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(i. e. when it was inconvenient) "to the Peripatetic System. And the qualifications introduced by Aquinas "show him to have maintained the same doctrine, which "had been taught by the Roman Council under Gregory VII., long before the Scholastic age. It is thus stated by De Marca. 'The substance was supposed to exist as something separate from the bulk of the bread, so that "this bulk might exist naturally by itself, without any 66 new miracle, whatever Aristotle may say.' Traité de "l'Euchar." (Ib.)

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Of course, we do not suppose that our readers, any more than ourselves, understand this. It is not intended they should. No one can understand how Bulk alone can nourish. It must be received by faith. Another article should have been added to the creed of Pope Pius the Fourth: "I believe in Bulk."

Seriously, how is it that our author does not perceive that he is turning his own cause into ridicule by the detail he gives us of these puerilities? We could almost weep to see an accomplished man like the Archdeacon, and one who belongs to a Church like ours, wasting his time, and losing his way, and misleading others, by running after such laborious follies ----such tricks of intellect, and sleights of speech

-fit only for the Dark Ages, when men were forbidden to exercise their minds on the great and ennobling and healthful subjects of the Gospel, and were compelled, as slaves always

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are, to cheat themselves of the sense of their slavery by idle sports or unprofitable feats of strength. How much more fitting were it for him to be wielding "the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God," in days when all our exertions are needed to stem the torrent of Infidelity, to contend with vice, or to comfort affliction. Surely Society in its present state, with all its powers loose, requires something better and stronger to bind it and to guide it, than Scholastic subtleties or mediæval superstitions.

§ 47. MATTER AND SPIRIT CONFOunded.

We have now to produce a passage concerning Matter and Spirit, which it grieves and alarms us to find in the Archdeacon's Book. It is true it is taken from a German writer-but why does the Archdeacon take it at all? We know that the divines of the Church of Rome are in the habit of infusing doubts into the minds of the members of their communion, on points of vital consequence to Christianity, in order to keep them under their own dominion from a sense of private helplessness. What care those divines for Truth, compared with the increase of their own power and the ac

knowledgment of their Church's infallibility? We know also, that the Romanizing divines in our own Church have not hesitated to follow the example thus set them. Bishop Kaye, in his "Council of Nice," repeatedly animadverts in severe terms on the Oxford Annotations to Athanasius, and asks why such doubts are started on obscure and difficult subjects, unless it is on purpose to confuse and bewilder the mind? We hesitate not to say, that the Archdeacon is liable to the same charge. Why declare, in words borrowed indeed from another, but appropriated to his own use, that we are not sure whether there is any difference between Matter and Spirit? Let us give the passage, with his preliminary observations :

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"It is said to be impossible, that our Lord could impart to His disciples that body and blood which per"tained to Himself" [while he was yet alive]. "How

can the possibility of such a thing be denied, considering the imperfect state of our knowledge respecting phy"sical substances? How can we tell that the very nature "of Him, whom they saw before them, might not in some unknown manner be communicated to the disciples through that medium which their Master had ap"pointed? We have no means of knowing,' says a writer, "who had no wish to vindicate the Primitive Church, "whether the distinction between the material and spiritual "which is derived from our impressions, has any objective

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truth, and whether matter and spirit may not be discerned to "be of the same nature, by higher intelligences. Recent discoveries in physics exhibit to us changes and con

"ditions of bodies, such as the chemical combinations of water, air, and fire, of acids and alkalies, which fur"nish ground for conjecturing, that our ordinary concep"tions of matter are defective; and they tell us of powers, like that of magnetism, about which it is uncertain "whether they have any material groundwork, any substratum by which they are supported.' (K. G. Bretschneider.)” (p. 95.)

What can be the effect of such conjectures, but to make men despair of understanding anything? Our Blessed Lord said, “Handle Me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see Me have." But what is a reader of the Archdeacon and a disciple of Bretschneider to think of the meaning of these words, when he is taught that he cannot know what a spirit has or has not? Will not the Bible be shut; and simple, happy Faith be exchanged for cold and heartless Scepticism? Or if he retains a regard for religion, will he not betake himself to the Church, which saves her children the trouble of thinking?

Let us now bring before our readers what the Archdeacon says concerning Luther.

§ 48. LUTHER AND CONSUBSTANTIATION.

The Archdeacon reserved all mention of Luther and Consubstantiation, till he had discussed what he calls the Zuinglian and Calvin

istic theories. The first mention of him which we meet with, is in the fifth Chapter.

We might have thought that Consubstantiation would find favour in our Author's sight. But Luther forfeits that honour by sinning against the cardinal principle of the Sacramental System. He held that Faith is necessary to the communication of the Body of Christ. According to the representation here given of him,

"He neither allowed, that the Presence rendered the "Sacrament really more valid, nor that it was calculated " in itself to produce any beneficial results; * but he supposed that it would impart an additional solemnity to "the action." (p. 134.)

And again it is said of him :

"He was, indeed, ready to admit the reality of our "Lord's Presence, but not to recognise the greatness of "those gifts, which are communicated through the Hu66 manity of the Second Adam." (p. 137.)

In other words, Luther refused to regard the

* Erasmus thought the same, though he was too timid to reject the dogma of the Church of Rome, for want of distinguishing between the Visible and the Invisible Church. "Mihi non displiceret Ecolampadii sententia, "nisi obstaret consensus Ecclesiæ. Nec enim video "quid agat corpus insensibile, nec utilitatem allaturum "si sensiretur, modo adsit in symbolis gratia spiritualis." (p. 108.)