prefixed to this portion of my inquiry, — a people who, in most respects, are as unlike us, as beauty is unlike utility, but who are in this respect, strange to say, not dissimilar to the Briton. So pure a democracy was Athens, that, if any of its citizens was eminent, he might be banished by the rest for this simple offence of greatness. Self-government was developed there in the fullest measure, as if provi- The Athenians. 327 ston was not at all needed against any foe. Nor indeed in the earlier period of Athens, was it required ; for the poverty of the soil, and the extent of seaboard as its boundary, secured it against both the cupidity and the successful enterprise of invaders. The chief object, then, of its polity was the maintenance of internal order ; but even in this respect solicitude was superfluous, ac- cording to its citizens themselves, who were accustomed to boast that they were attracted, one and all, in one and the same way, and moulded into a body politic, by an innate perception of the beautiful and true, and that the genius and cultivation of mind, which were their charac- teristics, served them better for the observance of the rules of good fellowship and for carrying on the inter- course of life, than the most stringent laws and the best appointed officers of police. Here then was the extreme of self-government carried out ; and the State was intensely free. That in propor- tion to that internal freedom was its weakness in its ex- ternal relations, its uncertainty, caprice, injustice, and untrustworthiness, history, I think, abundantly shows. It may be thought unfair to appeal to the age of Philip and Demosthenes, when no Greek State could oppose a military organization worthy of such a foe as Macedon ; but at no anterior period had it shown a vigour and perseverance similar to the political force of the barbaric monarchy, which extinguished its liber- ties. It was simply unable to defend and perpetuate that democratical license which it so inordinately prized. Had Athens then no influence on the world outside of it, because its political influence was so baseless and fluctuating.? Has she gained no conquests, exercised no rule, effected no changes, left no traces of herself upon the nations ? On the contrary^ nev^r w^s country ^2S Whos to Blame? able to do so much ; never has country so impressed its image upon the history of the world, except always that similarly small strip of land in Syria. And more- over, — for this I wish to insist upon, rather than merely concede, — this influence of hers was in consequence, though not by means, of her democratical regime. That democratical polity formed a People, who could do what democracy itself could not do. Feeble all together, the Athenians were superlatively energetic one by one. It was their very keenness of intellect individually which made them collectively so inefficient. This point of character, insisted on both by friendly and hostile ora- tors in the pages of her great historian, is a feature in which Athens resembles England. Englishmen, indeed, do not go to work with the grace and poetry which, if Pericles is to be believed, characterized an Athenian ; but Athens may boast of her children as having the self-reliance, the spirit, and the unflagging industry of the individual Englishman. It was this individualism which was the secret of the power of Athens in her day, and remains as the instru- ment of her influence now. What was her trade, or her colonies, or her literature, but private, not public achieve- ments, the triumph, not of State policy, but of personal effort? Rome sent out her colonies, as Russia now, with political foresight ; modern Europe has its State Universities, its Royal Academies, its periodical scientific Associations ; it was otherwise with Athens. There, great things were done by citizens working in their pri- vate capacity ; working, it must be added, not so much from patriotism as for their personal advantage ; or, if with patriotism, still with little chance of State encourage- ment or reward. Socrates, the greatest of her moralists, and since his day one of her chief glories, lived unrecog- The Athenians. 329 nized and unrewarded, and died under a judicial sentence. Xenophon conducted his memorable retreat across Asia Minor, not as an Athenian, but as the mercenary or volunteer of a Persian Prince. Miltiades was of a family of adventurers, who by their private energy had founded a colony, and secured a lordship in the Chersonese ; and he met his death while prosecuting his private interests with his country's vessels. Themistocles had a double drift, patriotic and traitorous, in the very acts by which he secured to the Greeks the victory of Salamis, having in mind that those acts should profit him at the Persian court, if they did not turn to his account at home. Perhaps we are not so accurately informed of what took place at Rome, when Hannibal threatened the city; but certainly Rome presents us with the picture of a strong State at that crisis, whereas, in the parallel trial, the Athens of Miltiades and Themistocles shows like the clever, dash- ing population of a large town. We have another sample of the genius of her citizens in their conduct at Pylos. Neither they, nor their officers, would obey the orders of the elder Demos- thenes, who was sent out to direct the movements of the fleet. In vain did he urge them to fortify the place; they did nothing ; till, the bad weather detaining them on shore, and inaction becoming tedious, suddenly they fell upon the work with a will ; and, having neither tools nor carriages, hunted up stones where they could find them ready in the soil, made clay do the office of mortar, carried the materials on their backs, supporting them with their clasped hands, and thus finished the necessary works in the course of a few days. By this personal enterprise and daring the Athenians were distinguished from the rest of Greece. " They are fond of change," say their Corinthian opponents in the 330 Who's to Blame f Lacedemonian Council ; " quick to plan and to perform, venturing beyond their power, hazarding beyond their judgment, and always sanguine in whatever difficulties. They are alive, while you, O Lacedemonians, dawdle ; and they love locomotion, while you are especially a home-people. They think to gain a point, even when they withdraw ; but with you, even to advance is to surrender what you have attained. When they defeat their foe, they rush on ; when they are beaten, they hardly fall back. What they plan and do not follow up, they deem an actual loss ; what they set about and gain, they count a mere instalment of the future ; what they attempt and fail in here, in anticipation they make up for there. Such is their labour and their risk from youth to age; no men enjoy so little what they have, for they are always getting, and their best holi- day is to do a stroke of needful work ; and it is a misfortune to them to have to undergo, not the toil of business, but the listlessness of repose." I do not mean to say that I trace the Englishman in every clause of this passage ; but he is so far portrayed in it as a whole, as to suggest to us that perhaps he too, as well as the Athenian, has that inward spring of restless independence, which makes a State weak, and a Nation great. 331 5. Parallel Characteristics of Englishmen. I HOPE I have now made it clear, that, in saying that a free State will not be strong, I am far indeed from say- ing that a People with what is called a free Constitution will not be active, powerful, influential, and successful. I am only saying that it will do its great deeds, not through the medium of its government, or politically^ but through the medium of its individual members, or nationally. Self-government, which is another name for political weakness, may really be the means or the token of national greatness. Athens, as a State, was wanting in the elements of integrity, firmness, and con- sistency ; but perhaps that political deficiency was the very condition and a result of her intellectual activity. I will allow more than this readily. Not only in cases such as that of Athens, is the State's loss the Nation's gain, but further, most of those very functions which in despotisms are undertaken by the State may be per- formed in free countries by the Nation. For instance, roads, the posts, railways, bridges, aqueducts, and the like, in absolute monarchies, are governmental matters ; but they may be left to private energy, where self- government prevails. Letter-carriage indeed involves an extent of system and a punctuality in work, which is too much for any combination of individuals ; but the care of Religion, which is a governmental work in Russia, and partly so in England, is left to private competition 332 Whds to Blame? in the United States. Education, in like manner, is sometimes provided by the State, sometimes left to religious denominations, sometimes to private zeal and charity. The Fine Arts sometimes depend on the patronage of Court or Government ; sometimes are given in charge to Academies; sometimes to committees or vestries. I do not say that a Nation will manage all these departments equally well, or so well as a despotic government ; and some departments it will not be able to manage at all. Did I think it could manage all, I should have nothing to write about. I am distinctly niaintaining that the war department it cannot manage; that is my very point. It cannot conduct a war ; but not from any fault in the nation, or with any resulting disparagement to popular governments and Constitu- tional States, but merely because we cannot have ail things at once in this world, however big we are, and because, in the nature of things, one thing cannot be another. I do not say that a Constitutional State never must risk war, never must engage in war, never will conquer in war ; but that its strong point lies in the other direction. If we would see what liberty, independence, self-government, a popular Constitution, can do, we must look to times of tranquillity. In peace a self-governing nation is prosperous in itself, and influential in the wide world. Its special works, the sciences, the useful arts, literature, the interests of knowledge generally, material comfort, the means and appliances of a happy life, thrive especially in peace. And thus such a nation spreads abroad, and subdues the world, and reigns in the admi- ration and gratitude and deference of men, by the use of weapons which war shivers to pieces. Alas ! that mortals do not know themselves, and will not (ac- The Englishman. 333 cording to the proverb) cut their coat according to their cloth ! " Optat ephippia bos!' John Bull, like other free, self-governing nations, would undertake a little war just now, as if it were \i\s forte, — as great lawyers have cared for nothing but a reputation for dancing gracefully, and literary men have bought a complex coat-of-arms at the Heralds* College. Why will we not be content to be hu- man? why not content with the well-grounded conscious- ness that no polity in the world is so wonderful, so good to its subjects, so favourable to individual energy, so pleasant to live under, as our own ? I do not say, why will we go to war? but, why will we not think twice first ? why do we not ascertain our actual position, our strength, our weakness, before we do so ? / — For centuries upon centuries England has been, like Attica, a secluded land ; so remote from the highway of the world, so protected from the flood of Eastern and Northern barbarism, that her children have grown into a magnanimous contempt of external danger. They have had " a cheap defence " in the stormy sea which surrounds them ; and, from time immemorial, they have had such skill in weathering it, that their wooden walls, to use the Athenian term, became a second rampart against the foe, whom wind and water did not over- whelm. So s^ecure have they felt in those defences, that they have habitually neglected others ; so that, in spite of their valour, when a foe once gained the shore, be he Dane, or Norman, or Dutch, he was encountered by no sustained action or organized resistance, and became their king. These, however, were rare occurrences, and made no lasting impression ; they were not sufficient to divert them from pursuing, or to thwart them in attain- ing, the amplest measures of liberty. Whom had the people to fear ? not even their ships, which could not, 334 J^^ios to Blame? like military, become a paid force encircling a tyrant, and securing him against their resistance. To these outward circumstances of England, determin- ing the direction of its political growth, must be added the character of the people themselves. There are races to whom consanguinity itself is not concord and unanimity, but the reverse. They fight with each other, for lack of better company. Imaginative, fierce, vindic- tive, with their clans, their pedigrees, and their feuds, snorting war, spurning trade or tillage, the old High- landers, if placed on the broad plains of England, would have in time run through their national existence, and died the death of the sons of ^dipus. But, if you wish to see the sketch of a veritable Englishman in strong relief, refresh your recollection of Walter Scott's " Two Drovers." He is indeed rough, surly, a bully and a bigot ; these are his weak points : but if ever there was a generous, good, tender heart, it beats within his breast. Most placable, he forgives and forgets : forgets, not only the wrongs he has received, but the insults he has in- flicted. Such he is commonly ; for doubtless there are times and circumstances in his dealings with foreigners in which, whether when in despair or from pride, he becomes truculent and simply hateful ; but at home his bark is worse than his bite. ^ He has qualities, excellent for the purposes of neighbourhood and intercourse ; — and he has, besides, a shrewd sense, and a sobriety of judg- ment, and a practical logic, which passion does not cloud, and which makes him understand that good- fellowship is not only commendable, but expedient too. And he has within him a spring of energy, pcr- tenacity, and perseverance, which makes him as busy and effective in a colony as he is companionable at home. Some races do not move at all ; others are ever jostling The Englishman. 335 against each other ; the Englishman is ever stirring, yet never treads too hard upon his fellow-countryman's toes. He does his work neatly, silently, in his own place ; he looks to himself, aiKi can take care of himself ; and he has that instinctive veneration for the law, that he can worship it even in the abstract, and thus is fitted to go shares with others all around him in that political sovereignity, which other races are obliged to concen- trate in one ruler. There was a time when England was divided into seven principalities, formed out of the wild warriors whom the elder race had called in to their own exter- mination. What would have been the history of those kingdoms if the invaders had been Highlanders instead of Saxons } But the Saxon Heptarchy went on, without any very desperate wars of kingdom with kingdom, pretty much as the nation goes on now. In- deed, I much question, supposing Englishmen rose one morning and found themselves in a Heptarchy again, whether its seven portions would not jog on together, much as they do now under Queen Victoria, the union in both cases depending, not so much on the government and the governed, but on the people, viewed in them- selves, to whom peaceableness, justice, and non-inter- ference are natural. It is an invaluable national quality to be keen, yet to be fair to others ; to be inquisitive, acquisitive, enter- prising, aspiring, progressive, without encroaching upon his next neighbour's right to be the same. Such a people hardly need a Ruler, as being mainly free from the infirmities which make a ruler necessary. Law. like medicine, is only called for to assist nature ; and, when nature does so much for a people, the wisest policy is, as far as possible, to leave them to themselves. This, 336 W/io's to Blaine'^ then, is the science of government with English States- men, to leave the people alone ; a free action, a clear stage, and they will do the rest for themselves. The more a Ruler meddles, the less he succeeds ; the less he initiate^ the more he accomplishes ; his duty is that of overseeing, facilitating, encouraging, guiding, interposing on emergencies. Some races are like children, and require a despot to nurse, and feed, and dress them, to give them pocket money, and take them out for airings. Others, more manly, prefer to be rid of the trouble of their affairs, and use their Ruler as their mere manager and man of business. Now an Englishman Hkes to take his own matters into his own hands. He stands on his own ground, and does as much work as half a dozen men of certain other races. He can join too with others, and has a turn for organizing, but he insists on its being volun- tary. He is jealous of no one, except kings and govern- ments, and offensive to no one except their partisans and creatures. This, then, is the people for private enterprise ; and of private enterprise alone have I been speaking all along. What a place is London in its extent, its com- plexity, its myriads of dwellings, its subterraneous works ! It is the production, for the most part, of individual enterprise. Waterloo Bridge was the greatest architec- tural achievement of the generation before this ; it was built by shares. New regions, with streets of palates and shops innumerable, each shop a sort of shrine or temple of this or that trade, and each a treasure-house of its own merchandize, grow silently into existence, the creation of private spirit and speculation. The gigantic system of railroads rises and asks for its legal status : prudent statesmen decide that it must be left to private companies, to the exclusion of Government. Trade is to The Englishman. 337 be encouraged : the best encouragement is, that it should be free. A famine threatens ; one thing must be avoided, ■ — any meddling on the part of Government with the export and import of provisions. Emigration is in vogue : out go swarms of colonists, not, as in ancient times, from the Prytaneum, under State guidance and with religious rites, but each by himself, and at his own arbitrary and sudden will. The ship is wrecked ; the passengers are cast upon a rock, — or make the hazard of a raft. In the extremest peril, in the most delicate and most anxious of operations, every one seems to find his place, as if by magic, and does his work, and subserves the rest with coolness, cheerfulness, gentleness, and without a master. Or they have a fair passage, and gain their new country ; each takes his allotted place there, and works in it in his own way. Each acts irrespectively of the rest, takes care of number one, with a kind word and deed for his neighbour, but still as fully understanding that he must depend for his own welfare on himself Pass a few years, and a town has risen on the desert beach, and houses of busi- ness are extending their connexions and influence up the country. At length, a company of merchants make the place their homestead, and they protect themselves from their enemies with a fort. They need a better defence than they have provided, for a numerous host is advancing upon them, and they are likely to be driven into the sea. Suddenly a youth, the castaway of his family, half-clerk, half-soldier,, puts himself at the head of a few troops, defends posts, gains battles, and ends in founding a mighty empire over the graves of Mahmood and Aurungzebe. It is the deed of one man ; and so, wherever we go all over the earth, it is the solitary Briton, the London, V 22 338 Wkos to Blame ^ agent, or the Milordos, who is walking restlessly about, abusing the natives, and raising a colossus, or setting the Thames on fire, in the East or the West. He is on the top of the Andes, or in a diving-bell in the Pacific, or taking notes at Timbuctoo, or grubbing at the Pyra- mids, or scouring over the Pampas, or acting as prime minister to the king of Dahomey, or smoking the pipe of friendship with the Red Indians, or hutting at the Pole. No one can say beforehand what will come of these various specimens of the independent, self-governing, self-rehant Englishman. Sometimes failure, sometimes openings for trade, scientific discoveries, or political aggrandize- ments. His country and his government have the gain ; but it is he who is the instrument of it, and not political organization, centralization, systematic plans, authorita- tive acts. The polity of England is what it was before, — the Government weak, the Nation strong, — strong in the strength of its multitudinous enterprise, which gives to its Government a position in the world, which that Government could not claim for itself by any prowess or ilevice ot its owu. 339 6. Reverse of the Picture, The social union promises two great and contrary advantages, Protection and Liberty, — such protection as shall not interfere with liberty, and such liberty as shall not interfere with protection. How much a given nation can secure of the one, and how much of the other, depends on its peculiar circumstances. As there are small frontier territories, which find it their interest to throw themselves into the hands of some great neigh- bour, sacrificing their liberties as the price of purchas- ing safety from barbarians or rivals, so too there are countries which, in the absence of external danger, have abandoned themselves to the secure indulgence of freedom, to the jealous exercise of self-government, and to the scientific formation of a Constitution. And as, when liberty has to be surrendered for protection, the Horse must not be surprised if the Man whips or spurs him, so, when protection is neglected for the sake of liberty, he must not be surprised if he suffers from the horns of the Stag. Protected by the sea, and gifted with a rare energy, self-possession, and imperturbability, the English people have been able to carry out self-government to its limits, and to absorb into its constitutional action many of those functions which are necessary for the protection of any country, and commonly belong to the Executive ; and triumphing in their marvellous success they have thought 340 Wkos to Blame ? no task too hard for them, and have from time to time attempted more than even England could accomplish. Such a crisis has come upon us now, and the Constitu- tion has not been equal to the occasion. For a year past we have been conducting a great war on our Consti- tutional routine^ and have not succeeded in it. If we continue that rotctine^ we shall have more failures, with France or Russia (whichever you please) to profit by it : — if we change it, we change what after all is Constitu- tional It is this dilemma which makes me wish fo' peace, — or else some Deus i machind, some one greate. even than Wellington, to carry us through. We cannot depend upon Constitutional routine. People abuse routine, and say that all the mischief which happens is the fault of routine ; — but can they get out of routine, without getting out of the Constitution ? That is the question. The fault of a routine Executive, I suppose, is not that the Executive always goes on in one way, — else, system is in fault, — but that it goes on in a bad way, or on a bad system. We must either change the system, then, — our Constitutional system ; or not find fault with its routine, which is according to it. The present Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry, for instance, is either a function and instrument of the routine system, — and therefore is making bad worse, — or is not, — and then perhaps it is only the beginning of an infringement of the Constitution. There may be Consti- tutional failures which have no Constitutional remedies, unwilling as we may be to allow it. They may be necessarily incidental to a free self-governing people. The Executive of a nation is the same all over the world, being, in other words, the administration of the nation's affairs ; it differs in different countries, not in its nature and office, nor in its ends, acts, or functions, but Reverse of the Picture. 