by no means without German candour and moderation;* the third, Mr. Newman, with the logical subtlety of a schoolman, and a style unusually clear, vigorous, and idiomatic, though often careless in the construction of the sentences, and wanting some of the graces of our best prose. On this cautious plan his Church gathers all the glory and the profit, and is answerable for nothing. If the new Apologists venture to desert the old grounds of controversy, it is at their own peril; the Church may disclaim thein at the first signal of difficulty or distress; she may cut them adrift, and sail proudly on, unconcerned at their fate, and leaving them to combat alone with the storm which they have raised. The wisdom of this reserve is more evident, since the whole battle depends, according to the new theory, on one dangerous position. The adversary is admitted within the lines, within the camp, to be beaten back only by the strength of one forlorn post. The Introduction to Mr. Newman's book might of itself alarm any one deeply read in the controversies of but recent times. It is the preliminary hazard to the great desperate stake which is to be played by the whole book, and, as he himself knows, has already been tried with serious consequences not only to the Church of Rome, but to Christianity itself. Its substance is this: That there are no better grounds in the Scriptures and in the

We have the satisfaction to find our judgment on these two writers supported by the high authority of the Bishop of St. David's. Möhler is solidly learned, thoughtful, logical, and apparently willing to do justice to his opponents. At least he is not in the habit of substituting peremptory and paradoxical assertions or sneers in the room of argument; nor capable (like De Maistre in his work Du Pape) of grounding his reasoning on a total misconception of the point in dispute' (Charge, 1815). The bishop's observations on the development theory are worth reading, as comprehending the whole subject in a few sentences. As a specimen of De Maistre's quotations, it may not be unamusing to refer to his testimonies from Protestant writers to the supremacy of the Pope. Oue is from Calvin! The reference in our edition is to the lustitutes, book vi. 11. There are only four books of the Institutes, and we therefore cannot trace the passage. But we recommend the reader to the 6th and 11th chapter of the fourth book for Calvin's opinion on this subject. Another testimony is that the old Puritan Cartwright in his controversy with Whitgift said something like this, 'If we are to have such an Archbishop of Canterbury, we might as well have a Pope!' Some sentences of Misson and of Gibbon, which justly assert that the Popes of their own century had usually been men of decent, irreproachable, even venerable character, have become testimonies to the blamelessness and to the virtues of all the Popes who ever sate in St. Peter's chair. But have those who quote De Maistre and Möbler together, as Mr. Newman does, read both? Möhler's book, 'Die Einheit in der Kirche,' confines itself to the three first centuries, and his conclusion is this-that the Papal supremacy was unknown in the more flourishing state of the Church; that it was a provision for darker times; and that if we could revive that flourishing state we should return to primitive Episcopacy:-Je blühender der Zustand der Kirche, desto mehr wird sich der früheste Verband der Kirche durch den Episcopat darstellen, und die andern werden in den Hintergrund zurücktreten, die Metropoliten und der Primas.' . . . Afterwards he says- Haben wir das alte Leben wieder, so werden wir die alten Formen nothwendig wieder erhalten.'-pp. 248, 250.

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earlier Fathers for some of those doctrines which are most universally received by the great mass of Christian believers beyond as well as within the pale of Rome, than for the more peculiar doctrines of that Church; that the testimonies are equally vague, dim, precarious, ambiguous, and contradictory, for the Trinity and the Inspiration and Authority of the Scriptures, as for the worship of the Virgin Mary and for the Supremacy of the Pope. Original Sin and Purgatory stand and fall together.

The singular point throughout the Introduction is this. Mr. Newman feels himself obliged to confine his arguments to the refutation of himself and of his former friends. To the latter he endeavours to prove most elaborately that their doctrine of the Real Presence (not Transubstantiation) which they have maintained on the ground of the memorable canon of Vincentius Lirinensis, Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus,' stands on no better ground than the Papal Supremacy. We leave these learned writers to defend themselves, but Mr. Newman, as he ingenuously acknowledges, has also to confute himself. In the year 1838 Mr. Newman wrote thus of Bishop Bull's Defence of the Nicene Faith:'