34 1 In its characteristics, as being prompt, direct, effective, or the contrary ; that is, as being strong or feeble. If it pursues its ends earnestly, performs its acts vigorously, and discharges its functions successfully, then it is a strong Executive ; if otherwise, it is feeble. Now, it is obvious, the more it is concentrated, that is, the fewer are its springs, and the simpler its mechanism, the stronger it is, because it has least friction and loss of power ; on the other hand, the more numerous and widely dispersed its centres of action are, and the more complex and cir- cuitous their inter-action, the more feeble it is. It is strongest, then, when it is lodged in one man out of the whole nation ; it is feeblest, when it is lodged, by par- ticipation or conjointly, in every man in it. How can we help what is self-evident } If the English people lodge power in the many, not in the few, what wonder that its operation is roundabout, clumsy, slow, inter- mittent, and disappointing 1 And what is the good of finding fault with the routine^ if it is after all the principle of the routine, or the system, or the Constitution, which causes the hitch } You cannot eat your cake and have it ; you cannot be at once a self-governing nation and have a strong government. Recollect Wellington's question in opposition to the Reform Bill, " How is the King's Government to be carried on ? " We are beginning to experience its full meaning. A people so aHve, so curious, so busy as the English, will be a power in themselves, independently of political arrangements ; and will be on that very ground jealous of a rival, impatient of a master, and strong enough to cope with the one and to withstand the other. A government is their natural foe ; they cannot do without it altogether, but they will have of it as little as they can. They will forbid the concentration of power ; they will multiply its 342 W/io's to Blame? seats, complicate its acts, and make it safe by making it inefficient. They will take care that it is the worst- worked of all the many organizations which are found in their country. As despotisms keep their subjects in ignorance, lest they should rebel, so will a free people maim and cripple their government, lest it should tyrannize. This is human nature ; the more powerful a man is, the more jealous is he of other powers. Little men endure little men ; but great men aim at a solitary grandeur. Tiic English nation is intensely conscious of itself ; it has seen, inspected, recognized, appreciated, and warranted itself. It has erected itself into a personality, under the style and title of John Bull. Most neighbourly is he when let alone ; but irritable, when commanded or coerced. He wishes to form his own judgment in all matters, and to have everything proved to him ; he dislikes the thought of generously placing his interests in the hands of others, he grudges to give up what he cannot really keep himself, and stickles for being at least a sleeping partner in transactions which are beyond him. He pays his people for their work, and is as proud of them, if they do it well, as a rich man of his tall footmen. Policy might teach him a different course. If you want your work done well, which you cannot do your- self, find the best man, put it into his hand, and trust him implicitly. An Englishman is too sensible not to understand this in private matters ; but in matters of State he is afraid of such a policy. He prefers the system of checks and counter-checks, the division of power, the imperative concurrence of disconnected officials, and his own supervision and revision, — the method of hitches, cross-purposes, collisions, dead- locks, to the experiment of treating his public servants Reverse of the Picture, 343 as gentlemen. I am not quarelHng with what is inevitable in his system of self-government ; I only say that he cannot expect his work done in the best style, if this is his mode of providing for it. Duplicate functionaries do but merge responsibility ; and a jealous master is paid with formal, heartless service. Do your footmen love you across the gulf which you have fixed between them and you } and can you expect your store-keepers and harbour-masters at Balaklava not to serve you by rule and precedent, not to be rigid in their interpretation of your orders, and to commit themselves as little as they can, when you show no belief in their zeal, and have no mercy on their failures } England, surely, is the paradise of little men, and the purgatory of great ones. May I never be a Minister of State or a Field-Marshal ! I'd be an individual, self-re- specting Briton, in my own private castle, with the Times to see the world by, and pen and paper to scribble off withal to some public print, and set the world right. Public men are only my employes ; I use them as I think lit, and turn them off without warning. Aberdeen, Gladstone, Sidney Herbert, Newcastle, what are they muttering about services and ingratitude } were they not paid 1 hadn't they their regular quarter-day } Raglan. Burgoyne, Dundas, — I cannot recollect all the fellows' names, — can they merit aught } can they be profitable to me their lord and master } And so, having no ten- derness or respect for their persons, their antecedents, or their age, — not caring that in fact they are serving me with all their strength, not asking whether, if they manage ill, it be not, perchance, because they are in the fetters of Constitutional red tape, which have weighed on their hearts and deadened their energies, till the hazard of failure and the fear of censure have quenched 344 Who's to Blame ? the spirit of daring, I think it becoming and generous, — during, not after their work, not when it is ended, but in the very agony of conflict, — to institute a formal process of inquiry into their demerits, not secret, not indulgent to their sense of honour, but in the hearing of all Europe, and amid the scorn of the world, — hitting down, knocking over, my workhouse apprentices, in order that they may get up again, and do my matters for me better. How far these ways of managing a crisis can be amended in a self-governing Nation, it is most difficult to say. They are doubly deplorable, as being both unjust and impolitic. They are kind, neither to ourselves, nor to our public servants ; and they so unpleasantly remind one of cer- tain passages of Athenian history, as to suggest that perhaps they must ever more or less exist, except where a despotism, by simply extinguishing liberty, effectuaily prevents its abuse. 345 7. English Jealousy of Law Courts. People account for the mismanagement existing in the department of the military service, on the ground that war is a novelty in this generation, and that it will be corrected after the successive failures of a few years. This doubtless has something to do with our failure, but it is not a full explanation of it ; else, there would be no mis- managements in time of peace. But, if mismanagements exist in peace as well as in war, then we may conclude that they are some defect in our talent for organization ; a defect, the more unaccountable, because Englishmen are far from wanting in this faculty, as is shown by the great undertakings of our master builders and civil engineers. Yet all the time that private men have been directing matters and men on a large scale to definite ends, there has been a general feeling in the community that a govern- ment proceeding is a blunder or a job. From the Irish famines of 1822 to that of 1845 and following years, I think I recollect instances in point, though I have got no list to produce. As to the latter occasion, it is commonly said that to this day the Irish will not believe, in spite of the many millions voted to them by Parliament, that their population has not been deliberately murdered by the Government. This was a far larger instance of mis- management than that which the present Parliamentary Committee will bring to light. How then shall we ac- count for the phenomenon of the incapable Executive of 346 Wno's to Blame 1 a capable people better than by saying, that, for the very reason the people is capable, its Executive is in- capable, as I have been urging all along ? It is true, there are public departments of acknowledged efficiency, as the Post Office and the Police ; but these only show what the Executive could be, if the Nation gave it fair play. And thus I might end my remarks on the subject, which have already been discursive and excursive, be- yond the patience of most readers ; and yet I think it worth while, Mr. Editor, to try it a little more, if I gain your consent to my doing so. For I have not yet brought out so clearly as I wish, the relation of the Nation to the Executive, as it exists in this corner of the earth. The functions of the Executive are such as police, judicature, religion, education, finance, foreign trans- actions, war. The acts of the Executive are such as the appointment, instruction, supervision, punishment, and removal of its functionaries. The end of the Executive is to perform those functions by means of those acts with despatch and success ; that is, so to appoint, instruct, superintend, and support its functionaries, as effectually to protect person and property, to dispense justice, to uphold religion, to provide for the country's expenses, to promote and extend its trade, to maintain its place in the political world, and to make it victorious and for- midable. These things, and such as these, are the end, — the direct, intelligible end, — of the Executive ; and to secure their accomplishment, and to secure men to accomplish them, one would suppose would be the one and only object of all Executive government ; but it is not the only object of the English. A very few words will explain what I mean. John, Duke of Marlborough, obtained for the town of Witney English Jealousy of Laiv Courts, 34; a monopoly of blanket-making : accordingly, I believe, Witney at one time supplied the whole nation with blankets of such size and quality as the men of Witney chose. Looking at this as a national act, one would say, that the object of the nation was, not to provide itself with best blankets, but with Witney blankets ; and, did a foreigner object that the blankets were not good, he would speak beside the mark, and be open to the retort, " Nobody said they were good ; what we maintain is that they come from Witney." Now, applying this illustra- tion to our present circumstances, I humbly submit that, though the end of every Executive, as such, is to do its work well, cheaply, and promptly, yet, were the French in the Crimea to judge us by this principle, and to marvel at our choosing neither means or men in accord- ance with it, they would be simply criticising what they did not understand. The Nation's object never was that the Executive should be worked in the best possible way, but that the Nation should work it. It is altogether a family concern on a very large scale : the Executive is more or less in commission, and the commission is the Nation itself It vests in itself, as represented by its different classes, in perpetuity, the prerogative of jobbing the Executive. Nor is this so absurd as it seems : — the Nation has two ends in view, quite distinct from the proper end of the Executive itself ; — first, that the Government should not do too much, and next, that itself should have a real share in the Government. The balance of power, which has been the mainspring of our foreign politics, is the problem of our home affairs also. The great State Commission must be distributed in shares, in correspondence with the respective pretensions of its various expectants. Some States are cemented by loyalty, others by religion ; but ours by self-interest, in 348 W/io's to Blaine'^ a large sense of the word. Each element of the political structure demands its special retainer; and power is committed, not to the highest capacity, but to the largest possible constituency. The general public, the constitu- ency, the press, the aristocracy, the capital of the country, the mercantile interest, the Crown, the Court, the great Constitutional parties, Whig and Tory, the great religious parties, Church and Dissent, the country gentlemen, the professions — all must have their part and their proportion in the administration. Such is the will of the Nation, which had rather that its institutions should be firm and stable, than that they should be effective. But the Sovereign, perhaps it will be said, is the source of all jurisdiction in the English body political, as Tudor monarchs asserted, and Constitutional lawyers have handed down to us ; — yes, as the Merovingian king, not the Mayor of the Palace, was ruler of France, and as the Great Mogul, not the Company, is the supreme power in Hindostan. Could Victoria resume at her will that power which the Tudors exercised, but which slipped out of the hands of the Stuarts } The Pope, too, leaves his jurisdiction in the hands of numberless subordinate autho- rities, patriarchs, metropolitans, bishops, sacred congre- gations, religious orders ; he, however, can, if he pleases, recall what he has given, and sometimes, in fact, he does put them all aside. I think it would astonish the public if, to take a parallel case, our gracious Sovereigh, motii proprioy were to resume the management of the Crown lands, or re-distribute the dioceses without an Act of Parliament. Let us dismiss from our minds the fictions of antiquarians ; the British people divide among them- selves the executive powers of the Crown : — and now to give some illustrations in point. The end of the Judicature is justice. The functionaries English Jealousy of Law Courts, 349 are commonly a jury, made up of men, not specially pre pared for their occasional office, but chosen for it as repre- sentatives of a class, and performing it under the direction of a properly educated and experienced dignitary, called by courtesy the Judge. When I was young, I recollect being shocked at hearing an eminent man inveigh against this time-honoured institution, as if absurdly unfitted to promote the ends of the Law. He was answered by an able lawyer, who has since occupied the judicial bench ; and he, instead of denying that precise allegation, argued that the institution had a beneficial political effect on the classes who were liable to serve as jurymen, as associating them with the established order of things, and investing ^.hem with salutary responsibilities. There is a good deal in this reason : — a still more plausible defence, I think, may be found in the consideration of the inexpe- diency of suffering the tradition of Law to flow separate from that of popular feeling, whereas there ought to be a continual influx of the national mind into the judicial conscience; and, unless there was this careful adjustment between law and politics, the standards of right and wrong, set up at Westminster, would diverge from those received by the community at large, and the Nation might some day find itself condemned and baffled by its own supreme oracle of truth. This would be gravel), inconvenient ; accordingly, as the Star Chamber recog- nized the royal decisions as precedents in law, and formed a tradition of the Court, so it is imperative, in our better state of things, that Public Opinion should give the law to Law, and should rule those questions which directly bear upon any matter of national concern. By the expedient, then, of a Jury, the good of the country is made to take the lead of private interest ; for better far is it that injustice should be done to a pack of individuals, 350 W/io's to Blame ? than that the maxims of the Nation should at any time incur the animadversion of its own paid officials, and a deadlock in State matters should be the result of so un- fortunate an antagonism. What makes me think that this is the real meaning of a jury, is what has lately taken place in a parallel way in the Committee of Privy Council on the baptismal con- troversy. My lords refused to go into the question of the truth of the doctrine in dispute, or into the meaning of the language used in the Prayer Book ; they merely asserted that a certain neutral reading of that language, by which it would bear contrary senses, was more congenial with the existing and traditional sentiments of the Enghsh people. They felt profoundly that it would never do to have the Church of the Nation at variance in opinion with the Nation itself. In other words, neither does English law seek justice, nor English religion seek truth, as ultimate and simple ends, but such a justice and such a truth as may not be inconsistent with the interests of large conservatism. Again, I have been told by an eminent lawyer, that, in another ecclesiastical dispute which came before the Queen's Bench, a Chief Justice, now no more, rather than commit the Court to an unpopular decision, reversed the precedents of several centuries. No one could suspect that upright Judge of cowardice, time-serving, or party prejudice. The circumstances explained the act. Those precedents were out of keeping with the present national mind, which must be the perpetual standard and authoritative interpreter of the law j and, as the Minister for Foreign Affairs instructs the Queen's representative at a Congress, what to think and say, so it is the Nation's right to impose upon the Judges the duty of expounding certain points of law in a sense English Jealousy of Law Courts. 351 agreeable to its high and mighty self. Accordingly the Chief Justice's decision on the occasion in question resulted in giving the public (as Lord John Russell expressed it as regards the Baptismal question) "great satisfaction." For satisfaction, peace, liberty, conservative interests, were the supreme end of the law, and not mere raw justice, as such. It is another illustration of the same spirit, though it does not strictly fall under our subject, that, at the public meeting held to thank that earnest and energetic man, Mr. Maurice, for the particular complexion of one portion of his theology, a speaker congratulated him on having, in questioning or denying eternal punish- ment, given (not a more correct, but) a " more genial ' interpretation to the declarations of Holy Scripture. Much, again, might be said upon the Constitutional rights of wealth, as tending to the weakening of the Executive. Wealth does not indeed purchase the higher appointments in the Law, but it can purchase situations, not only in the clerical, but in the military and civil services, and in the legislature. It is difficult to draw the line between such recognized transactions, and what is invidiously called corruption. As to parliamentary matters, I can easily understand the danger of that mode of proceeding, which I have called Constitutional, being carried too far. I can do justice to the feeling which, on a late occasion, if I recollect rightly, caused a will to be set aside, which provided for the purchase of a peerage. We must, of course, draw the line somewhere; but if you take your stand on principle, as it is the fashion to do, then I cannot go along with you, and have never been able to see the specific wickedness (where oaths are not broken or evaded) of buying a seat in Parliament, as contrasted with the purchase of an eligible incumbency. Jt must not be forgotten, that, from the time of Sir 352 PVAos to Blame? Robert Walpole, bribes, to use an uncivil word, have been necessary to our Constitutional regime ; — visions of a higher but impracticable system having died away with Bolingbroke's *' Patriot King." This is but one instance of what is seen in so many various ways, that our Executive is on principle sub- ordinate to class interests; we consider it better that it should work badly, than work to the inconvenience and danger of our national liberties. Such is self-govern- ment. Ideal standards, generous motives, pure principles, precise aims, scientific methods, must be excluded, and national utility must be the rule of administration. It is not a high system, but no human system is such. The knout and the tar-barrel aforementioned are not more defensible modes of proceeding, and are less pleasant than ours. Under ours, the individual is consulted for far more carefully than under despotism or democracy. Injustice is the exception ; a free and easy mode of living is the rule. It is a venal regime ; que voulez-vous ? improvement may make things worse. It succeeds in making things pleasant at home ; whether it succeeds in war is another question. 353 8. English Jealousy of Church and Army, In spite of the administrative weakness, characteristic of the English Constitution, from its defects in organiza- tion, from the interference of traditional principles and extraneous influences in its working, and from the cor- ruption and jobbing incident to it, still so vast are its benefits in the security which it offers to person and property, in the freedom of speech, locomotion, and action, in the religious toleration, and in the general tranquillity and comfort, which go with it ; and again, so numerous and various are the material and mechanical advantages which the energy of the people has associated with it, that, I suppose, England is, in a political and national point of view, the best country to live in in the world. It has not the cHmate, it has not the faith, it has not the grace and sweetness, the festive cheerfulness, the social radiance, of some foreign cities and people ; but nowhere else surely can you have so much your own way, nowhere can you find ready to your hand so many of your wants and wishes. Take things as a whole, and the Executive and Nation work well, viewed in their results. What is it to the average Englishman that a jury sometimes gives an unjust verdict, that seats in Parliament are virtually bought, that the prizes of the Establishment are attained by interest, not merit, that political parties and great families monopolize the go- vernment, and share among themselves its places and 23 354 Who' s to Blame 7 appointments, or that the public press is every now and then both cowardly and tyrannical, — what is all this com- pared with the upshot of the whole national and political system ? Look at things as a philosopher, and you will learn resignation, or rather thankful content, by perceiving that they all so hang together, that on the whole you cannot make them much better, nor can gain much more without losing much. No idea or principle of political society includes in its operation all conceivable good, or excludes all evil ; that is the best form of society which has most of the good, and least of the bad. In the English ideal, the Nation is the centre, — "I'Etat c'est moi : " and everything else is dependent and subser- vient. We are carried back in our thoughts to the fable of Menenius Agrippa, though with a changed adaptation. The Nation is the sacred seat of vital heat and nourish- ment, the original element, and the first principle, and the number one of the Scate framework, and in its various members we find, not what is most effective or exquisite of its kind, but accessories compatible with the supremacy of that digestive and nutritive apparatus. The whole body politic is in unity: "cujus participatio ejus in id ipsum." The kingly office does not %vsr^ scope for the best of conceivable kings, but for the chief of a self- governing people ; the ministers of state, the members of Parliament, the judges, are not intended to be perfect in their own kind respectively, but national statesmen, councillors and lawyers; the bishops and commanders of the forces, the squires and the justices of the peace, be- long to a Constitutional clergy, soldiery, and magistracy. I will not say that nothing admits of improvement, or what is called " reform," in such a society ; I will not attempt to determine the limits of improvenient ; still English Jealousy of Church and Army. 35 s a limit there is, and things must remain in substance what they are, or "Old England" will cease to be. Let us be merciful to ourselves; as in our own persons, one by one, we consult for our particular constitution of mind and body, and avoid efforts and aims, modes of exercise and diet, which are unsuitable to it, so in like manner those who appreciate the British Constitution aright will show their satisfaction at what it does well, resignation as to what it cannot do, and prudence in steering clear of those problems which are difficult or dangerous in respect to it. Such men will not make it dance on its lame leg. They will not go to war, if they can help it, for the conduct of war is not among its chef- d'oeuvreSy as I now, for positively the last time, will explain. Material force is the ultima ratio of political society everywhere. Arms alone can keep the peace; and, as all other professions are reducible to system and rule, there is of course a science and an art of war. This art is learned like other arts by study and practice ; it supposes the existence of expounders and instructors, an experimental process, a circulation of ideas, a tradi- tionary teaching, and an aggregation of members, — in a word, a school. Continuity, establishment, organization, are necessary to the idea of a school and a craft. In other words, if war be an art, and not a matter of hap- hazard and pell-mell fighting, as under the walls of Troy, it requires what is appropriately called a standing army, that is, an army which has a status. Unless we are in a happy valley, or on a sea-protected island, we must have a standing army, or we are open to hostile attack. But, when you have got your standing army, how are you to keep it from taking the wrong side, and turning upon you, like elephants in Eastern fights, instead of 356 Whos to Blame ? repelling your foe? Thus it was that the Pretorians, the Gothic mercenaries, the medieval Turks, and later Janizzaries, became the masters and upsetters of the Emperors, Caliphs, and Sultans who employed them. This formidable difficulty has been fatal to the military profession in popular governments, who in alarm have thrown the national defence upon the Nation, aided, as it might happen, by foreign mercenaries paid by the job. In such governments, the war department has not been the science of arms, but a political institution. An army has been raised for the occasion from off the estates and homesteads of the land, being soldiers of the soil, as rude as they were patriotic. When a danger threatened, they were summoned from plough or farm-yard, formed into a force, marched against the enemy, with whatever success in combat, and then marched home again. Which of the two would be the greater, — the inconvenience or the insufficiency of such a mode of waging war } Thus we have got round again to the original dilemma of the Horse, the Stag, and the Man; the Horse destined to feel at his flanks the Man's spurs, or the Stag's horns, — a Stand- ing Army, or no profession of arms. In this difficulty, we must strike a balance and a compromise, and then get on as well as we can with a conditional Standing Army and a smattering in military science. Such has been the course adopted by England ; and her insular situa- tion, hitherto impregnable, has asked for nothing more. Every sovereign State will naturally feel a jealousy of the semblance of diViimperium in imperio; though not every State is in a condition to give expression to it. England has indulged that jealousy to the full, and has assumed a bearing towards the military profession much the same as she shows towards the ecclesiastical. There is indeed a close analogy between these two powers, bgth in them- £nglish jealousy of Church and Army, 357 selves and in their relation to the State ; and, in order to explain the position of the army in England, I can- not do better than refer to the position which in this country has been assigned to the Church. The Church and the Army are respectively the instruments of moral and material force ; and are real powers in their own respective fields of operation. They necessarily have common sympathies, and an intense esprit de corps. They are in consequence the strongest supports or the most formidable opponents of the State to which they belong, and require to be subjected, beyond any mistake, to its sovereignty. In England, sensitively suspicious of combination and system, three precautions have been taken in dealing with the soldier and the parson, — (I hope I may be famiHar without offence), — precautions borrowed from the necessary treatment of wild animals, — (l) to tie him up, (2) to pare his claws, and (3) to keep him low ; then he will be both safe and useful ; — the result is a National Church, and a Constitutional Army. I. In the first place, we tie both parson and soldier up, by forbidding each to form one large organization. Wc prohibit an organized religion and an organized force. Instead of one corporation in religion, we only allow of a multitude of small ones, as chapters and rectories, while we ignore the Establishment as a whole, deny it any legal status, and recognize the Dissenting bodies. For Universities we substitute Colleges, with rival inte- rests, that the intellect may not be too strong for us, as is the case with some other countries ; but we freely multiply local schools, for they have no political significance. And, in like manner, we are willing to perfect the dis- cipline and appointment of regiments, but we instinc- tively recoil from the idea of an Army. We toast indeed " The Army," but as an abstraction, as we used to drink to 358 Who's to Blame? " The Church," before the present substitution of " The Clergy of all denominations," which has much more of reality in it. Moreover, while we have a real reason for sending our troops all over the world, shifting them about, using them for garrison duty, and for the defence of dependencies, we are thereby able also to divide and to hide them from each other. Nor is this all : if any or- ganization requires a directing mind at the head of it, it is an army ; but, faithful to our Constitutional instincts, we have committed its command, ex abundanti cautela, to as many, I believe, as five independent boards, whose concurrence is necessary for a practical result. Nay, as late occurrences have shown, we have thought it a lesser evil, that our troops should be starved in the Crimea for want of the proper officer to land the stores, and that clothing and fuel shall oscillate to and fro between Balaklava and Malta, than that there should be the chance of the smallest opening for the introduction into our political system of a power formidable to nationalism. Thus we tie up both parson and soldier. 2. Next, in all great systems and agencies of any kind, there are certain accessories, absolutely necessary for their efficiency, yet hardly included in their essential idea. Such, to take a very small matter, is the use of the bag in making a pudding. Material edifices are no part of religion ; but you cannot have religious services without them ; nor can you move field-pieces without horses, nor get together horses without markets and trans- ports. The greater part of these supplemental articles the English Constitution denies to its religious Establishment altogether, and to its Army, when not on active service. Fabrics of worship it encourages ; but it gives no coun- tenance to such ecclesiastical belongings as the ritual and ceremonial of religion, synods, religious orders, sisters of En owlish Jealousy of Church and Army. 359 charity, missions, and the like, necessary instruments of Christian faith, which zealous Churchmen, in times of spiritual danger, decay, or promise, make vain endea- vours to restore. And such in military matters are the commissariat, transport, and medical departments, which are jealously suppressed in time of peace, and hastily and grudgingly restored on the commencement of hos- tihties. The Constitutional spirit allows to the troops arms and ammunition, as it allows to the clergy Ordina- tion and two sacraments, neither being really dangerous, while the supplements, which I have spoken of, are withheld. Thus it cuts their claws. 3. And lastly, it keeps them low. Though lawyers are educated for the law, and physicians for medicine, it is felt among us to be dangerous to the Constitution to have real education either in the clerical or military pro- fession. Neither theology nor the science of war is compatible with a national regime. Military and naval science is, in the ordinary Englishman's notion, the bayonet and the broadside. Religious knowledge comes by nature; and so far is true, that Anglican divines thump away in exhortation or in controversy, with a manliness, good sense, and good will as thoroughly John Bullish as the stubbornness of the Guards at Inkerman. Not that they are forbidden to cultivate theology in pri- vate as a personal accomplishment, but that they must not bring too much of it into the pulpit, for then they become " extreme men," Calvinists or Papists, as it may be. A general good education, a public school, and a knowledge of the classics, make a parson ; and he is chosen for a benefice or a dignity, not on any abstract ground of merit, but by the great officers of State, by members of the aristocracy, and by country gentlemen, or their nominees, men who by their position are a suffi- 360 Who^s to Blame! cient guarantee that the nation will continually flow into the Establishment, and give it its own colour. And so of the army ; it is not so many days ago that a gentle- man in office assured the House of Commons (if he was correctly reported) that the best officers were those who had a University education ; and I doubt not it is far better for the troops to be disciplined and commanded by good scholars than by incapables and dunces. But in each department professional education is eschewed, and it is thought enough for the functionary to be a gentle- man. A clergyman is the " resident gentleman " in his parish ; and no soldier must rise from the ranks, because he is not " company for gentlemen." Let no man call this satire, for it is most seriously said ; nor have I intentionally coloured any one sentence in the parallel which I have been drawing out ; nor do I speak as grumbling at things as they are ; — I merely want to look facts in the face. I have been exposing what I consider the weak side of our Constitution, not exactly because I want it altered, but because people should not consider it the strong side. I think it a necessary weakness ; I do not see how it can be satisfac- torily set right without dangerous innovations. We cannot in this world have all things as we should like to have them. Not that we should not try for the best, but we should be quite sure that we do not, like the dog in the fable, lose what we have, in attempting what we cannot have. Not that I deny that, even with a Constitution adapted for peace, British energy and pluck may not, as it has done before, win a battle, or carry through a war. But after all, reforms are but the first steps in revolution, as medicine is often a diluted poison. Enthusiasts have from time to time thought otherwise. There was Dr. Whately in 1826, who maintained that the Establishment English Jealousy of Church and Army, 361 was in degrading servitude, that it had a dog's collar round its neck, that the position of Bishops was intoler- able, and that it was imperative to throw off State control, keeping the endowments* And there is the Times newspaper in 1855, which would re-organize the Army, and put it on a scientific basis, satisfactory indeed to the military critic, startling to the Constitutional politician. Mr. Macaulay gives us a warning from history. '• The Constitution of England," he says, " was only one of a large family. In the fifteenth century, the government of Castile seems to have been as free as that of our own country. That of Arragon was, beyond all question, more so even than France ; the States-General alone could impose taxes. Sweden and Denmark had Con- stitutions of a different description. Let us overleap two or three hundred years, and contemplate Europe at the commencement of the eighteenth century. Every free Constitution, save one, had gone down. That of England had weathered the danger, and was riding in full security. What, then, made us to differ ? The progress of civilization introduced a great change. War became a science, and, as a necessary consequence, a trade. The great body of the people grew every day more reluctant to undergo the inconvenience of military service, and thought it better to pay others for undergoing them. That physical force which in the dark ages had belonged to the nobles and the commons, and had, far more than any charter or any assembly, been the safeguard of their privileges, was transferred entire to the king. The great mass of the population, destitute of all military discipline and organization, ceased to exercise any influence by force on political transactions. Thus absolute monarchy • [I am informed that Dr. Whately never acknowledged the work here referred to as his own.] 36i PV/io's lo Blame f was established on the Continent ; England escaped, but she escaped very narrowly. If Charles had played the part of Gustavas Adolphus, if he had carried on a popular war for the defence of the Protestant cause in Germany, if he had gratified the national pride by a series of victories, if he had formed an army of 40,000 or 50,000 devoted soldiers, we do not see what chance the nation would have had of escaping from despotism." These are very different times ; but, however steady and self-righting is John Bull, however elastic his step, and vigorous his arm, I do not see how the strongest and healthiest build can overcome difficulties which lie in the very nature of things. And now, however circuitously, I have answered my question, " Who's to blame for the untoward events in the Crimea .-* " They are to blame, the ignorant, intem- perate public, who clamour for an unwise war, and then, when it turns out otherwise than they expected, instead of acknowledging their fault, proceed to beat their zealous servants in the midst of the fight for not doing impossi- bilities. March, 1855. 3^3 VI. AN INTERNAL ARGUMENT FOR CHRISTIANITY. THE word " remarkable " has been so hacked of late in theological criticism — nearly as much so as '* earnest " and " thoughtful " — that we do not like to apply it without an apology to the instance of a recent work, called "Ecce Homo," which we propose now to bring before the reader. In truth, it presents itself as a very convenient epithet, whenever we do not like to commit ourselves to any definite judgment on any subject before us, and prefer to spread over it a broad neutral tint to painting it distinctly white, red, or black. A man, or his work, or his deed, is " remarkable" when he pro- duces an effect ; be he effective for good or for evil, for truth or for falsehood — a point which, as far as that expression goes, we by adopting it, leave it for others or for the future to determine. Accordingly it is just the word to use in the instance of a Volume in which what is trite and what is novel, what is striking and what is startling, what is sound and what is untrustworthy, what is deep and what is shallow, are so mixed up together, or at least so vaguely suggested, or so perplexingly confessed, — which has so much of occasional force and circumam- bient glitter, of pretence and of seriousness, — as to make it impossible either with a good conscience to praise it, or without harshness and unfairness to condemn. Such a book is at least likely to be effective, whatever else it is or 364 An internal Argume^it is not ; it may be safely called remarkable ; and therefore we apply the epithet " remarkable " to this Ecce Homo. It is remarkable, then, on account of the sensation which it has made in religious circles. In the course of a few months it has reached a third edition, though it is a fair-sized octavo, and not an over-cheap one. And it has received the praise of critics and reviewers of very distinct shades of opinion. Such a reception must be owing either to the book itself, or to the circumstances of the day in which it has appeared, or to both of these causes together. Or, as seems to be the case, the needs of the day have become a call for some such work ; and the work, on its appearance, has been thankfully wel- comed, on account of its professed object, by those whose needs called for it. The author includes himself in the number of these ; and while providing for his own wants he has ministered to theirs. This is what we especially mean by calling his book " remarkable." It deserves remark, because it has excited it. I. Disputants may maintain, if they please, that religious doubt is our appropriate, our normal state ; that to cherish doubts is our duty ; that to complain of them is impa- tience ; that to dread them is cowardice ; that to over- come them is inveracity ; that it is even a happy state, a state of calm philosophic enjoyment, to be conscious of them ; — but after all, unavoidable or not, such a state is not natural, and not happy, if the voice of mankind is to decide the question. English minds, in particular, have too much of a religious temper in them, as a natural gift, to acquiesce for any long time in positive, active doubt. For doubt and devotion are incompatible with each other ; every doubt, be it greater or less, for Christianity. 365 stronger or weaker, involuntary as well as voluntary, acts upon devotion, so far forth, as water sprinkled, or dashed, or poured out upon a flame. Real and proper doubt kills faith, and devotion with it ; and even involuntary or half-deliberate doubt, though it does not actually kill faith, goes far to kill devotion ; and religion without de- votion is little better than a burden, and soon becomes a superstition. Since, then, this is a day of objection and of doubt about the intellectual basis of Revealed Truth, it follows that there is a great deal of secret discomfort and distress in the religious portion of the community, the result of that general curiosity in speculation and inquiry which has been the growth among us of the last twenty or thirty years. ^The people of this country, being Protestants, appeal to Scripture, when a religious question arises, as their ultimate informant and decisive authority in all such matters ; but who is to decide for them the previous question, that Scripture is really such an authority f) When, then, as at this time, its divine authority is the very point to be determined, that is, the character and extent of its inspiration and its component parts, then they find themselves at sea, without the means of directing their course. Doubting about the authority of Scrip- ture, they doubt about its substantial truth ; doubting about its truth, they have doubts concerning the Object which it sets before their faith, about the historical ac- curacy and objective reality of the picture which it pre- sents to us of our Lord. We are not speaking of wilful doubting, but of those painful misgivings, greater or less, to which we have already referred. Religious Protest- ants, when they think calmly on the subject, can hardly conceal from themselves that they have a house without logical foundations, which contrives indeed for the pre- 366 An internal Argument sent to stand, but which may go any day, — and where are they then ? Of course Catholics will bid them receive the canon of Scripture on the authority of the Church, in the spirit of St. Augustine's well-known words : " I should not believe the Gospel, were I not moved by the authority of the Catholic Church." But who, they ask, is to be voucher in turn for the Church, and for St. Augustine.? — is it not as difficult to prove the authority of the Church and her doctors as the authority of the Scriptures ? We Catholics answer, and with reason, in the negative ; but, since they cannot be brought to agree with us here, what argumentative ground is open to them ? Thus they seem drifting, slowly perhaps, but surely, in the direction of scepticism. 2. It is under these circumstances that they are invited, in the Volume of which we have spoken, to betake them- selves to the contemplation of our Lord's character, as it is recorded by the Evangelists, as carrying with it its own evidence, dispensing with extrinsic proof, and claiming authoritatively by itself the faith and devotion of all to whom it is presented. Such an argument, of course, is as old as Christianity itself; the young man in the Gospel calls our Lord " Good Master," and St. Peter introduces Him to the first Gentile converts as one who " went about doing good ; " and in these last times we can refer to the testimony even of unbelievers in be- half of an argument which is as simple as it is constrain- ing. " Si la vie et la mort de Socrate sont d'un sage," says Rousseau, " la vie et la mort de J6sus sont d*un Dieu." And he clenches the argument by observing, that were the picture a mere conception of the sacred for Christianity. 