'He was led to do so by an attack upon the orthodoxy of the anteNicene Fathers from a quarter whence it was at first sight little to be expected. The learned assailant was not an Arian, or Socinian, or Latitudinarian, but Petavius, a member of the Jesuit body. The tendency of the portion of his great work on theological doctrines which treats of the Trinity is too plain to be mistaken. The historian Gibbon does not scruple to pronounce that its "object or at least effect" was "to arraign" and, as he considers, "successfully the faith of the anteNicene Fathers ;" and it was used in no long time by Arian writers in their own justification. Thus Romanist, heretic, and infidel unite with one another in this instance in denying the orthodoxy of the first centuries. . . . . But to return to Petavius. This learned author, in his elaborate work on the Trinity, shows that he would rather prove the early Confessors and Martyrs to be heterodox than that they should exist as a court of appeal from the decisions of his own Church; and he accordingly sacrifices, without remorse, Justin, Clement, Irenæus, and their brethren to the maintenance of the infallibility of Rome. Or to put the matter in another point of view, truer perhaps though less favourable still to Petavius, he consents that the Catholic doctrine of the Holy Trinity shall so far rest on the mere declaration of the Church that, before it was formally defined, there was no heresy in rejecting it, provided he can thereby gain for Rome the freedom of making decrees unfettered by the recorded judgments of antiquity.'-Lectures on the Prophetical Office of the Church, 1838, p. 73 et seq.

'I do not mean to say that there have been many such systematic and profound attempts as this on the part of Petavius, at what may justly be called parricide, Rome even, steeled as she is against the

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kindlier feelings when her interests require, has more of tender mercy left than to bear them often.'-(ibid., pp. 77, 78.)

We implicitly believe that Mr. Newman believes the sincerity of his own protestations of the most profound reverence for the primitive Fathers, and that he has not the slightest intention to impugn their orthodoxy; he would suppose that those Fathers in their most ambiguous expressions 'imply or intend the Catholic doctrine.' Yet he now writes thus. After stating that 'the only great doctrinal council in ante-Nicene times rejected the word Homoüsian,' he proceeds:

The six great Bishops and Saints of the ante-Nicene Church were St. Irenæus, St. Hippolytus, St. Cyprian, St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, St. Dionysius of Alexandria, and St. Methodius. Of these, St. Dionysius is accused by St. Basil of having sown the first seeds of Arianism; and St. Gregory is allowed by the same learned Father to have used language concerning our Lord, which he only defends on the plea of an economical object in the writer. St. Hippolytus speaks as if he were ignorant of our Lord's Eternal Sonship; St. Methodius speaks incorrectly at least upon the Incarnation; and St. Cyprian does not treat of theology at all. Such is the incompleteness of the extant teaching of these true saints, and, in their day, faithful witnesses of the Eternal Son.

Again, Athenagoras, St. Clement, Tertullian, and the two SS. Dionysii would appear to be the only writers whose language is at any time exact and systematic enough to remind us of the Athanasian Creed. If we limit our views of the teaching of the Fathers by what they expressly state, St. Ignatius may be considered as a Patripassian, St. Justin arianizes, and St. Hippolytus is a Photinian.

Again, there are three great doctrinal writers of the ante-Nicene centuries, Tertullian, Origen, and, we may add, Eusebius, though he lived some way into the fourth. Tertullian is heterodox on the doctrine of our Lord's divinity, and, indeed, ultimately fell altogether into heresy or schism; Origen is, at the very least, suspected, and must be defended and explained rather than cited as a witness of orthodoxy; and Eusebius was an Arian.'-pp. 13, 14.

The doctrine of the Trinity, we suspect, was more rudely shaken in the minds of men by the defence of the learned Jesuit than by all the high moral reasonings of the Socini. Mr. Newman will be in a singular position, if, as no doubt they will, the modern Unitarians seize the weapons which he has so generously placed in their hands; and if some Protestant Bishop Bull shall again arise in defence of the Nicene faith, and at least deserve if not receive the thanks of the Gallican Church, through some Bossuet, if Bossuet there be in these degenerate days (alas! where is he?), for rescuing the cardinal doctrine of Christianity

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from the incautious, in our case Mr. Newman might have written parricidal, zeal of their new and boasted proselyte!