367 writers, "I'inventeur en seraitplus etonnantque le heros." The force of this argument lies in its directness ; it comes to the point at once, and concentrates in itself evidence, doctrine, and devotion. In theological language, it is the motivum credibilitatis, the objecturn materiale^ and the/or~ mate, all in one ; it unites human reason and supernatural faith in one complex act ; and it comes home to all men, educated and ignorant, young and old. And it is the point to which, after all and in fact, all religious minds tend, and in which they ultimately rest, even if they do not start from it. Without an intimate apprehension of the personal character of our Saviour, what professes to be faith is little more than an act of ratiocination. If faith is to live, it must love ; it must lovingly live in the Author of faith as a true and living Being, in Deo vivo ei vero ; according to the saying of the Samaritans to their townswoman : " We now believe, not for thy saying, for we ourselves have heard Him." Many doctrines may be held implicitly ; but to see Him as if intuitively is the very promise and gift of Him who is the object of the intuition. We are constrained to believe when it is He that speaks to us about Himself. Such undeniably is the characteristic of divine faith viewed in itself: but here we are concerned, not simply with faith, but with its logical antecedents ; and the question returns on which we have already touched, as a difficulty with Protestants, — how can our Lord's Life, as recorded in the Gospels, be a logical ground of faith, unless we set out with assuming the truth of those Gospels; that is, without assuming, as proved, the original matter of doubt ? And Protestant apologists, it may be urged — Paley, for instance — show their sense of this difficulty when they place the argument drawn from our Lord's character only among the auxiliary Evidences of 368 Ail internal Argume?it Christianity. Now the following answer may fairly be made to this objection ; nor need we grudge Protestants the use of it, for, as will appear in the sequel, it proves too much for their purpose, as being an argument for the divinity not only of Christ's mission, but of that of His Church also. However, we say this by the way. It may be maintained then, that, making as large an allowance as the most sceptical mind, when pressed to state its demands in full, would desire, we are at least safe in asserting that the books of the New Testament, taken as a whole, were existing about the middle of the second century, and were then received by Christians, or were in the way of being received, and nothing else but they were received, as the authoritative record of the origin and rise of their Religion. In that first age they were the only account of the mode in which Christianity was introduced to the world. Internal as well as exter- nal evidence sanctions us in so speaking. Four Gospels, the book of the Acts of the Apostles, various Apostolic writings, made up then, as now, our sacred books. Whether there was a book more or less, say even an important book, does not affect the general character of the Religion as those books set it forth. Omit one or other of the Gospels, and three or four Epistles, and the outline and nature of its objects and its teaching remain what they were before the omission. The moral pecu- liarities, in particular, of its Founder are, on the whole, identical, whether we learn them from St. Matthew, St. John, St. Peter, or St. Paul. He is not in one book a Socrates, in another a Zeno, and in a third an Epicurus. Much less is the religion changed or obscured by the loss of particular chapters or verses, or even by inac- curacy in fact, or by error in opinion, (supposing per impossibile such a charge could be made good,) in parti- for Chrtstiamty, 369 cular portions of a book. For argument's sake, suppose that the three first Gospels are an accidental collection of traditions or legends, for which no one is responsible, and in which Christians had faith because there was nothing else to put faith in. This is the limit to which extreme scepticism can proceed, and we are willing to commence our argument by granting it. Still, starting at this disadvantage, we should be prepared to argue, that if, in spite of this, and after all, there be shadowed out in these anonymous and fortuitous documents a Teacher sui generis, distinct, consistent, and original, then does that picture, thus accidentally resulting, for the very reason of its accidental composition, only become more marvellous ; then is He an historical fact, and again a supernatural or divine fact ; — historical from the consis- tency of the representation, and because the time cannot be assigned when it was not received as a reality ; and supernatural, in proportion as the qualities with which He is invested in those writings are incompatible with what it is reasonable or possible to ascribe to human nature viewed simply in itself Let these writings be as open to criticism, whether as to their origin or their text, as sceptics can maintain ; nevertheless the representation in question is there, and forces upon the mind a convic- tion that it records a fact, and a superhuman fact, just as the reflection of an object in a stream remains in its general form, however rapid the current, and however many the ripples, and is a sure warrant to us of the presence of the object on the bank, though that object be out of sight. 3. Such, we conceive, though stated in our own words, is the argument drawn out in the pages before us, or rather 24 3 70 An internal A rgumcn t such is the ground on which the argument is raised ; and the interest which it has excited Hes, not in its novelty, but in the particular mode in which it is brought before the reader, in the originality and precision of certain strokes by which is traced out for us the outline of the Divine Teacher. These strokes are not always correct ; they are sometimes gratuitous, sometimes derogatory to their object ; but they are always deter- minate ; and, being such, they present an old argument before us with a certain freshness, which, because it is old, is necessary for its being effective. We do not wonder at all, then, at the sensation which the Volume is said to have caused at Oxford, and among Anglicans of the Oxford school, after the weari- some doubt and disquiet of the last ten years; for it has opened the prospect of a successful issue of inquiries in an all-important province of thought, where there seemed to be no thoroughfare. Distinct as are the liberal and Catholicizing parties in the Anglican Church both in their principles and their policy, it must not be supposed that they are also as distinct in the members that compose them. No line of demarcation can be drawn between the one collection of men and the other, in fact ; for no two minds are altogether alike; and individually, Angli- cans have each his own shade of opinion, and belong partly to this school, partly to that. Or rather, there is a large body of men who are neither the one nor the other ; they cannot be called an intermediate party, for they have no discriminating watchwords ; they range from those who are almost Catholic to those who are almost Liberals. They are not Liberals, because they do not glory in a state of doubt ; they cannot profess to be " Anglo-Catholics," because they are not prepared to ^\Nt. an internal assent to all that is put forth by the for Christianity. 37 1 Church as truth of revelation. These are the men who, if they could, would unite old ideas with new ; who can- not give up tradition, yet are loth to shut the door to progress ; who look for a more exact adjustment of faith with reason than has hitherto been attained ; who love the conclusions of Catholic theology better than the proofs, and the methods of modern thought better than its results ; and who, in the present wide unsettlement of religious opinion, believe indeed, or wish to believe, Scripture and orthodox doctrine, taken as a whole, and cannot get themselves to avow any deliberate dissent from any part of either, but still, not knowing how to defend their belief with logical exactness, or at least feeling that there are large unsatisfied objections lying against parts of it, or having misgivings lest there should be such, acquiesce in what is called a practical belief, that is, accept revealed truths, only because such accept- ance of them is the safest course, because they are pro- bable, and because to hold them in consequence is a duty, not as if they felt absolutely certain, though they will not allow themselves to be actually in doubt. Such is about the description to be given of them as a class ; though, as we have said, they so materially differ from each other, that no general account of them will apply strictly to any individual in their body. Now, it is to this large class which we have been de- scribing that such a work as that before us, in spite of the serious errors which they will not be slow to recognize in it, comes as a friend in need. They do not stumble at the author's inconsistencies or shortcomings ; they are arrested by his professed purpose, and are profoundly moved by his successful hits (as they may be called) towards fulfilling it. Remarks on the Gospel history, such as Paley's, they feel to be casual and superficial ; 372 An internal Argument such as Rousseau's to be vague and declamatory ; they wish to justify with their intellect all that they believe with their heart ; they cannot separate their ideas of religion from its revealed object ; but they have an aching dissatisfaction within them, that they should be apprehending Him so feebly, when they should fain (as it were) see and touch Him as well as hear. When, then, they have logical grounds presented to them for holding that the recorded picture of our Lord is its own evidence, that it carries with it its own reality and authority, that His " revelatio " is " revelata " in the very act of being a " revelatio," it is as if He Himself said to them, as He once said to His disciples, " It is I, be not afraid ; " and the clouds at once clear off, and the waters subside, and the land is gained for which they are looking out. The author before us, then, has the merit of promising what, if he could fulfil it, would entitle him to the gra- titude of thousands. We do not say, we are very far from thinking that he has actually accomplished so high an enterprise, though he seems to be ambitious enough tJ hope that he has not come far short of it. He some- where calls his book a treatise ; he would have done better to call it an essay ; nor need he have been ashamed of a word which Locke has used in his work on the Hu- man Understanding. Before concluding, we shall take occasion to express our serious sense, how very much his execution falls below his purpose ; but certainly it is a great purpose which he sets before him, and for that he is to be praised. And there is at least this singular merit in his performance, as he has given it to the public, that he is clear-sighted and fair enough to view our Lord's work in its true light, as including in it the establishment of a visible Kingdom or Church. In proportion, then, as we shall presently find it our duty to pass some severe for Christianity. 373 remarks upon his Volume, as it comes before us, so do we feel bound, before doing so, to give some specimens of it in that point of view in which we consider it really to subserve the cause of Revealed Truth. And in the sketch which we are now about to give of the first steps of his investigation, we must not be understood to make him responsible for the language in which we shall exhibit them to our readers, and which will unavoidably involve our own corrections of his argument, and our own colouring. 4 Among a people, then, accustomed by the most sacred traditions of their Religion to a belief in the appearance, from time to time, of divine messengers for their instruc- tion and reformation, and to the expectation of One such messenger still to come, the last and greatest of all, who should also be their king and deliverer as well as their teacher, suddenly is found, after a long break in the suc- cession, and a period of national degradation, a prophet of the old stamp, in one of the deserts of the country — John, the son of Zachary. He announces the pro- mised kingdom as close at hand, calls his countrymen to repentance, and institutes a rite symbolical of it. The people seem disposed to take him for the destined Saviour ; but, instead, he points out to them a private person in the crowd which is flocking about him ; and henceforth the interest which his own preaching has ex- cited centres in that Other. Thus our Lord is introduced to the notice of His countrymen. Thus brought before the world, He opens His mission. What is the first impression it makes upon us t Admi- ration of its singular simplicity and directness, both as to object and work Such of gourse ought to be its ch^r^g- 374 -^^ internal Argument ter, if it was to be the fulfilment of the ancient, long- expected promise ; and such it was, as our Lord pro- claimed it Other men, who do a work, do not at once set about it as their object ; they make several failures ; they are led on to it by circumstances ; they miscalcu- late their powers ; or they are drifted from the first in a different direction from that which they had chosen ; they do most where they are expected to do least. But our Lord said and did. "He formed one plan and executed it" (p. i8). In the next place, what was that plan ? Let us con- sider the force of the words in which, as the Baptist before Him, He introduced His ministry: "The kingdom of God is at hand." What was meant by the kingdom of God ? " The conception was no new one, but familiar to every Jew" (p. 19). At the first formation of the nation and state of the Israelites, the Almighty had been their King ; when a line of earthly kings was introduced, then God spoke by the prophets. The existence of the theocracy was the very constitution and boast of Israel, as limited monarchy, liberty, and equality are the boast respectively of certain modern nations. Moreover, the Gospel proclamation ran, " " Pcenitentiam agite ; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand : " here again was another and recognized token of a theophany ; for the mission of a prophet, as we have said above, was commonly a call to reformation and expiation of sin. A divine mission, then, was a falling back upon the original covenant between God and His people ; but again, while it was an event of old and familiar occur- rence, it ever had carried with it in its past instances something new in connexion with the circumstances under which it took place. The prophets were ac- customed to ?ive interpretations, or to introduce niodifi- for Christianity, 375 cations of the letter of the Law, to add to its conditions and to enlarge its application. It was to be expected, then, that now, when the new Prophet to whom the Baptist pointed, opened His commission, He too, in like manner, would be found to be engaged in a restoration, but in a restoration which should be a religious advance; and that the more, if He really was the special, final Prophet of the theocracy, to whom all former prophets had looked forward, and in whom their long and august line was to be summed up and perfected. In proportion as His work was to be more signal, so would His new revelations be wider and more wonderful. Did our Lord fulfil these expectations ? Yes ; there was this peculiarity in His mission, that He came, not only as one of the prophets in the kingdom of God, but as the King Himself of that kingdom. Thus His mission involves the most exact return to the original polity of Israel, which the appointment of Saul had disarranged, while it recognizes also the line of Prophets, and infuses a new spirit into the Law. Throughout His ministry our Lord claimed and received the title of King, which no prophet ever had done before. On His birth, the wise men came to worship " the King of the Jews." " Thou art the Son of God, Thou art the King of Israel," cried Nathaniel after His baptism ; and on His cross the charge recorded against Him was that He professed to be " King of the Jews." " During His whole public life," says the author, " He is distinguished from the other prominent characters of Jewish history by His unbounded personal pretensions. He claims expressly the character of that Divine Messiah for which the ancient prophets had directed the nation to look." — P. 25. He is, then, a King, as well as a Prophet ; but is He ^s one of the old heroic kin^s, David or Solomon ? Had 376 An internal Argument such been His pretension, He had not, in His own words. " discerned the signs of the times." It would have been a false step in Him, into which other would-be champions of Israel, before and after Him, actually fell, and in consequence failed. But here this young Prophet is from the first distinct, decided, and original. His con- temporaries, indeed, the wisest, the most experienced, were wedded to the notion of a revival of the barbaric kingdom. "Their heads were full of the languid dreams of commentators, the unpracticable pedantries of men who live in the past" (p. 27). But He gave to the old prophetic promises an interpretation which they could undeniably bear, but which they did not immediately suggest ; which we can maintain to be true, while we can deny it to be imperative. He had His own prompt, definite conception of the restored theocracy ; it was His own, and not another's ; it was suited to the new age ; it was triumphantly carried out in the event. 5 In what, then, did He consider His royalty to con- sist ? First, what was it not .? It did not consist in the ordinary functions of royalty ; it did not prevent His payment of tribute to Caesar ; it did not make Him a judge in questions of criminal or of civil law, in a ques- tion of adultery, or in the adjudication of an inheritance ; nor did it give Him the command of armies. Then perhaps, after all, it was but a figurative royalty, as when the Eridanus is called "fluviorum rex," or Aristotle " the prince of philosophers," No ; it was not a figura- tive royalty either. To call oneself a king, without being one, is playing with edged tools — as in the story of the innkeeper's son, who was put to death for calling himself "heir to the crown." Christ certainly kn^w for Christianity, 2ill tvhat He was saying. "He had provoked the accusation of rebellion against the Roman government ; He must have known that the language He used would be inter- preted so. Was there then nothing substantial in the royalty He claimed t Did He die for a metaphor ? " (p. 28.) He meant what He said, and therefore His kingdom was literal and real ; it was visible ; but what were its visible prerogatives, if they were not those in which earthly royalty commonly consists ? In truth, He passed by the lesser powers of royalty to claim the higher. He claimed certain divine and transcendent functions of the original theocracy, which had been in abeyance since that theocracy had been infringed, which even to David had not been delegated, which had never been exercised except by the Almighty. God had created, first the people, next the state, which He deigned to govern. " The origin of other nations is lost in anti- quity " (p. 33) ; but " this people," runs the sacred word, " have I formed for Myself." And "He who first called the nation did for it the second work of a king : He gave it a law " (p. 34). Now it is very striking to observe that these two incommunicable attributes of divine royalty, as exemplified in the history of the Israelites, are the very two which our Lord assumed. He was the Maker and the Lawgiver of His subjects. He said in the commencement of His ministry, ^'Follow Me ;" and He added,"and I will make you" — you in turn — "fishers of men." And the next we read of Him is, that His disciples came to Him on the Mount, and He opened His mouth and taught them. And so again, at the end of it, " Go ye, make disciples of all nations, teaching \}ci^TCi!' "Thus the very works for which the [Jewish] nation chiefly hymned their Jehovah, He undertook in His n^me to dp. H^ unqertook to be the Father of an ever- 37^ ^^ interrial Arou?nent lasting state, and the Legislator of a world-wide society " (P- 3^) > that is, showing Himself, according to the prophetic announcement, to be " Admirabilis, consiliarius^ pater futuri soeculi, princeps pacisr To these two claims He added a third : first. He chooses the subjects of His kingdom ; next. He gives them a law; but thirdly, He judges them — ^judges them in a far truer and fuller sense than in the old kingdom even the Almighty judged His people. The God of Israel ordained national rewards and punishments for national obedience or transgression ; He did not judge His subjects one by one ; but our Lord takes upon Himself the supreme and final judgment of every one of His subjects, not to speak of the whole human race (though, from the nature of the case, this function cannot belong to His present visible kingdom). " He considered, in short, heaven and hell to be in His hand " (p. 40). We shall mention one further function of the new King and His new kingdom : its benefits are even bound up with the maintenance of this law of political unity. "To organize a society, and to bind the members of it together by the closest ties, were the business of His life. For this reason it was that He called men away from their homes, imposed upon some a wandering life, upon others the sacrifice of their property, and endeavoured by all means to divorce them from their former connexions, in order that they might find a new home in the Church. For this reason He instituted a solemn initiation, and for this reason He refused absolutely to any one a dis- pensation from it. For this reason, too . . . He esta- blished a common feast, which was through all ages to remind Christians of their indissoluble union " (p. 92). But cui bono is a visible kingdom, when the great end of QLjr l-prd's ministry is moral advancement ^nd prepare- for Christianity. 379 tion for a future state ? It is easy to understand, for instance, how a sermon may benefit, or personal example, or religious friends, or household piety. We can learn to imitate a saint or a martyr, we can cherish a lesson, we can study a treatise, we can obey a rule ; but what Cy is the definite advantage to a preacher or a moralist of an external organization, of a visible kingdom ? Yet Christ says, "Seek y^ first the kingdom of God," as well as "■ His justice." Socrates wished to improve man, but he laid no stress on their acting in concert in order to secure that improvement ; on the contrary, the Christian law is political, as certainly as it is moral. Why is this } It arises out of the intimate relation between Him and His subjects, which, in bringing them all to Him as their common Father, necessarily brings them to each other. Our Lord says, " Where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am in the midst of them." Fellowship between His followers is made a distinct object and duty, because it is a means, according to the provisions of His system, by which in some special way they are brought near to Him. This is declared, still more strikingly than in the text we have just quoted, in the parable of the Vine and its Branches, and in that (if it is to be called a parable) of the Bread of Life. The almighty King of Israel was ever, indeed, invisibly present in the glory above the Ark, but He did not manifest Himself there or anywhere else as a present cause of spiritual strength to His people ; but the new King is not only ever present, but to every one of His subjects individually is He a first element and perennial source of life. He is not only the head of His kingdom, but also its animating principle and its centre of power. The author whom we are reviewing does not quite reach the great doctrine here suggested, but he goes ne^r it 380 An internal Argument in the following passage : " Some men have appeared who have been *as levers to uplift the earth and roll it in another course.' Homer by creating literature, Socrates by creating science, Caesar by carrying civilization inland from the shores of the Mediterranean, Newton by starting science upon a career of steady progress, may be said to have attained this eminence. But these men gave a single impact like that which is conceived to have first set the planets in motion. Christ claims to be a perpetual attractive power, like the sun, which determines their orbit. They contributed to men some discovery, and passed away ; Christ's discovery is Himself To hu- manity struggling with its passions and its destiny He says, Cling to Me ; — cling ever closer to Me. If we believe St. John, He represented Himself as the Light of the world, as the Shepherd of the souls of men, as the Way to immortality, as the Vine or Life-tree of hu- manity" (p. 177). He ends this beautiful passage, of which we have quoted as much as our limits allow, by saying that " He instructed His followers to hope for life from feeding on His Body and Blood." 6 O si sic omnia ! Is it not hard, that, after following with pleasure a train of thought so calculated to warm all Christian hearts, and to create in them both admira- tion and sympathy for the writer, we must end our notice of him in a different tone, and express as much dissent from him and as serious blame of him as we have hither- to been showing satisfaction with his object, his inten- tion, and the general outline of his argument ? But so it is. In what remains to be said we are obliged to speak of his work in terms so sharp that they may seem to be QVit of keeping with what has gone befpre. With what- for Christianity. 381 ever abruptness, we must suddenly shift the scene, and manifest our disapprobation of portions of his book as plainly as we have shown an interest in it. We have praised it in various points of view. It has stirred the hearts of many ; it has recognized a need, and gone in the right direction for supplying it. It serves as a token, and a hopeful token, of what is going on in the minds of numbers of men external to the Church. It is so far a good book, and, we trust, will work for good. Especially as we have seen, is it interesting to the Catholic, as ac- knowledging the visible Church to be our Lord's own creation, as the direct fruit of His teaching, and the destined instrument of His purposes. We do not know how to speak in an unfriendly tone of an author who has done so much as this ; but at the same time, when we come to examine his argument in its details, and study his chapters one by one, we find, in spite of, and mixed up with, what is true and original, and even put- ting aside his patent theological errors, so much bad logic, so much of rash and- gratuitous assumption, so much of half-digested thought, that we are obliged to conclude that it would have been much wiser in him, instead of publishing what he seems to confess, or rather to pro- claim, to be the jottings of his first researches upon sacred territory, to have waited till he had carefully tra- versed and surveyed and mapped the whole of it. We now proceed to give a few instances of the faults of which we complain. His opening remarks will serve as an illustration. In p. 41 he says, **We have not rested upon single passages, nor drawn from the fourth Gospel'' This, we suppose, must be his reason for ignoring the passage in Luke ii. 49 : " Did you not know that I must be about My Father's business } " for he directly contradicts it, by 382 An internal Argument gratuitously imagining that our Lord came for St John's baptism with the same intention as the penitents around Him ; and that, in spite of His own words, which we suppose are to be taken as another "single passage," "So it becometh us to fulfil all justice" (Matt. iii. 15). It must be on this principle of ignoring single passages such as these, even though they admit of combination, that he goes on to say of our Lord, that " in the agita- tion of mind caused by His baptism, and by the Baptist's designation of Him as the future Prophet, He retired into the wilderness," and there " He matured the plan of action which we see Him executing from the moment of His return into society " (p. 9) ; and that not till then was He "conscious of miraculous power " (p. 12). This neglect of the sacred text, we repeat, must be allowed him, we suppose, under cover of his acting out his rule of abstaining from single passages and from the fourth Gospel. Let us allow it ; but at least he ought to adduce passages, single or many, for what he actually does assert. He must not be allowed arbitrarily to add to the history, as well as cautiously to take from it. Where, then, we ask, did he learn that our Lord's baptism caused Him " agitation of mind," that He " matured His plan of action in the wilderness," and that He then first was " conscious of miraculous power " ? But again : it seems he is not to refer to " single pas- sages or the fourth Gospel ; " yet, wonderful to say, he actually does open his formal discussion of the sacred history by referring to a passage from that very Gospel, — nay, to a particular text, which is not to be called * single," only because it is not so much as a single text, but an unfair half text, and half a text such, that, had he taken the whole of it, he would have been obliged to admit that the part which he puts aside just runs counter for Christianity. yfi-y^ to his interpretation of the part which he recognizes. The words are these, as they stand in the Protestant version : " Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." Now, it is impossible to deny that " which taketh away/' etc., fixes and limits the sense of " the Lamb of God ; " but our author notices the latter half of the sentence, only in order to put aside the light which it throws upon the former half; and instead of the Baptist's own interpretation of the title which he gives to our Lord, he substitutes another, radically different, which he selects for himself out of one of the Psalms. He explains " the Lamb " by the well-known image, which represents the Almighty as a shepherd and His earthly servants as sheep — innocent, safe, and happy under His protection. " The Baptist's opinion of Christ's character, then," he says, " is summed up for us in the title he gives Him — the Lamb of God, taking away the sins of the world. There seems to be, in the last part of this description, an allusion to the usages of the Jewish sacrificial system ; and, in order to explain it fully, it would be necessary to anticipate much which will come more conveniently later in this treatise. But when we remember that the Baptist's mind was doubtless full of imagery drawn from the Old Testament, and that the conception of a lamb of God makes the subject of one of the most striking of the Psalms, we shall perceive what he meant to convey by this phrase'' (pp. 5, 6). This is like saying, to take a parallel instance, "Isaiah declares, 'Mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts ;' but^ considering that doubtless the prophet was well acquainted with the first and second books of Samuel, and that Saul, David, and Solomon are the three great kings there represented, we shall easily perceive that, by * seeing the King,* he meant to 384 An internal Argument say that he saw Uzziah, king of Judah, in the last year of whose reign he had the vision. As to the phrase * the Lord of hosts/ which seems to refer to the Almighty, we will consider its meaning by-and-by:" — but, in truth, it is difficult to invent a paralogism, in its gratuitous inconsecutiveness parallel to his own, 7. We must own that, with every wish to be fair to this author, we never recovered from the perplexity of mind which this passage, in the very threshold of his book, inflicted on us. It needed not the various passages, constructed on the same argumentative model, which follow it in his work, to prove to us that he was not only an incognito, but an enigma. "Ergo," is the symbol of the logician : — what is the scientific method of a writer whose symbols, profusely scattered through his pages, are "probably," "it must be," "doubtless," "on this hypothesis," " we may suppose," and " it is natural to think," and that at the very time that he pointedly discards the comments of school theologians } Is it possible that he can mean us to set aside, in his own favour, the glosses of all that went before him, and to ex- change our old lamps for his new ones } Men have been at fault, when trying to determine whether he was an orthodox believer on his road to liberalism, or a liberal on his road to orthodoxy : this doubtless may be to some a perplexity ; but our own difficulty is, whether he comes to us as an investigator or rather as a prophet, as one unequal or superior to the art of reasoning. Undoubtedly he is an able man ; but what can he possibly mean by startling us with such eccentricities of argumentation as are quite familiar with him ? Addison somewhere bids his readers bear in mind, for Christianity, 385 that if he is ever especially dull, he always has a special reason for being so ; and it is difficult to reconcile one's imagination to the supposition that this anonymous writer, with so much religious thought as he certainly evidences, is without some recondite reason for seeming so inconsequent, and does not move by some deep subterraneous process of investigation, which, if once brought to light, would clear him of the imputation of castle-building. There is always a danger of misconceiving an author who has no antecedents by which we may mf" ure him. Taking his work as it lies, we can but wish that he had kept his imagination under control ; and that he had more of the hard head of a lawyer, and the patience of a philosopher. He writes like a man who cannot keep from telling the world his first thoughts, especially if they are clever or graceful ; he has come for the first time upon a strange world, and his remarks upon it are too often obvious rather than striking, and crude rather than fresh. What can be more paradoxical than to interpret our Lord's words to Nicodemus, " Unless a man be born again," etc., of the necessity of external reli- gion, and as a lesson to him to profess his faith openly and not to visit him in secret? (p. 86). What can be more pretentious, not to say vulgar, than his paraphrase of St. John's passage about the woman taken in adul- tery ? ** In His burning embarrassment and confusion," he says, "He stooped down so as to hide His face. . . . They had a glimpse perhaps of the glowing blush upon His face," etc. (p. 104.) We should be very sorry to use a severe word con- cerning an honest inquirer after truth, as we believe this anonymous writer to be ; but we will confess that Catholics, kindly as they may wish to feel towards him, 25 386 An internal Argument are scarcely even able, from their very position, to give his work the enthusiastic reception which it has received from some other critics. The reason is plain ; those alone can speak of it from a full heart, who feel a need, and recognize in it a supply of that need. We are not in the number of such ; for they who have found, have no need to seek. Far be it from us to use language savouring of the leaven of the Pharisees. We are not assuming a high place, because we thus speak, or boasting of our security. Catholics are both deeper and shallower than Protestants ; but in neither case have they any call for a treatise such as this Ecce Homo. If they live to the world and the flesh, then the faith which they profess, though it is true and distinct, is dead ; and their certainty about religious truth, however firm and unclouded, is but shallow in its character, and flippant in its manifestations. And in proportion as they are worldly and sensual, will they be flippant and shallow.* But their faith is as inde- lible as the pigment which colours the skin, even though it is skin-deep. This class of Catholics is not likely to take interest in a pictorial Ecce Homo. On the other hand, where the heart is alive with divine love, faith is as deep as it is vigorous and joyous ; and, as far as Catho- lics are in this condition, they will feel no drawing to- wards a work which is after all but an arbitrary and unsatisfactory dissection of the Object of their devotion. Faith, be it deep or shallow, does not need Evidences. That individual Catholics may be harassed with doubts, particularly in a day like this, we are not denying ; but, viewed as a body. Catholics, from their religious condi- tion, are either too deep or too shallow to suffer from those elementary difficulties, or that distress of mind, * [On this whole subject, vide *• Difficulties felt by Anglicans," etc., Lecture IX.] for Christianity, 387 and need of argument, which serious Protestants so often experience. We confess, then, as Catholics, to some unavoidable absence of cordial feeling in following the remarks of this author, though not to any want of real sympathy ; and we seem to be justified in our indisposition by his manifest want of sympathy with us. If we feel distant towards him, his own language about Catholicity, and (what may be called) old Christianity, seems to show that that distance is one of fact, one of mental position, not any fault in ourselves. Is it not undeniable, that the very life of personal religion among Catholics lies in a knowledge of the Gospels } It is the character and con- duct of our Lord, His words. His deeds, His sufferings, His work, which are the very food of our devotion and rule of our life. "Behold the Man," which this author feels to be an object novel enough to write a book about, has been the contemplation of Catholics from the first age when St. Paul said, " The life that I now live in the flesh, I live in the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself for me," As the Psalms have ever been the manual of our prayer, so have the Gospels been the subject-matter of our meditation. In these latter times especially, since St. Ignatius, they have been divided into portions, and arranged in a scientific order, not unlike that which the Psalms have received in the Breviary. To contemplate our Lord in His person and His history is with us the exercise of every retreat, and the devotion of every morning. All this is cer- tainly simple matter of fact ; but the writer we are re- viewing lives and thinks at so great a distance from us, as not to be cognizant of what is so patent and so noto- rious a truth. He seems to imagine that the faith of a Catholic is the mere profession of a formula. He 3^8 An internal Argument deems it important to disclaim, in the outset of his work, all reference to the theology of the Church. He eschews with much precision, as something almost profane, the dogmatism of former ages. He wishes " to trace " our Lord's " biography from point to point, and accept those conclusions — not which Church doctors or even Apostles have sealed with their authority — but which the facts themselves, critically weighed, appear to warrant." — (Preface.) Now, what Catholics, what Church doctors, as well as Apostles, have ever lived on, is not any number of theological canons or decrees, but, we repeat, the Christ Himself, as He is represented in concrete existence in the Gospels.* Theological determinations about our Lord are far more of the nature of landmarks or buoys to guide a discursive mind in its reasonings, than to assist a devotional mind in its worship. Com- mon sense, for instance, tells us what is meant by the words, " My Lord and my God ; " and a religious man, upon his knees, requires no commentator ; but against irreligious speculators, Arius or Nestorius, a denunciation has been passed, in Ecumenical Council, when " science falsely so-called " encroached upon devotion. Has not this been insisted on by all dogmatic Christians over and over again 1 Is it not a representation as absolutely true as it is trite } We had fancied that Protestants generally allowed the touching beauty of Catholic hymns and meditations ; and after all is there not That in all Catholic churches which goes beyond any written devo- tion, whatever its force or its pathos ? Do we not be- lieve in a Presence in the sacred Tabernacle, not as a form of words, or as a notion, but as an Object as real as we are real } And if before that Presence we need r/^ither profession of faith nor even manual of devotion, * \yide *' Essay on Assent," ch. iv. and v.] for Christianity, 389 what appetite can we have for the teaching of a writer who not only exalts his first thoughts about our Lord into professional lectures, but implies that the Catholic Church has never known how to point Him out to her children ? 8. It may be objected, that we are making too much of so accidental a slight as is contained in his allusion to " Church doctors," especially as he mentions Apostles in connexion with them ; but it would be affectation not to recognize in other places of his book an undercurrent of antagonism to us, of which the passage already quoted is but a first indication. Of course he has quite as much right as another to take up an anti-Catholic position, if he will ; but we understand him to be putting forth an investigation, not a polemical argument: and if, instead of keeping his eyes directed towards his own proper subject, he looks to the right or left, hitting at those who view things differently from himself, he is damaging the ethical force of a composition which claims to be, and mainly is, a serious and manly search after religious truth. Why cannot he let us alone ? Of course he cannot avoid see- ing that the lines of his own investigation diverge from those drawn by others ; but he will have enough to do in defending himself, without making others the object of his attack. He is virtually opposing Voltaire, Strauss, Renan, Calvin, Wesley, Chalmers, Erskine, and a host of other writers, but he does not denounce them ; why then does he single out, misrepresent, and anathematize a a main principle of Catholic orthodoxy. It is as if he could not keep his hand off us, when we crossed his path. We are alluding to the following magisterial passage : . " If He (our Lord) meant anything by His constant 390 An internal Argument denunciation of hypocrites, there is nothing which He could have visited with sterner censure than that short cut to belief which many persons take, when, overwhelmed with difficulties which beset their minds, and afraid of damnation, they suddenly resolve to strive no longer, but, giving their minds a holiday, to rest content with saying that they believe, and acting as if they did. A melan- choly end of Christianity indeed ! Can there be such a disfranchised pauper class among the citizens of the New Jerusalem ? " (p. 79). He adds shortly afterwards : " Assuredly, those who represent Christ as presenting to man an abtruse theology, and saying to them peremp- torily, * Believe or be damned,' have the coarsest con- ception of the Saviour of the world " (p. 80). Thus he delivers himself: BeHeve or be damned is so detestable a doctrine, that if any man denies that it is detestable, I pronounce him to be a hypocrite; to be with- out any true knowledge of the Saviour of the world ; to be the object of His sternest censure ; and to have no part or place in the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, the eter- nal Heaven above. — Pretty well for a virtuous hater of dogmatism ! We hope we shall show less dictatorial arrogance than his in the answer which we proceed to make to him. Whether or not there are persons such as he de- scribes, Catholics, or, Protestant converts to Catholicism, — men who profess a faith which they do not believe, under the notion that they shall be eternally damned if they do not profess it without believing, — we really do not know — we never met with such ; but since facts do not concern us here so much as principles, let us, for argument's sake, grant that there are such men. Our author believes they are not only '' many," but enough for Christianity* 391 to form a ** class ; " and he considers that they act in this preposterous manner under the sanction, and in ac- cordance with the teaching, of the religious bodies to which they belong. Especially there is a marked allu- sion in his words to the Athanasian Creed and the Catholic Church. Now we answer him thus : It is his charge against the teachers of dogma that they impose on men as a duty, instead of believing, to " act as if they did " believe : — now iii fact this is the very kind of profession which, if it is all that a candidate hcis to offer, absolutely shuts him out from admission into Catholic communion. We suppose, that by belief of a thing this writer understands an inward conviction of its truth ; — this being supposed, we plainly say that no priest is at liberty to receive a man into the Church who has not a real internal belief, and cannot say from his heart, that the things taught by the Church are true. On the other hand, as we have said above, it is the very characteristic of the profession of faith made by numbers of educated Protestants, and it is the utmost extent to which they are able to go in believing, to hold, not that Christian doctrine is certainly true, but ihat it has such a semblance of truth, it has such considerable marks of probability upon it, that it is their duvy to accept and act upon it as if it were true beyond all question or doubt : and they justify themselves, and with much reason, by the authority of Bishop Butle*. Undoubtedly, a religious man will be led to go as car as this, if he cannot go farther ; but unless he can go farther, he is no catechumen of the Catholic Church. We wish all men to beUeve that her creed is true ; but till tliey do so believe, we do not wish, we have no permission, to make them her members. Such a faith as this author speaks of to condemn — (our books call it *' J?racticaU\^vt\t\idQ ")— does 392 An internal Argument not rise to the level of the sine qua non, which is the con- dition prescribed for becoming a CathoHc. Unless a convert so believes that he can sincerely say, " After all, in spite of all difficulties, objections, obscurities, mysteries, the creed of the Church undoubtedly comes from God, and is true, because He who gave it is the Truth," such a man, though he be outwardly received into her fold, will receive no grace from the sacraments, no sanctification in baptism, no pardon in penance, no life in communion. We are more consistently dogmatic than this author imagines ; we do not enforce a principle by halves ; if our doctrine is true, it must be received as such ; if a man cannot so receive it, he must wait till he can. It would be better, indeed, if he now believed ; but since he does not as yet, to wait is the best he can do under the circumstances. If we said anything else than this, certainly we should be, as the author thinks we are, encouraging hypocrisy. Nor let him turn round on us and say that by thus proceeding we are laying a burden on souls, and blocking up the entrance into that fold which was intended for all men, by imposing hard conditions on candidates for admission ; for, as we shall now show, we have already implied a great principle, which is an answer to this objection, and which the Gospels exhibit and sanction, but which he absolutely ignores. Let us avail ourselves of his own quotation. The Baptist said, "Behold the Lamb of God." Again he says, " This is the Son of God." " Two of his disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus." They be- lieved John to be " a man sent from God " to teach them, and therefore they believed his word to be true. for Christianity. 393 We suppose it was not hypocrisy in them to believe in John's word ; rather they would have been guilty of gross inconsistency or hypocrisy, had they professed to be- lieve that he was a divine messenger, and yet had refused to take his word concerning the Stranger whom he pointed out to their veneration. It would have been "saying that they believed," and not " acting as if they did ; " which at least is not better than saying and acting. Now was not the announcement which John made to them " a short cut to belief" ? and what the harm of it ? They believed that our Lord was the promised Prophet, without making direct inquiry about Him, without a new inquiry, on the ground of a previous inquiry into the claims of John himself to be accounted a messenger from God. They had already accepted it as truth that John was a prophet ; but again, what a prophet said must be true ; else he would not be a prophet ; now, John said that our Lord was the Lamb of God ; this, then, certainly was a sacred truth. Now it might happen, that they knew exactly and for certain what the Baptist meant in calling our Lord " a Lamb ; " in that case they would believe Him to be that which they knew the figurative word meant, as used by the Baptist. But, as our author reminds us, the word has different senses ; and though the Baptist explained his own sense of it on the first occasion of using it, by add- ing " that taketh away the sin of the world," yet when he spoke to the two disciples he did not thus explain it. Now let us suppose that they went off, taking the word each in his own sense, the one understanding by it a sacrificial lamb, the other a lamb of the fold ; and let us suppose that, as they were on their way to our Lord's home, they became aware of this difference between their several impressions, and disputed with each other which 394 -^^ internal Argument was the right interpretation. It is clear that they would agree so far as this, viz., that, in saying that the proposi- tion was true, they meant that it was true in that sense in which the Baptist spoke it, whatever that was ; more- over, if it be worth noticing, they did after all even agree, in some vague way, about the meaning of the word, understanding that it denoted some high characteristic, or office, or ministry. Anyhow, it was absolutely true, they would say, that our Lord was a Lamb, whatever it meant ; the word conveyed a great and momentous fact, and if they did not know what that fact was, the Baptist did, and they would accept it in its one right sense, as soon as he or our Lord told them what that was. Again, as to that other title which the Baptist gave our Lord, " the Son of God," it admitted of half a dozen meanings. Wisdom was " the only begotten ; " the Angels were the sons of God ; Adam was a son of God ; the descendants of Seth were sons of God ; Solomon was a son of God ; and so is " the just man." In which of these senses, or in what sense, was our Lord the Son of God } St. Peter, as the after-history shows us, knew, but there were those who did not know ; the centurion who attended the crucifixion did not know, and yet he con- fessed that our Lord was the Son of God. He knew that our Lord had been condemned by the Jews for calling Himself the Son of God, and therefore he cried out, on seeing the miracles which a»ttended his death, " Indeed this was the Son of God." His words evidently imply, " I do not know precisely what He meant by so calling Himself; but this I do know, — what He said He was, that He is; whatever He meant, I believe Him ; I believe that His word about Himself is true, though I cannot prove it to be so, though I do not even understand it ; I believe His word, for I believe Him** for Christianity. 395 Now to return to the accusation which has led to these remarks. Our author says that certain persons are hypocrites, because they " take a short cut to belief, suddenly resolving to strive no longer, but to rest con- tent with saying they believe." Does he mean by " a short cut," believing on the word of another ? As far as we see, he can mean nothing else ; yet how can he really mean this and mean to blame this, with the Gospels before him ? He cannot mean it, if he pays any deference to the Gospels, because the very staple of the sacred narra- tive, from beginning to end, is a call on all men to believe what is not proved, not plain, to them, on the warrant of divine messengers ; because the very form of our Lord's teaching is to substitute authority for argument ; because the very principle of His grave earnestness, the very key to His regenerative mission, is the intimate connexion of faith with salvation. Faith is not simply trust in His legislation, as the writer says ; it is definitely trust in His word, whether that word be about heavenly things or earthly ; whether it is spoken by His own mouth, or through His ministers. The Angel who announced the Baptist's birth, said, " Thou shalt be dumb, because thou believest not my words." The Baptist's mother said of Mary, " Blessed is she that believed." The Bap- tist himself said, " He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life ; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." Our Lord, in turn said to Nicodemus, " We speak that we do know, and ye receive not our witness ; he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the Name of the Only-begotten Son of God." To the Jews, " He that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, shall not come into con- demnation." To the Capharnaites, " He that believeth 396 An internal Argument on Me hath everlasting life." To St. Thomas, " Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." And to the Apostles, " Preach the Gospel to every crea- ture ; he that believeth not shall be damned." How is it possible to deny that our Lord, both in the text and in the context of these and other passages, made faith in a message, on the warrant of the messenger, to be a condition of salvation, and enforced it by the great grant of power which He emphatically conferred on His representatives? "Whosoever shall not receive you," He says, " nor hear your words, when ye depart, shake off the dust of your feet." " It is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father." "He that heareth you, heareth Me ; he that despiseth you, despiseth Me ; and he that despiseth Me, despiseth Him that sent me." " I pray for them that shall believe on Me through their word." " Whose sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them ; and whose sins ye retain, they are retained." "Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven." " I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven ; and what soever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." These characteristic and critical announce- ments have no place in this author's gospel ; and let it be understood, that we are not asking why he does not determine the exact doctrines contained in them — for that is a question which he has reserved (if we under- stand him) for a future Volume — but why he does not recognize the principle they involve — for that is a matter which falls within his present subject 10. It is not well to exhibit some sides of Christianity, and not others ; this we think is the main fault of the author for Christta7iity, 397 we have been reviewing. It does not pay to be eclectic in so serious a matter of fact. He does not overlook, he boldly confesses, that a visible organized Church was a main part of our Lord's plan for the regeneration of mankind. " As with Socrates," he says, " argument is everything, and personal authority nothing ; so with Christ, personal authority is all in all, and argument altogether unemployed " (p. 94). Our Lord rested His teaching, not on the concurrence and testimony of His hearers, but on His own authority. He imposed upon them the declarations of a Divine Voice. Why does this author stop short in the delineation of principles which he has so admirably begun .? Why does he denounce "short cuts," as a mental disfranchisement, when no cut can be shorter that to " believe and be saved " > Why does he denounce religious fear as hypocritical, when it is written, " He that believeth not shall be damned " ? Why does He call it dishonest in a man to sacrifice his own judgment to the word of God, when, unless he did so, he would be avowing that the Creator knew less than the creature } Let him re- collect that no two thinkers, philosophers, writers, ever did, ever will agree, in all things with each other. No system of opinions, ever given to the world, approved it- self in all its parts to the reason of any one individual by whom it was mastered. No revelation then is con- ceivable, which does not involve, almost in its very idea as being something new, a collision with the human intel- lect, and demands accordingly, if it is to be accepted, a sacrifice of private judgment on the part of those to whom it is addressed. If a revelation be necessary, then also in consequence is that sacrifice necessary. One man will have to make a sacrifice in one respect, another in an- other, all men in some» 39^ An internal Argument for Christianity, We say, then, to men of the day, Take Christianity, or leave it; do not practise upon it; to do so is as un- philosophical as it is dangerous. Do not attempt to halve a spiritual unit. You are apt to call it a dishonesty in us to refuse to follow out our reasonings, when faith stands in the way ; is there no intellectual dishonesty in your self-trust ? First, your very accusation of us is dishonest ; for you keep in the background the circumstance, of which you are well aware, that such a refusal on our part to back Reason against Faith, is the necessary con- sequence of our accepting an authoritative Revelation ; and next you profess to accept that Revelation your- selves, whilst you dishonestly pick and choose, and take as much or as little of it as you please. You either ac- cept Christianity, or you do not : if you do, do not garble and patch it ; if you do not, suffer others to submit to it ungarbled. 7««tf, 1866. 399 INDEX. Abdiel, the faithful seraph, 5. Abraham, his intercession for Sodom, 87 ; his denial of his wife, 156. Adam and Eve, creation of, 154. Agabus, 178. Ahaz, refuses to ask a sign, 175 ; builds an altar sifter a heathen pattern, 176. Alaric, 88. Alexander, 53. Alexandria, temple at, 15. Alfred, King, 288. Alphery, 289. Ambrose, St., 24. Andrews, 17. Antichrist, Patristical Idea of, 44. Antiochus, 53, 71. Apocrypha, the, 203, 225. Apollo Library, site ot, 14. Apostolical Succession, 1x3. Arcesilas, 275. Arianisra, 41. Aristotle, 275, 293, 376, Asmoneans, the, 15. Aspasia, 267. Athanasian Creed, 145, 391. Athanasius, St., 24. Athenians, characteristics of the, 235. Athens, 326. Attila, 89. Augustine, St., his letter to a Donatist bishop, 7, vid. also 13 ; quoted, 88 ; on the Apocrypha, 203 ; his well-known dictum, 366. Augustus, 73. Azariah, 159. Babylon, fall of, 87. Bacon, Lord ; on Idola^ 277 ; on the Ancient Philosophies, 29S. Bacon, Roger, 289. Balaam, history of, 157, 179, 219, 221. Baptism, X15. 400 Index, Basil, St., 24. Belshazzar, 69. Belzoni, 28c. Bentham, Jeremy, on Useful Knowledge, 262 ; no poetry in him, 263 ; his philosophy, 270. Benthamism, 272. Berkeley, Bishop, 275. Berkshire, a retired parish in, 34. BercBans, commendation of the, 244* Bethesda, pool of, 221. Bible, two attributes of the, 173. Blandina, martyrdom of, 100. Bolingbroke's Patriot King, 352. Brougham, Lord, 255 ; a work wrongly ascribed to him, 256 ; his inaugural speech at Glasgow, 258. Broughamism, 272. Butler, Bishop, his Analogy 0/ Religion characterized, 193 ; puts up a cross in his chapel at Bristol, ib.; 275, 391. Burton, Dr., Antiquities of Rome, quoted, 87, Caesar, works of, 11 ; civilizes France, 380. Caius, lost work of, 204, 207. Calvin, his doctrine of Predestination, 143. Calvinists, their pet texts, 185. Canticles, Book of, 185, 210. Catholicus, Letters of, to " The Times," 254 ; to the " Catholic Standard," 306. Charlemagne, his gifts to the Church, 25. Charles the First, 22, 23. Christianity, Primitive, 10 ; not cast in the rigid mould of Judaism, 12 ; not a violent revolution, 30. Chrysostom, St., 13, 50. Cicero's Offices^ 194 ; on Philosophy, 264 ; bis Treatise on Consolation. 265. Clive, Lord, career of, 337. Confirmation, 34. Constantine, 33. Cowper, 265. Creed, necessity of a, 135. Cyprian, against schismatics, 11 ; on Episcopal Ordination, 13, 204. Cyril, St., on the One Holy Catholic Church, 8 ; quoted, 58, 102. Daniel, captivity of, 33 ; his prophecy of Antichrist, 52 ; his explanation of the ten horns, 79 ; on the great persecution, 94 ; taught by the Chal- deans, 212. Darius, 53. David, 175 ; history of, differently viewed, 185. Davy, 289. Deioces, 313. Democritus, 298. Demosthenes, the elder, 329. Difficulties in Scripture proof of doctrine, 109. Index, 401 Dionysius, St., of Alexandria, 208. Dissenters, their unconscious imitations of the provisions of the old Catholic system, 37. Donatists, the, 13. Duval, 289. Easter hymn, the, 38. Ecce Homo, 363. Ecclesiastes, Book of, 210. Ehud, his assassination of Eglon, 178. Elijah and Elisha, 166, 187. Elisha, character and conduct of, 227. England, the paradise of little men, and the purgatory of great ones, 343. Eridanus, the, 376. Esther, Book of, 209. Eucharist, the, 118, 179. Eusebius, 58, 204, 206. Exeter Hall, depths of, 308, Genesis, Book of, 155. Genseric, 89. Gerizim, temple at, 15. Gibbon, on the Popes of the ninth and tenth centuries, 25 ; on the invasion of the Roman provinces by the barbarians, 83, 84 ; quoted, 89, loi ; on the Divinity of Christ, 187. Gog and Magog, 104. Gregory. Pope, on the destruction of Rome, 86. Guiberto, 25. Guizot, M., quoted 321. Gustavus Adolphus, 362. Hagar, 22. Hall, Bishop of Norwich, quoted, 20. Haman, iii. Hannibal, 329. Herod, a Jewish courtier of, 14 ; and St. John Baptist, 177. Hildebrand, Pope, 25, 33, 35. Hippolytus, quoted, 67, 74, 207. Holy Scripture in its relation to the Catholic Creed, 109. Homer, created literature, 330. Horsley, Bishop, on the times of Antichrist, 107. Jacob, his wrestle with the angel, 179. Jael and Sisera, 178. Jehoash, reign of, 165, 175. Jerome, St., on Daniel, quoted, 56 ; on St. Paul's Epistle to Philemon, 204. Jewish Temple, the, 66. Ignatius, St, Epistles of, 139 ; on the Eucharist, 208. Irenaeus, St., quoted, 67, 73, 207, 209. Judas, manner of hib death, 168. 402 Index, Julian, Emperor, 55, 57, 67, 71, 289. Justification by Faith, 123. Keble, John, on the Apostolical Succession, 16. Ken, Bishop, 17, his will quoted, 105. Knox, Alexander, his Letters and Remains quoted, 27. La Place, 258, 267, 299. Lateinos and the number 666, — 73. Latitude, doctrine of, 129. Latitudinarianism, difficulties of, 126, Laud, Archbishop, 17, i8. Lazarus, the raising of, 165. Leo, St., and Attila, 89. Leslie, his Case of the Regale and Pontificate, quoted, 27, Locke on the Human Understanding, 372. London, 336. Lorenzo de Medicis, 289. Lushington, Dr., 255, 259. Luther, on Justification by Faith, 124 ; his doctrine of Consubstantlation, 143- Macaulay, Lord, on the Constitution of England, 361. Mahomet, 55, 58. Mahometan power, approaching destruction of, 103. Malachi, St., of Armagh, on the destruction of Rome, 86. Malchus, 182. Manasseh, reign of, 163. Marcus Antoninus, 289. Marozia, 25. Matrimony, 34. Maurice, F.D., on Eternal Punishment, 351. Melito, on the Canonicity of the Book of Esther, 209. Menenius Agrippa, fable of, 354. Miltiades, 329. Milton's Paradise Lost, quoted, 290. Montorio, the, 33. Mosaic law, the, divinity and beauty of, 14. Moses, his attempts to avenge the Israelites, 32 ; his periods of fast in the Mount, 157 ; his striking the rock, 175, and smiting the Egyptian, ib.: his vision of God, 179 ; accused of borrowing his law from the Egyp- tians, 211. Naaman, 221, 228. Nazianzen, Gregory, on the Canonicity of the Book of Esther, 209. Newton's hymns, 38. Newton, Sir Isaac, 258, 380. ' Oaths, lawfulness of, 122. CEdipus, sons of, 334. Orange Ribbon, the, 13. Index, 403 Ordination Service, the, 34. Origan, on the Epistles of St. Paul, 204, 206 ; on Eternal Punishment, 238. Original Sin, 123. Orthodox Protestantism, 197. Oxford, 23. Palatine, the, 4. Paley's Evidences, 367, 371. Pantheism, the great deceit of the future, 233. Paris, modern, the city of infidelity, 23. Pascal, 258. Peel, Sir Robert, his Address on the Establishment of the Tamworth Reading Room, 254. Pepin, donations of, to the Church, 25, 33. Pericles, his rebuke to Sophocles 194 ; on the Athenians, 328. Philemon, St. Paul's Epistle to, 204. Philoctetes, 308. Plato, 299. Polygamy, 122. " Protestant," exception to the word, 31. Prytaneum, the, 337. Punishment of Death, 122. Python, 218. Rasselas and Imlac, 266. Roman Empire, the, 49 ; fall of, 80. Rome, city of, described, 2, 3 ; the city of Catholicism, 23. Rousseau, on Socrates and Jesus, 366, 372, Sabbath, the, 120. Sancho Panza, 319. Sancroft, Archbishop, 26. Sarpi, Father Paul, his Letters quoted, 26. Satan, 211. Scott, Sir Walter, his Two Drovers^ 334. Scripture and the Creed, 109. Seth, birth of, 156. Shakespeare, quoted, 22. Simon of Cyrene, 167. Sisera, 33. Sisterhoods, Religious, 40. Socrates, 328, 366, 379, 380, 397. Sophocles, 194. Stewart, Dugald, 274. Tamworth Reading Room, 254. Taylor, Jeremy, his Prayers and Litanies, 39. Tertullian, mentions Prayers for the Dead, 204. Themistocles, 329. Theodoret, on Daniel, quoted, 56. Thessalonians, the, 44 ; epistles to, 207, 404 Index. Timothy, 161. Trastevere, the, 33. Trent, Council of, 28. Trinity, not mentioned in Scripture, 123, Turks, the, 104. Urijah the priest and Ahaz, 176. Uzziah, 159. Walpole, Sir Robert, 352, Waterloo Bridge, 336. Watts, 38. Wellington, Duke of, 307. Wesley's hymns, 38. Whately, Archbishop, on the Establishment, 361. White, Henry Kirke, 289. Whitney blankets, 347. Xenophon, 329. Xerxes, 53. Zechariah, 212. Zeno, 368. Zuinglians, dilemma of, in regard to Baptism, 143. 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Grant Duff's Diaries— Leo XIII.— The Genius of Cardinal Wiseman— John Henry Newman— Newman and Manning— Appendix ESSAYS. By the Rev. FATHER IGNATIUS DUDLEY RYDER. Edited by FRANCIS BACCHUS, of the Oratory, Bir- mingham. With Frontispiece. 8vo. 9s. net. Contents.— A Jesuit Reformer and Poet : Frederick Spee— Revelations of the After- World— Savonarola— M. Emery, Superior of St. Sulpice, 1789-1811— Auricular Confession— The Pope and the Anglican Archbishops— Ritualism, Roman Catholicism, and Converts— On Certain Ecclesiastical Miracles— The Ethics of War— The Passions of the Past— Some Memories of a Jail Chaplain— Purcell's Life of Cardinal Manning. Afpendix.— Some Notes on Ryder's Controversy with Ward. BY ROMAN CATHOLIC WRITERS. 1 1 Biography, etc» — continued, THE THREE SISTERS OF LORD RUSSELL OF KILLOWEN AND THEIR CONVENT LIFE. By the Rev. MATTHEW RUSSELL, S.J. With 5 Illustrations. 8vo. 6s. net. UNSEEN FRIENDS. By Mrs. William O'Brien. With a Photogravure Portrait of Nano Nagle, Foundress of the Presentation Order. 8vo. 6s. 6d. net. Contents. — Mother Margaret Mary Hallahan — A Novelist of the last Century : Mrs. Oliphant — Nano Nagle — Charlotte Bronte at Home — Mary Aikenhead, Foundress of the Irish Sisters of Charity — Felicia Skene — Catharine McAuley, Foundress of the Sisters of Mercy — Jean Ingelow — Mother Frances Raphael Drane— Eugenie de Guerin — Emilie d'OuItrement — Pauline de la Ferronays and her Family — A French Heroine in China : H^lSne de Jaurias, Sister of Charity — Christina Rossetti — Marie Antoniette Fage. AUBREY DE VERE : a Memoir based on his unpublished Diaries and Correspondence. By Wl LFRI D WARD. With Two Photo- gravure Portraits and 2 other Illustrations. 8vo. 14s. net. THE HISTORY OF ST. CATHERINE OF SIENA AND HER COMPANIONS. With a Translation of her Treatise on Consummate Perfection. By AUGUSTA THEODOSIA DRANE. With 10 Illustrations. 2 vols. 8vo. 15s. A MEMOIR OF MOTHER FRANCIS RAPHAEL, O.S.p. (AUGUSTA THEODOSIA DRANE), sometime Prioress Provincial of the Congregation of Dominican Sisters of St. Catherine of Siena, Stone. With some of her Spiritual Notes and Letters. Edited by the Rev. Father BERTRAND WILBERFORCE. O.P. With portrait. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. LIFE OF THE MARQUISE DE LA ROCHE- JAQUELEIN, THE HEROINE OF LA VENDUE. By the Hon. Mrs. MAXWELL SCOTT (of Abbotsford). With 8 Illustrations and a Map. 8vo. 7s. 6d. yiet. LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI. By Father CUTHBERT, O.S.F.C. With 13 Illustrations. 8vo. 12s. 6d. »^^. SAINT FRANCIS OF ASSISI: a Biography. By JOHANNES JORGENSEN. Translated by T. O'CONOR SLOAN E. With 5 Illustrations. 8vo. 12s. 6d. yiet. THE LIFE AND LEGEND OF THE LADY SAINT CLARE : Translated from the French version (1563) of Brother Francis du Puis. By Mrs. REGINALD BALFOUR. With an Introduction by Father CUTHBERT, O.S.F.C, and 24 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. Gilt top. 4s. 6d. net. LIFE OF ST. ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY. DUCHESS OF THURINGIA. By the COUNT DE MONTALEM- BERT, Peer of France, Member of the French Academy. Translated by FRANCIS DEMING HOYT. Large Crown 8vo. 10s. 6d. n^^. 12 MESSRS. LONGMANS' LIST OF WORKS Biography, ctc*^ — continued. HISTORY OF ST. VINCENT DE PAUL, Founder of [ the Congregation of the Mission (Vincentians), and of the Sisters of Charity. By Monseigneur BOUGAUD, Bishop of Laval. Translated from the Second French Edition by the Rev. JOSEPH BRADY, CM. With an Introduction by His Eminence CARDINAL VAUGHAN, late Arch- bishop of Westminster. Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d. net. IN ST. DOMINIC'S COUNTRY. By C. M. Antony. Edited with a Preface by the Rev. T. M. SCHWERTNER, O.P., S.T.L. With 50 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 6s. net. The record of a pilgrimage to the towns and villages of Southern France known to have been visited by Saint Dominic, between 1205- 1219, with the account of his A postdate there, and the founding of his First and Second Orders. A sketch of the Albigensian Crusade is also given. The book is illustrated with over forty photographs, more than half of which have been expressly taken for the purpose, and contains two sketch maps. It may on this account fairly lay claim to be — at least for these fourteen important years — a Picture Book of Saint Dominic. The Beginnings of the Church. A Series of Histories of the First Century. By the Abbe CONSTANT FOUARD, Honorary Cathedral Canon Professor of the Faculty of Theology at Rouen, etc., etc. THE CHRIST, THE SON OF GOD. A Life of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. With an Introduction by CARDINAL MANNING. With 3 Maps. Two vols. Crown 8vo. 14s. Popular Edition. 8vo. Cloth, Is. net. Paper Covers, 6d. net. ST. PETER AND THE FIRST YEARS OF CHRIS- TIANITY. With 3 Maps. Crown 8vo. 9s. ST. PAUL AND HIS MISSIONS. With 2 Maps. Crown 8vo. 9s. Popular Edition. 8vo. Cloth, 1 s. net. Paper Covers, 6d. net. THE LAST YEARS OF ST. PAUL. With 5 Maps and Plans. Crown 8vo. 9s. ST. JOHN AND THE CLOSE OF THE APOSTOLIC AGE. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. BY ROMAN CATHOLIC WRITERS. 13 Lives of the Friar Saints* Editors for the Franciscan Lives : The Very Rev. Fr. OSMUND COONEY, O.F.M., Provincial, and C. M. ANTONY. Editors for the Dominican Lives : The Rev. Fr. BEDE JARRETT, O.P., and C. M. ANTONY. Fcap. 8vo. Cloth, 1 s. 6d. per volume ; Leather, 2s. 6d. net per volume. THE HOLY FATHER has expressed through the Very Rev. Fr. Thomas Esser, O.P., Secretary of the Congregation of the Index, his great pleasure and satisfaction that the series has been undertaken, and wishes it every success. He bestows " most affectionately " His Apostolic Blessing upon the Editors, Writers, and Readers of the whole series. The Master-General of the Dominicans, at Rome, in sending his blessing to the writers and readers of the series, says : " The Lives should teach their readers not only to know the Saints, but also to imitate them ". The Minister- General of the Franciscans sends his blessing and best wishes for the success of the series. The series, which has received the warm approval of the authorities of both Orders in England, Ireland, and America, is earnestly recommended to Tertiaries, and to the Catholic public generally. Fr. OSMUND COONEY, O.F.M., Fr. BEDE JARRETT, O.P., C. M. ANTONY, Editors. DOMINICAN. ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. Of the Order of Preachers (1225- 1274). A Biographical Study of the Angelic Doctor. By Fr. PLACID CONWAY, O.P. With 5 Illustrations. ST. VINCENT FERRER, O.P. By Fr. STANISLAUS HOGAN, O.P. With 4 Illus- trations. ST. PIUS V. Pope of the Holy Rosary. By C. M. ANTONY. With Preface by the Very Rev. Monsignor BENSON. With 4 Illustra- tions. FRANCISCAN. ST. BONAVENTURE. The Seraphic Doctor. Minister General of the Franciscan Order, Cardinal Bishop of Albano. By Fr. LAURENCE COSTELLOE, O.F.M. With 6 Illustrations. ST. ANTONY OF PA- DUA. The Miracle Worker (1195-1231). By C. M. AN- TONY. With 4 Illustrations. ST. JOHN CAPISTRAN. By Fr. VINCENT FITZ- GERALD, O.F.M. With 4 Illustrations. 14 MESSRS. LONGMANS' LIST OF WORKS Belles Lettres* LEVIA PONDERA: An Essay Book. By JOHN AYSCOUGH. Crown 8vo. 5s. net. Contents.— Sir Walter— A Scamp's Probation—" The Entail " : an Appreciation— The Leddy o' Grippy — Fickle Fame — King's Servants — An Essay on Essayists — Parallels — Loyalists and Patriots— Time's Reprisals— Cause and Cure — The Shoe and the Foot— Of Old Ways — Scientiae Inimici — Laxity or Sanctity — Press and Public — On Book Buying — Of Dislike of Books — Atmosphere and Antidote — On Sitting Still — Diabolica Trees — Footnotes — " This Public Conscience " — State and Conscience — Empire Day — Duty and Discipline — On Decadence — Messrs. Hooligan and Turveydrop — Two Pessimisms — Peace and Peoples —Dress and Clothing — Of Cathedrals — Of Stone Sermons and White Elephants — An Admiration Note — Why Norwich ? — Cold Porridge — Of Weaker Brethren — The Roman Road — Of Saints and Worthies — Of Great Age — Mare's Nests and Much Boasting — Of Lapse and Losses. GRACECHURCH PAPERS. By John Ayscough. Crown 8vo. IN GOD'S NURSERY. By C C. Martindale, S.J. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net. These sketches for yn a study in the religious psychology of pagan or of unformed Christian minds. No particular dogma is emphasised, but it is suggested by the general trend of the stories that, while the perfect religion is only attained in the supernatural revelation of Christianity, yet "in many fragments and in many ways," a Divine and educative factor has always and everywhere been active. ESSAYS. By the Rev. FATHER IGNATIUS DUDLEY RYDER. Edited by FRANCIS BACCHUS, of the Oratory, Birming- ham. With Frontispiece. 8vo. 9s. net. For Contents see page 10. UNSEEN FRIENDS. By Mrs. William O'Brien. With a Photogravure Portrait of Nano Nagle, Foundress of the Presentation Order. 8vo. 6s. 6d. net. For Contents see page 11, BY ROMAN CATHOLIC WRITERS. 15 For Spiritual Reading. THE SERMON OF THE SEA, and Other Studies. By the Rev. ROBERT KANE, S.J. Crown 8vo. 5s. net. THE PLAIN GOLD RING. By the Rev. Robert KANE, S.J. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net. GOOD FRIDAY TO EASTER SUNDAY. By the Rev. ROBERT KANE, S.J. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6cl. net. AT HOME WITH GOD : Priedieu Papers on Spiritual Subjects. By the Rev. MATTHEW RUSSELL, S.J. Crown 8vo. 3s. od. net. AMONG THE BLESSED : Loving Thoughts about Favourite Saints. By the Rev. MATTHEW RUSSELL, S.J. With 8 full-page Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6cl. tiet. THE PARADOXES OF CATHOLICISM. A Series of Sermons preached in Rome during Lent, 1913. By the Very Rev. Monsignor ROBERT HUGH BENSON. Crown 8vo. CHRIST IN THE CHURCH : A Volume of Religious Essays. By the Very Rev. Monsignor ROBERT HUGH BENSON. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net. THE FRIENDSHIP OF CHRIST: Sermons. By the Very Rev. Monsignor ROBERT HUGH BENSON. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net. SELF-KNOWLEDGE AND SELF-DISCIPLINE. By the Rev. B. W. MATURIN. Crown 8vo. 5s. net. LAWS OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. By the Rev. B. W. MATURIN. Crown 8vo. 5s. net. THE INNER LIFE OF THE SOUL. Short Spiritual Messages for the Ecclesiastical Year. By S. L. EMERY. Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d. net. OUR LADY IN THE CHURCH, and other Essays. By M. NESBITT. With a Preface by the Right Rev. Dr. CASARTELLI. Bishop of Salford. With a Frontispiece. Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d. net. A collection of essays, mainly historical or antiquarian in character. The papers deal with the life and work of the Catholic Church, and with various manners^ customs, and religious observances in mediceval times. 16 MESSRS. LONGMANS' LIST OF WORKS For Young People* THE HOUSE AND TABLE OF GOD : a Book for His Children Young and Old. By the Rev. WILLIAM ROCHE, S.J. With 24 Drawings by T. BAINES. Crown 8vo. Cloth, 2s. 6d. net; Vegetable Vellum, 3s. 6d. net. This book is primarily intended to guide the thoughts of children at an age when they begin to wonder, and to argue secretly within themselves about questions of life and religion ; but is equally suited to the open-minded of every age. It offers a consecutive series of readings calculated to deepen religious thought and feeling on essential truth. A CHILD'S RULE OF LIFE. By the Very Rev. Monsignor ROBERT HUGH BENSON. Printed in Red and Black and Illustrated by GABRIEL PIPPET. 4to. Paper Covers, Is. net; Cloth, 2s. net. A LIFE OF CHRIST FOR CHILDREN. With 20 Illustrations, reproduced chiefly from the Old Masters. With Preface by His Eminence CARDINAL GIBBONS. Large Crown 8vo. 4s. net. BIBLE STORIES TOLD TO "TODDLES". By Mrs. HERMANN BOSCH. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net. WHEN -TODDLES" WAS SEVEN: A Sequel to "Bible Stories told to 'Toddles'". By Mrs. HERMANN BOSCH. Crown 8vo. 3s. net. 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THE MAID OF ORLEANS. By the Very Rev. Monsignor ROBERT HUGH BENSON. With 14 Illustrations by GABRIEL PIPPET. Crown 8vo. 3s. net. Acting Edition. 6d. net. BY ROMAN CATHOLIC WRITERS. 17 Poetry and Romance, BALLADS OF IRISH CHIVALRY. By Robert DWYER JOYCE, M.D. Edited, with Annotations, by his brother, P. W. JOYCE, LL.D. With Portrait of the Author and 3 Illustrations. 8vo. Cloth gilt, 2s. net. Paper covers, 1 s. net. OLD CELTIC ROMANCES. Twelve of the most beauti- ful of the Ancient Irish Romantic Tales. Translated from the Gaelic. By P. W. JOYCE, LL.D.. M.R.I.A. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. ANCIENT IRISH MUSIC. Containing One Hundred Airs never before published, and a number of Popular Songs. Collected and Edited by P. W. JOYCE, LL.D., M.R.I.A. 4lo. Paper wrappers, Is. 6d. Cloth, 3s. OLD IRISH FOLK MUSIC AND SONGS: a collection of 842 Irish Airs and Songs hitherto unpublished. Edited by P. W. JOYCE, LL.D., M.R.I.A., with Annotations, for the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland. 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Contents.— jEssaj's ; Religious Instruction in Intermediate Schools— In a Dublin Art Gallery- Emerson— Free-Thought in America— German Universities (Three Essays)— German and Gallic Muses — Augustinian Literature — The Poetry of Matthew Arnold — Recent Works on St. Augustine — Aubrey de Vere (a Study). Lectures : Irish Youth and High Ideals— The Two Civilisations— The Golden Jubilee of O'Connell's Death— Our Personal and Social Responsibilities — The Study of Mental Science — Certain Elements of Character— The Limitations and Possibilities of Catholic Literature. 20 MESSRS. LONGMANS' LIST OF WORKS Education. A HISTORY OF ENGLAND FOR CATHOLIC SCHOOLS. By E. WYATT-DAVIES, M.A. With 14 Maps. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. OUTLINES OF BRITISH HISTORY. By E. Wyatt- DAVIES, M.A. With 85 Illustrations and 1 3 Maps. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. A CHILD'S HISTORY OF IRELAND. From the Earliest Times to the Death of O'Connell. By P. W. JOYCE. LL.D., M.R.I. A. With specially constructed Map and 160 Illustrations, including Facsimile in Full Colours of an Illuminated Page of the Gospel Book of MacDuman, A.D. 850. Fcp. 8vo. 3s. 6d. OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF IRELAND. From the Earliest Times to 1837. By P. W. JOYCE, LL.D., M.R.I.A. Fcp. 8vo. 9d. A READING BOOK IN IRISH HISTORY. By p. W. JOYCE, LL.D., M.R.I.A. With 45 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. Is. 6d. A HISTORY OF IRELAND FOR AUSTRALIAN CATHOLIC SCHOOLS. From the Earliest Times to the Death of O'Connell. By P. W. JOYCE, LL.D., M.R.I.A. With specially constructed Map and 160 Illustrations, including Facsimile in Full Colours of an Illuminated Page of the Gospel Book of MacDuman, A.D. 850. Fcap. 8vo. 2s. The authorised Irish History for Catholic Schools and Colleges throughout Australasia. AN EXPERIMENT IN HISTORY TEACHING. By EDWARD ROCKLIFF, S.J. With 3 Coloured Charts. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net. HISTORICAL ATLAS OF INDIA, for the Use of High Schools, Colleges and Private Students. By CHARLES JOPPEN, S.J. 29 Maps in Colours. Post 4to. 2s. 6d. GRAMMAR LESSONS. By the Principal of St. MARY'S HALL. Liverpool. Crown 8vo. 2s. THE CLASS TEACHING OF ENGLISH COMPOSI- TION. By the PRINCIPAL OF ST. MARY'S HALL. Liverpool. Crown 8vo. 2s. ENGLISH AS WE SPEAK IT IN IRELAND. By P. W. JOYCE, LL.D., M.R.I.A. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net. A GRAMMAR OF THE IRISH LANGUAGE. By P. W. JOYCE, LL.D., M.R.I.A. Fcp. 8vo. Is. STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF CLASSICAL TEACHING. By the Rev. T. CORCORAN, S.J. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. net. BY ROMAN CATHOLIC WRITERS. 21 Education — continued. HANDBOOK OF HOMERIC STUDY. By Henry BROWNE, S.J., M.A., New College, Oxford. With 22 Plates. Crown 8vo. 6s. net. HANDBOOK OF GREEK COMPOSITION. With Exercises for Junior and Middle Classes. By HENRY BROWNE, S.J., M.A. Crown 8vo. 3s. net. HANDBOOK OF LATIN COMPOSITION. With Exercises. By HENRY BROWNE, S.J., M.A. Crown 8vo. 3%. net. DELECTA BIBLICA. Compiled from the Vulgate Edition of the Old Testament, and arranged for the use of Beginners in Latin. By a SISTER OF NOTRE DAME. Crown 8vo. Is. SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. By T. P. Keating, B.A., L.C.P. With an Introduction by Rev. T. A. FINLAY, M.A., National University, Dublin. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net. THE EDUCATION OF CATHOLIC GIRLS. By JANET ERSKINE STUART. With a Preface by the CARDINAL ARCHBISHOP OF WESTMINSTER. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net. THE TEACHER'S COMPANION. By Brother De SALES, M.A. Diplomate in Education, etc. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net. *^* A book on School Methods, with blank pages for the insertion of the personal experi- ences of the teacher. A HANDBOOK OF SCHOOL MANAGEMENT AND METHODS OF TEACHING. By P. W. JOYCE, LL.D., M.R.I.A. Fcp. 3s. 6d. QUICK AND DEAD? To Teachers. By Two of Them. Crown 8vo. I s. 6d. THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE. To Catholic Teachers. By One of the Authors of "Quick and Dead". Crown 8vo. Is. net. PRINCIPLES OF LOGIC. By G. H. Joyce. S.J., M.A., Oxford, Professor of Logic at Stonyhurst. 8vo. 6s. 6d. net. INTRODUCTORY PHILOSOPHY: a Textbook for Colleges and High Schools. By CHARLES A. DUBRAY, S.M., Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy at the Marist College, Washington, D.C. With a Preface by Professor E. D. PACE, of the Catholic University, Washington, D.C. 8vo. lOs. 6d. tiet. FIVE CENTURIES OF ENGLISH POETRY. From Chaucer to De Vere. Representative Selections with Notes and Remarks on the Art of Reading Verse Aloud. By the Rev. GEORGE O'NEILL, S.J., M.A., Professor of English, University College, Dublin. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net. 22 MESSRS. LONGMANS' LIST OF WORKS Cardinal Newman's Works. I. SERMONS. PAROCHIAL AND PLAIN SERMONS. Edited by the Rev. W. J. COPELAND, B.D. 8 vols. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. each. The first six volumes are reprinted from the six volumes of Parochial Sermons. first published in 1834, 1835, 1836, 1838, 1840, and 1842 respectively; the seventh and eighth formed the fifth volume of Plain Sermons by Contributors to the Tracts for tlie Times, originally published in 1843. The fame of these sermons has been celebrated by Froude, Principal Shairp, James Mozley, Dean Church, and others. " The Tracts," writes the last-named in his Oxford Movement, "were not the most powerful instruments in drawing sympathy to the movement. None but those who heard them can adequately estimate the effect of Mr. Newman's four o'clock sermons at St. Mary's. The world knows them . . , but it hardly realizes that without these sermons the movement might never have gone on. . . . While men were reading and talking about the Tracts, they were hearing the sermons; and in the sermons they heard the living meaning, and reason, and bearing of the Tracts. . . . The sermons created a moral atmosphere, in which men judged the questions in debate." The Parochial Sermons fell out of print between 1845 and 1868, at which latter date they were republished by Newman's former curate at St. Mary's, Mr. Copeland. The success of this re-issue was a striking testimony to the degree to which Newman had recovered his popularity and prestige by the Apologia. He recorded in his private journal that in six months 3500 copies of the first volume were sold. Ward's Life of Newman, vol. ii. p. 241. SELECTION. ADAPTED TO THE SEASONS OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL YEAR, from the "Parochial and Plain Sermons". Edited by the Rev. W. J. COPELAND, B.D. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. This volume consisting of fifty-four sermons was first published in 1878. CosTEi^rs:— Advent : Self-denial the Test of Religious Earnestness— Divine Calls— The Ventures of Faith — Watching. Christmas Day : Religious Joy. New Year's Sunday : The Lapse of Time— Epiphany : Remembrance of Past Mercies — Equanimity— The Immortality of the Soul — Christian Manhood — Sincerity and Hypocrisy— Christian Sympathy. Septuagesima : Present Blessings. Sexagesima : Endurance, the Christian's Portion. Quinquagesima : Love, the One Thing Needful. Lent ; The Individuality of the Soul — Life, the Season of Repentance — Bodily Suffering — Tears of Christ at the Grave of Lazarus — Christ's Privations, a Meditation for Christians — The Cross of Christ the Measure of the World. Good Friday : The Crucifixion. Easter Day : Keeping Fast and Festival. Easter Tide : Witnesses of the Resurrection — A Particular Providence as revealed in the Gospel— Christ Manifested in Remembrance— The Invisible World- Waiting for Christ. Ascension: Warfare the Condition of Victory. Sunday after Ascen- sion: Rising with Christ. Whitsun Day : The Weapons of Saints. Trinity Sunday : The Mysteriousness of Our Present Being. Sundays after Trinity : Holiness Necessary for Future Blessedness — The Religious Use of Excited Feelings — The Self-wise Inquirer — Scripture a Record of Human Sorrow— The Danger of Riches— Obedience without Love, as instanced in the Character of Balaam — Moral Consequences of Single Sins— The Greatness and Littleness of Human Life— Moral Effects of Communion with God— The Thought of God the Stay of the Soul— The Power of the Will— The Gospel Palaces- Religion a Weariness to the Natural Man— The World our Enemy— The Praise of Men- Religion Pleasant to the Religious— Mental Prayer —Curiosity a Temptation to Sin- Miracles no Remedy for Unbelief— Jeremiah, a Lesson for the Disappointed— The Shep- herd of our Souls— Doing Glory to^God in Pursuits of the World. BY ROMAN CATHOLIC WRITERS. 23 Cardinal Newman^s Works — continued, SERMONS BEARING UPON SUBJECTS OF THE DAY. Edited by the Rev. W. J. COPELAND, B.D. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. This volume was first published in 1843, and republished by Mr. Copeland in i86g. This collection contains the celebrated sermons " Wisdom and Innocence," and " The Parting of Friends ". Mr. Copeland appended to it very important chronological lists, giving the dates at which the sermons contained in it and the eight volumes of Parochial and Plain Sermons were first delivered. Contents. — The Work of the Christian — Saintliness not Forfeited by the Penitent — Our Lord's Last Supper and His First — Dangers to the Penitent — The Three Offices of Christ— Faith and Experience— Faith unto the World— The Church and the World- Indulgence in Religious Privileges — Connection between Personal and Public Improve- ment — Christian Nobleness — Joshua a Type of Christ and His Followers — Elisha a Type of Christ and His Followers — The Christian Church a Continuation of the Jewish— The Principles of Continuity between the Jewish and Christian Churches — The Christian Church an Imperial Power— Sanctity the Token of the Christian Empire— Condition of the Members of the Christian Empire — The Apostolic Christian — Wisdom and Innocence — Invisible Presence of Christ — Outward and Inward Notes of the Church — Grounds for Steadfastness in our Religious Profession — Elijah the Prophet of the Latter Days — Feasting in Captivity — The Parting of Friends. FIFTEEN SERMONS PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, between 1826 and 1843. Cr.8vo. 3s. 6d. The first edition of these sermons was published in 1843 ; the second in 1844. The original title was " Sermons, chiefly on the Theory of Religious Belief, Preached," etc. The third edition was published in 1870, with (i) anew Preface, in which the author ex- plains, inter alia, the sense in which he had used the term " Reason" in the sermons ; and (2) notes " to draw attention to certain faults which are to be found in them, either of thought or language, and, as far as possible, to set these right ". This preface and the notes are of great value to students of the Grammar of Assent. Among the sermons con- tained in this volume is ttie celebrated one delivered in 1843 on " The Theory of Develop- ments in Religious Doctrine ". Contents.— The Philosophical Temper, first enjoined by the Gospel— The Influence of Natural and Revealed Religion respectively— Evangelical Sanctity the Perfection of Natural Virtue— The Usurpations of Reason — Personal Influence, the Means of Pro- pagating the Truth — On Justice as a Principle of Divine Governance — Contest between Faith and Sight — Human Responsibility, as independent of Circumstances — Wilfulness, the Sin of Saul — Faith and Reason, contrasted as Habits of Mind — The Nature of Faith in Relation to Reason — Love, the Safeguard of Faith against Superstition — Implicit and Explicit Reason — Wisdom, as contrasted with Faith and with Bigotry — The Theory of Developments in Religious Doctrine. DISCOURSES TO MIXED CONGREGATIONS. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. First published in 1849. " These sermons have a definite tone and genius of their own . . . and though they have not to me quite the delicate charm of the reserve, and I might almost say the shy pas- sion, of his Oxford sermons, they represent the full-blown blossom of his genius, while the former shows it only in the bud. . . . The extraordinary wealth of detail with which Newman conceives and realises the various sins and miseries of the human lot has, per- haps, never been illustrated in all his writings with so much force as in the wonderful sixteenth sermon on ' The Mental Suiferings of our Lord in His Passion,' " etc. The late Mr. R. H. Hutton. ' Contents. — The Salvation of the Hearer the Motive of the Preacher— Neglect of Divine Calls and Warnings— Men not Angels— The Priests of the Gospel— Purity and Love— Saintliness the Standard of Christian Principle— God's Will the End of Life^ Perseverance in Grace — Nature and Grace — Illuminating Grace — Faith and Private Judgment— Faith and Doubt— Prospects of the Catholic Missioner— Mysteries of Nature and of Grace— The Mystery of Divine Condescension — The Infinitude of the Divine Attri- butes — Mental Sufferings of our Lord in His Passion— The Glories of Mary for the Sake of Her Son— On the Fitness of the Glories of Mary. 24 MESSRS. LONGMANS' LIST OF WORKS Cardinal Newman's Works — continued, SERMONS PREACHED ON VARIOUS OCCA- SIONS. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. This volume, which was first published in 1857, consists of eight sermons preached before the Catholic University of Ireland in 1856-1857, and seven sermons delivered on different occasions between 1850 and 1872. Among the latter are the celebrated " Second Spring " and "The Pope and the Revolution" preached 1850-1872 at St. Chad's, the Oratory, Oscott, and Farm Street, London, with Notes. Contents.— Intellect the Instrument of Religious Training— The Religion of the Pharisee— The Religion of Mankind— Waiting fcr Christ— The Secret Power of Divine Grace — Dispositions for Faith — Omnipotence in Bonds— St. Paul's Characteristic Gift — St. Paul's Gift of Sympathy — Christ upon the Waters— The Second Spring — Order, the Witness and Instrument of Unity— The Mission of St. Philip Neri— The Tree beside the Waters— In the World but not of the World— The Pope and the Revolution— Notes. 2. TREATISES. LECTURES ON THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICA- TION. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. These Lectures were first published in 1838. They were reprinted in 1874 with an " Advertisement to the Third Edition " and some additional notes. Contents.— Faith considered as the Instrumental Cause of Justification— Love con- sidered as the Formal Cause of Justification— Primary Sense of the term "Justification" — Secondary Senses of the term "Justification"— Misuse of the term" Just "or " Righteous" —The Gift of Righteousness— The Characteristics of the Gift of Righteousness— Right- eousness viewed as a Gift and as a Quality — Righteousness the Fruit of our Lord's Resurrection— The Office of Justifying Faith — The Nature of Justifying Faith— Faith viewed relatively to Rites and Works— On Preaching the Gospel— Appendix— On the Formal Cause of Justification. AN ESSAY ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRIS- TIAN DOCTRINE. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6cl. " In this New Edition of the Essay, first published in 1845, various important altera- tions have been made in the arrangement of its separate parts, and some, not indeed in its matter, but in its i&\t:' —Preface to Third Edition, 1878. THE IDEA OF A UNIVERSITY DEFINED AND ILLUSTRATED. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. I. In Nine Discourses delivered to the Catholics of Dublin. II. In Occasional Lectures and Essays addressed to the members of the Catholic University. Part I. was first published in 1852 under the title of Discourses on the Scope and Nature of University Education, etc. Contents.— I. Introductory— II. Theology a Branch of Knowledge— III. Bearing of Theology on other Knowledge — IV. Bearing of other Knowledge on Theology— V. Know- ledge its own End — VI. Knowledge viewed in Relation to Learning — VII. Knowledge viewed in Relation to Professional Skill — VIII. Knowledge viewed in Relation to Religious Duty— IX. Duties of the Church towards Knowledge. Part II. was first published in 1859 under the title of Lectures and Essays on Uni- versity Subjects. Contents. — I. Christianity and Letters— II. Literature— III. Catholic Literature in the English Tongue— IV. Elementary Studies— V. A Form of Infidelity of the Day— VI. University Preaching— VII. Christianity and Physical Science— VIII. Christianity and Scientific Investigation— IX. Discipline of Mind — X. Christianity and Medical Science. *^* Part I. is also issued separately as follows : — UNIVERSITY TEACHING CONSIDERED IN NINE DIS- COURSES. With a Preface by the Rev. JOHN NORRIS. Fcp. 8vo. Cloth, Gilt Top, 2s. net. Leather, 3s. net. BY ROMAN CATHOLIC WRITERS. 25 Cardinal Newman^s Works — continued. AN ESSAY IN AID OF A GRAMMAR OF ASSENT. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. First published in 1870, with Notes at the end of the volume added to the later editions AN INDEXED SYNOPSIS OF CARDINAL NEW- MAN'S " AN ESSAY IN AID OF A GRAMMAR OF ASSENT ". By the Rev. JOHN J. TOOHEY, S.J. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. 3. HISTORICAL. HISTORICAL SKETCHES. Three vols. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. each. Vol. I.— The Turks in their Relation to Europe — Marcus Tullius Cicero— Apollonius of Tyana — Primitive Christianity. The Essay on " The Turks in their Relation to Europe "was first published under the title of Lectures on the History of the Turks by the A uthor of Loss and Gain, in 1854. As is well known, Newman took what was then the unpopular side. The Czar was " attack- ing an infamous power, the enemy of God and Man ", " Many things are possible ; one is inconceivable — that the Turks should, as an existing nation, accept of modern civilisa- tion ; and in default of it, that they should be able to stand their ground amid the encroachments of Russia, the interested and contemptuous patronage of Europe, and' the hatred of their subject populations." Personal and Literary Character of Cicero. First published in 1824. Apollonius of Tyana. First published in 1826. Primitive Cliristianity. I. What does St. Ambrose say about it ? — II. What says Vincent of Ler ins ? — III. What says the History of Apollinaris ? — IV. What say Jovinian and his companions? — V. What say the Apostolical Canons ? This series formed part of the original Church of the Fathers as it appeared in the British Magazine of 1833-36, and as it was published in 1840. " They were removed from subsequent Catholic editions, except the chapter on Apollinaris, as containing polemical matter, which had no interest for Catholic readers. Now [1872] they are republished under a separate title." Vol. II.— The Church of the Fathers— St. Chrysostom—Theodoret— Mission of St. Benedict— Benedictine Schools. The Church of the Fathers. I. Trials of Basil — II. Labours of Basil— III. Basil and Gregory — IV. Rise and Fall of Gregory — V. Antony in Conflict— VI. Antony in Calm — VII. Augustine and tne Vandals — VIII. Conversion of Augustine— IX. Demetrias— X. Martin and Maximus. St. Chrysostom. Reprinted from the Rambler, 1859-60. Trials of Theodoret. First published in 1873. The Mission of St. Benedict. From the Atlantis, 1858. The Benedictine Schools. From the Atlantis, 1859. Vol. III. — Rise and Progress of Universities (originally published as " Office and Work of Universities ") — Northmen and Normans in England and Ireland — Mediaeval Oxford— Convocation of Canterbury. Rise and Progress of Universities. The following illustrations of the idea of a University originally appeared in 1854 in the columns of the Dublin Catholic University Gazette. In 1856 they were published in one volume under the title of The Office and Work of Universities, etc. Northmen and Normans in England and Ireland. From the Rambler of 1859. Mediaeval Oxford. From the British Critic of 1838. The Convocation of the Province of Canterbury. From the British Magazine of 1834-35 THE CHURCH OF THE FATHERS. Reprinted from " Historical Sketches". Vol. II. With a Preface by the Rev. JOHN NORRIS. Fcp. 8vo. Cloth, Gilt Top, 2s. net. Leather, 3s. net, 26 MESSRS. LONGMANS' LIST OF WORKS Cardinal Newman^s Works — continued. 4. ESSAYS. TWO ESSAYS ON MIRACLES. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. Contents. — I. The Miracles of Scripture compared with those reported elsewhere as regards their nature, credibility, and evidence — II. The Miracles of Early Ecclesiastical History compared with those of Scripture as regards their nature, credibility, and evidence. The former of these Essays was written for the Encyclopcedia Metropolitana, 1825- 26 ; the latter in 1842-43 as Preface to a Translation of a portion of Fleury's Ecclesi- astical History. They were republished in 1870 with some additional notes. DISCUSSIONS AND ARGUMENTS. Cr. 8vo. 3s. 6d. I. How to accomplish it. 2. The Antichrist of the Fathers. 3. Scripture and the Creed. 4. Tamworth Reading-room. 5. Who's to Blame ? 6. An Internal Argument for Christianity. How to Accomplish It originally appeared in the British Magazine of 1830 under the title of "Home Thoughts Abroad". "The discussion on this Paper is carried on by two speculative Anglicans, who aim at giving vitality to their church, the one by uniting it to the Holy See, the other by developing a nineteenth century Anglo-Catholicism. The narrator sides on the whole with the latter of these." The Patristical Idea of Antichrist. This was the Eighty-third Number of the Tracts for the Times, published in 1838. Holy Scripture in its Relation to the Catholic Creed. This was the Eighty-fifth Number of the Tracts for the Times. The Tamworth Reading Room. A series of seven letters, signed " Catholicus," first printed in the Times during February, 1841, and published as a pamphlet. They were provoked by addresses delivered by Lord Brougham at Glasgow and Sir Robert Peel at the opening of a Library and Reading Room at Tamworth, in which those distin- guished statesmen exalted secular knowledge into the great instrument of moral improvement. They ran as follows : (i) Secular Knowledge in contrast with Religion. (2) Secular Knowledge not the principle of Moral Improvement. (3) Not a direct means of Moral Improvement. (4) !Not the antecedent of Moral Improvement. (5) Not a principle of social unity. (6) Not a principle of action. (7) But without personal religion a temptation to unbelief. Who's to Blame? A series of letters addressed to the Catholic Standard in 1855. There was at that time a great deal of blame attributed to the Government on account of its management of the Crimean War. Newman threw the blame on the British constitu- tion, or rather on those who clamoured for a foreign war, for the conduct of which this constitution is singularly ill-adapted. The letters are a valuable study of the genius of the Anglo-Saxon race and the British constitution. An Internal Argument for Christianity. A review, originally published in the Month of June, 1866, of Ecce Homo. ESSAYS, CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL. Two vols., with Notes. Crown 8vo. 7s. Contents of Vol. I.— I. Poetry with reference to Aristotle's Poetics. With Note— II. The Introduction of Rationalistic Principles into Revealed Religion. With Note — III. Apostolical Tradition. With Note— IV. The Fall of la Mennais. With Note— V. Palmer's View of Faith and Unity. With Note— VI. The Theology of St. Ignatius. With Note— VII. Prospects of the Anglican Church. With Note— VIII. The Anglo-American Church. With Note— IX. Selina Countess of Huntingdon. With Note. Contents of Vol. II.— X. The Catholicity of the Anglican Church. With Note- XL The Protestant View of Antichrist. With Note— XII. Milman's View of Christianity. With Note— XIII. The Reformation of the Eleventh Century. With Note— XIV. Private Judgment. With Note— XV. John Davison. With Note— XVI. John Keble. With Note. The first Essay was written in 1828 for the London Review ; the second in 1835 for the Tracts for the Times ; the last in 1846 for the Dublin Review ; the rest for the British Critic between 1837 and 1842. The original title of VII. -was Home Thoughts Abroad. The " Notes " were written when the Essays were republished in 1871, BY ROMAN CATHOLIC WRITERS. 27 Cardinal Newman's Works — continued, 5. PATRISTIC. THE ARIANS OF THE FOURTH CENTURY. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. First published in 1833. Republished, with an Appendix containing over seventy pages of additional matter, in 1871. Contents of Appendix.— I. The Syrian School of Theology— II. The Early Doctrine of the Divine Genesis — III. The Confessions at Sirmium — IV. The Early use of usia and hypostasis — V. Orthodoxy of the Faithful during Arianism — VI. Chronology of the Councils —VII. Omissions in the Text of the Third Edition (1871). (5) is a long extract from the article published in the Rambler of 1859, " On con- sulting the Faithful on Matters of Doctrine". In the fourth (1876) and subsequent editions of the A nans the author appended to the extract an explanation of a passage in the original article which had been seriously misunderstood in some quarters, SELECT TREATISES OF ST. ATHANASIUS IN CONTROVERSY WITH THE ARIANS. Freely Translated. Two vols. Crown 8vo. 7s. First published in 1881. The first volume contains the " Treatises " ; the second the notes alphabetically arranged so as to form a kind of theological lexicon to St. Athanasius's writings. In 1842 Newman contributed to the Oxford Library of the Fathers two volumes entitled Select Treatises of St. A thanasius in Controversy with the A rians. This work was described by the late Canon Bright as ranking " among the richest treasures of English Patristic literature" ; by the late Canon Liddon as " the most important contribution to the Library" ; and in later prospectuses of the Library, after Newman's connection with it had ceased, as " the most important work published since Bishop Bull ". The present edition differs from that of the Oxford Library in four important points, viz. : (i) the freedom of the translation ; (2) the arrangement of the notes ; (3) the omission of the fourth " Discourse against the Arians " ; (4) the omission of some lengthy Dissertations. A Latin version of these last is included in Tracts : Theological and Ecclesiastical, TRACTS : THEOLOGICAL and ECCLESIASTICAL. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. Contents. — I. Dissertatiuncula: Quatuor Critico-Theologicae [Rome 1847] — II. On the Text of the Epistles of St. Ignatius [1870] — III. Causes of the Rise and Success of Arianism [1872]— IV. The Heresy of Apollinaris— V. St. Cyril's Formula MIA Y2I2 2E2APKn- MENH. (Atlantis, 1858)— VI. The Ordo de Tempore in the Breviary. (Atlantis, 1870)— VII. History of the Text of the Douay Version of Scripture. {Rambler, 1859). 6. POLEMICAL. THE VIA MEDIA OF THE ANGLICAN CHURCH. Illustrated in Lectures, Letters and Tracts written between 1830 and 1841. Two vols. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. each. This collection was first published in 1877. Contents of Vol. I. — The Prophetical Office of the Church, etc., originally published in 1837, reprinted with Notes and a Preface. The Preface, which extends to about ninety pages, is one of Newman's most im- portant polemical writings. His adversary is his former self. In his "Essay on Development," he dealt with one of the two great charges he used to bring against the Catholic Church ; in this Preface he deals with the other. Contents of Vol. II. — I. Suggestions in behalf of the Church Missionary Society, 1830 — II. Via Media, 1834 (being Nos. 38 and 40 of Tracts for the Times) — III. Restoration of Suffragan Bishops, 1835— IV. On the Mode of Conducting the Controversy with Rome (being No. 71 of Tracts for the Times)— Y. Letter to a Magazine in behalf of Dr. Pusey's Tracts on Holy Baptism, 1837— VI. Letter to the Margaret Professor of Divinity on Mr. R. H. Froude's Statements on the Holy Eucharist, 1838— VII. Remarks on Certain Passages in the Thirty-nine Articles, 1841 (being No. 90 of Tracts for the Times) — VIII. Documentary Matter consequent upon the foregoing Remarks on the Thirty-nine Articles— IX. Letter to Dr. Jelf in Explanation of the Remarks, 1841 — X. Letter to the Bishop of Oxford on the same Subject, 1841— XI. Retractation of Anti-Catholic Statements, 1843-45. *»a No. VII. in this Volume is the famous Tract 90 of Tracts for the Times, the whole with new Notes. 28 MESSRS. LONGMANS' LIST OF WORKS Cardinal Newman's Works — continued, CERTAIN DIFFICULTIES FELT BY ANGLICANS IN CATHOLIC TEACHING CONSIDERED. Two vols. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. each. Contents of Vol. I. — Twelve Lectures addressed in 1850 to the party of the Religious Movement of 1833. Contents of Vol. II. — I. Letter addressed to Rev. E. B. Pusey, D.D., on Occasion of his Eirenicon of 1864— II. A Letter addressed to the Duke of Norfolk, on Occasion of Mr. Gladstone's Expostulation of 1874. LECTURES ON THE PRESENT POSITION OF CATHpLICS IN ENGLAND. Addresses to the Brothers of the Oratory in the Summer of 1851. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. APOLOGIA PRO VITA SUA, being a History of his Religious Opinions. First published in 1864. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. Pocket Edition. Fcp. 8vo. Cloth, 2s. 6d. net. Leather, 3s. 6d. net. Popular Edition. 8vo. Paper cover, 6d. net. The " Pocket " Edition and the " Popular " Edition of this book contain a letter, hitherto unpublished, written by Cardinal Newman to Canon Flanagan in 1857, which may be said to contain in embryo the " Apologia " itself. 7. LITERARY. LOSS AND GAIN : The Story of a Convert. Cr. 8vo. 3s. 6d. First published in 1848. " Of his experience as a Catholic, Loss and Gain, published in 1848, was the first fruit . . . the book has been a great favourite with me, almost ever since its first publi- cation, partly for the admirable fidelity with which it sketches young men's thoughts and difficulties, partly for its happy irony, partly for its perfect representation of the academical life and tone at Oxford. ... In the course of the story there are many happy sketches of Oxford society, such as, for example, the sketch of the evangelical pietism which Mr. Freeborn pours forth at Bateman's breakfast, or the sketch of the Rev. Dr. Brownside's prim and pompous Broad Church University sermon. . . . Again, there is_one very impressive passage not taken from Oxford life, in which Newman makes . . . [one of his characters] insist on the vast difference between the Protestant and Roman Catholic conception of worship." — R. H, Hutton's Cardinal Newman. CALLISTA : A Tale of the Third Century. Cr. 8vo. 3s. 6d. First published in 1855, with postscripts of 1856, 1881, i888. "It is an attempt to imagine and express, from a Catholic point of view, the feelings and mutual relations of Christians and heathens at the period to which it belongs." Author's Preface. VERSES ON VARIOUS OCCASIONS. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. Pocket Edition. Fcp. 8vo. Gilt top. Cloth, 2s. net. Leather, 3s. net. THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS. 16mo. Sewed, 6d. Cloth, Is. net. With Introduction and Notes by MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN, D.D., LL.D. With Portrait. Crown 8vo. Is. 6d. Presentation Edition, with an Introduction specially written for this Edition by E. B(L). With Photogravure Portrait of Cardinal Newman, and 5 other Illustrations. Large Crown 8vo. Cream cloth, with gilt top, 3s net. BY ROMAN CATHOLIC WRITERS. 29 Cardinal Newman's Works — continued. 8, DEVOTIONAL. MEDITATIONS AND DEVOTIONS. Part I. Medita- tions for the Month of May. Novena of St. Philip. Part II. The Stations of the Cross. Meditations and Intercessions for Good Friday. Litanies, etc. Part III. Meditations on Christian Doctrine. Conclusion. Crown 8vo. 5s. net. Also in Three Parts as follows. Fcap. 8vo. Cloth, Is. net each. Limp leather, 2s. net each. Part I. THE MONTH OF MAY. Part II. STATIONS OF THE CROSS. Part III. MEDITATIONS ON CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 9. BIOGRAPHIES. THE LIFE OF JOHN HENRY CARDINAL NEWMAN. Based on his Private Journals and Correspondence. By WILFRID WARD. With 15 Portraits and Illustrations (2 Photo- gravures). 2 vols. 8vo. 36s. net. LETTERS AND CORRESPONDENCE OF JOHN HENRY NEWMAN DURING HIS LIFE IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH. With a brief Autobiography. Edited, at Cardinal Newman's request, by ANNE MOZLEY. 2 vols. Crown 8vo. 7s. " Materials for the present work were placed in the Editor's hands towards the close of 1884. The selection from them was made, and the papers returned to Cardinal Newman in the summer of i^'Sij.'"— Editor's Note. " It has ever been a hobby of mine, though perhaps it is a truism, that the true life of a man is in his letters. . . . Not only for the interest of a biography, but for arriving at the inside of things, the publication of letters is the true method. Biographers varnish, they assign motives, they conjecture feelings, they mterpret Lord Burleigh's nods; but contemporary letters are facts." — Dr. Newman to his sister, Mrs. John Mozley, May i8, 1863. lo. POSTHUMOUS. ADDRESSES TO CARDINAL NEWMAN. WITH HIS REPLIES, 1879-81. Edited by the Rev. W. P. NEVILLE (Cong. Orat.). With Portrait Group. Oblong crown 8vo. 6s. net. NEWMAN MEMORIAL SERMONS: Preached at the Opening of the Newman Memorial Church, The Oratory, Birmingham, 8th and 1 2th December, 1909. By Rev. Fr. JOSEPH RlCKABY, S.J., and Very Rev. Canon McINTYRE, Professor of Scripture at St. Mary's College, Oscott. 8vo. Paper covers. Is. net. SERMON NOTES. Crown 8vo. Cardinal Newman left behind him two MS. volumes filled with notes or memoranda of Sermons and Catechetical Instructions delivered by him during the years 1847 to 1879. Besides their utility to priests and teachers, it is hoped that the notes will appeal to all lovers of Newman's writings. So characteristic of him are they, in spite of their brevity, that their authorship would be at once recognised even if they appeared without his name. Those of an earlier date are specially interesting. Ihey introduce the reader to Newman in the first days of his Catholic life, settling down to the ordinary duties of an English priest, and instructing a " Mixed Congregation " in the rudiments of Catholic Doctrine. INDEX. Page A dventures of King James II. of England 9 Antony (C. M.) In St. Dominic's Country 12 St. Antony of Padua ... 13 St. Pius V 13 Arundell (Lord) Pa/)m 6 Ayscough (J.) Gracechurch Papers ... 14 Levia Pondera 14 Balfour (Mrs, Reginald) The Life and Legend of the Lady Saint Clare ... 11 Barnes (A. S.) Christian Archeology ... 3 Barrett (E. Boyd) Motive Force and Motivation-Tracks 4 Barry (W.) The Tradition of Scripture ... 3 Batiffol (P.) Credibility of the Gospel ... 4 History of the Roman Breviary 4 Primitive Catholicism ... 4 Benson (R. H.) Child's Rule of Life ... 16 Christ in the Church ... 15 . Confessions of a Convert 10 • Cost of a Crown 16 . Friendship of Christ ... 15 Maidof Orleans ... ... 16 Mystery Play 16 Non-Catholic Denomina- tions 3 Paradoxes of Catholicism 15 Boedder (B.) Natural Theology 2 Bosch (Mrs. H.) Bible Stories told to ''Toddles'' 16 Good Shepherd and His Little Lambs i6 When " Toddles " was Seven 16 Bougaud (Mgr.) History of St. Vincent de Paul 12 Brown (M. J.) Historical Ballad Poetry of Ireland i7 Brown (S. J.) A Reader's Guide to Irish Fiction 18 Browne (H.) Handbook of Greek Composi- tion 21 Homeric Study 21 . __ Latin Composi- tion 21 Burton (E. H.) Life dnd Times of Bishop Challoner • 7 and Myers (E.) New Psal- ter and its Use 3 Catholic Church from Within 6 Challoner, Life and Times of Bishop ... 7 Chapman (J.) Bishop Gore and Catholic Claims 6 Chisel, Pen, and Poignard 9 Page Christ, Life of, for Children 16 Clarke (R. F.) Logic 2 Class-Teaching (The) of English Com- position 20 Coffey (P.) The Science of Logic 4 ConvfSiy (P.) St. Thomas Aquinas .- 13 Corcoran (T.) Studies in the History of Classical Teaching 20 Costelloe (L.) St. Bonaventure 13 CrowmiM.) The Science of Ethics ... 5 Curious Case of Lady Purbeck 9 Cuthbert (Fr.) Life of St. Francis of Assisi Delecta Biblica Delehaye (H.) The Legends of the Saif 3 De Montalembert (Count) Life of St. Elizabeth of Hungary 11 Devas (C. S.) Political Economy 2 Key to the World's Progress 5 Devas (R.) Dominican Revival in the Nineteenth Century 7 De Vere (Aubrey), Memoir of, by Wilfrid Ward II Dewe (J. A.) Psychology of Politics and History 6 DeV/}ili(M.) History of Medieval Philo- sophy 4 Scholasticism, Old and New 4 Digby, Life of Sir Kenelm ... ... 9 Dobr^e (L. E.) Stories on the Rosary ... 16 Drane (A. T.) History of St. Catherine of Siena ... ... " Memoir (Mother Francis Raphael) " Dubray (C. A.) Introductory Philosophy 21 Dwight (T.) Thoughts of a Catholic . Anatomist 5 Emery (S. L.) The Inner Life of the Soul 15 Falklands 9 First Vuke and Duchess of Newcastle-on- Tyne — 9 Fitz-Gerald (V.) St. John Capistran ... 13 Fletcher (M.) The Fugitives 18 Fortescue (A.) The Mass 3 Fouard (Abb6) St. John and the Close of he Apostolic Age 12 St. Paul and his Missions la St. Peter 12 ■ — - The Christ the Son of God 12 • —Last Years oflSt. Paul 12 Fountain of Life (The) 21 INDEX. 31 Page ... i8 ... i8 ... i8 ... i8 ... i8 ... 13 Francis (M. E.) Donet Dear — Fiandtr's Widow — Lychgate Hall ... . Manor Farm ... Yeoman. Fleetwood Friar Saint Series Gerard (J-) The Old RiddU and the Newest Answer 5 Grammar Lessons, by the Principal of St. Mary's Hall, Liverpool 20 Healy (T. M.) Stolen Waters 8 HedlcyQ.C.) Holy Eucharist ... ... 3 '^ \n {S.) St. Vincent Ferrer 13 (F. D.) Catherine Sidney 18 es (T.) History of the Society of Ws in North America 8 Hunter. (S. J.) Outlines of Dogmatic Theology 4 Index to The Month Irons (G.) A Tom Scrap Book Joppen (C.) Historical Atlas of India ... Jorgensen (J-) 5*. Francis of Assisi ... Joyce (G. H.) Principles of Logic Joyce (P. W.) Ancient Irish Music -Child's History of Ireland Page Lcith (W. F.) Memoirs of the Scottish ^ Catholics... 7 Lives of the Friar SaitUs I3 I Locldngton (W. J.) Bodily HeaUh and \ spiritual Vigour 5 Maber {M.) Psychology Marshal Turenne Martindale (C. C.) In God's Nursery ... Matorin (B. W.) Laws of the Spiritual Life Price ol Unity Self-Knowledge and 6 , 16 j aol 15 Ireland -English as we Speak it in Self-Discipline ... Maxwell-Scott (Hon. Mrs ) Life of the Marquise de la Rochejaquelein ... Montalembert (Count de) St. Elizabeth of Hungary Month Moyes {].)A spects of A nglicanism Molhall (M. M.) Beginnings, or Glimpses of Vanished Civilizations Nesbin (M.) Our Lady in the Church ... 15 Newman (Cardinal) .Addresses to, 1879^1 29 __ Apologia, pro VUa -Grammar of the Irish Language -Handbook of School Management -History of Ireland for A ustralian Catholic Schools ... Irish Peasant Songs Old CeUic Romances Old Irish Folk Music -Or^n and History of Irish Names of Places -Outlines of the History of Ireland -Reading Book in Irish History -Short History of Ireland -Smaller Social History of Ancient Ireland Story of Irish Civilisation -Wonders of Ire\and Joyce (R. D ) Ballads of Irish Chivalry 17 Kane (R.) Good Friday to Easter Sunday 15 —Plain Gold Ring 15 Sermon of the Sea ~. ... 15 Keating (T. P.) Sc^»i<^p/£