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This case of Petavius is familiar to all who are even superficially read in the divinity of the seventeenth century. But there is another remarkable parallel fact, which has by no excited the same attention. Who is the parent of that critical study of the canon, and of the authenticity of the Scriptures, which has developed itself into the extreme rationalism of Paulus, and the anatomical biblical dissections of Strauss and his followers? We are not among those, whose timid---we had almost written dastardly-faith, trembles or looks with jealous suspicion at these inquiries-they were unavoidable. Faithful and conscientious biblical criticism could not elude them. We have the most entire conviction that the historic veracity and the authority of the New Testament will come forth from the ordeal only more firmly established. In Germany the triumphant reaction has begun, not merely in the Pietistic or Evangelic school, with Hengstenberg and his followers, but with men of far more profound and dispassionate thought and higher erudition. But in the name of those who from the abuse, unwisely as we think, deprecate the legitimate use of these investigations-in the name of Mr. Newman's former associates, and of his present friends-we may inquire who was the parent of this, at least, incipient Rationalism? Was it the physician Astruc? Was it Eichhorn or Michaelis? Was it a Protestant divine, or a Gerinan professor? The first, and certainly one of the very ablest, who entered boldly on this ground, was Father Simon of the Oratory. The History of the Old and New Testament by this very learned man forms an epoch in biblical study. Its object might seem, and its effect certainly was, to assail and disturb the security of the whole canon of the New as well as of the Old Testament. Father Simon declared that he did this only with the view of asserting the authority of the Church. Nothing less than the infallibility of the Church could invest such doubtful records with their plenary supremacy over the faith.* We write not in hostility to P. Simon, for whom we have great respect; but if this biblical Exegesis be so monstrous a birth,

*P. Simon says, for example, Bien loin donc qu'on doive croire avec les Protestans, que la voye la plus courte, la plus naturelle, et la plus certaine pour decider ces questions de la Foi, est de consulter l'Ecriture Sainte, on trouvera au contraire dans cet ouvrage, que si on separe la regle de droit de celle de fait, c'est à dire si on ne joint la Tradition avec l'Ecriture, on ne peut presque rien assurer de certain dans la religion' (Preface). Yet we are charitably inclined, with M. le Normant (Cours d'Histoire Ancienne, p. 126), to think that Simon wrote in the pure interests of science; that this was an after thought, when his book became the subject of attack. We may add that Simon quotes several Jesuit writers who had preceded him in this course of inquiry.

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and in her turn the mother of such a fearful brood, of Neologism and Rationalism, let all who have any concern in the parentage equally share the blame. It is remarkable that the eagle eye of Bossuet discerned this danger as it did the other. The same eloquence which had assumed the dignified language of praise to Bishop Bull, took its sterner tone of condemnation towards Father Simon. He prevented the publication of the work in France, which only found its way to light through the free press of Holland.

Mr. Newman, as, notwithstanding his own warning he has revived the arguments of Petavius, so he has not feared to tread in the steps of the Father of the Oratory. He is even more prodigal in his concession. Not content with the Trinity, he fairly throws over the authenticity of the New Testament. On what ground (he asks) do we receive the Canon as it comes to us, but on the authority of the Church of the fourth and fifth centuries? This is the inference from certain passages adopted by him from the Tracts for the Times, in which more loose doubts are thrown upon the authenticity of several books of the New Testament, than would load some unfortunate men for life with the ill-omened name of Rationalists; we give one paragraph :

The New Testament consists of twenty-seven books in all, though of varying importance. Of these, fourteen are not mentioned at all till from eighty to one hundred years after St. John's death, in which number are the Acts, the Second to the Corinthians, the Galatians, the Colossians, the Two to the Thessalonians, and St. James. Of the other thirteen, five, viz., St. John's Gospel, the Philippians, the First of Timothy, the Hebrews, and the First of St. John, are quoted but by one writer during the same period.'*—p. 160.

We must enter our passing but solemn protest against thus confounding the historical evidence, both external and internal, on which we ground the authenticity of the sacred books, with these late decrees of the Church. Simon was far too solidly learned to rest the Canon of Scripture on the Fathers of the fourth or fifth century. This statement is a complete misapprehension or misrepresentation of the whole question. It is not whether two or three books (mostly brief and unimportant ones, the shorter Epistles) are known to have been less generally received than others, but whether the great body of the New Testament was the recognised authority throughout Christendom. One argument

*This writer is not even correct in his assertions. We presume that the line of eighty or a hundred years after the death of St. John is drawn to exclude Irenæus. But St. John's Gospel is quoted by Justin Martyr, A.c. 140, Apol. ii. 1, 14; and Dial. c. Tryph and by Theophilus of Antioch, A.D. 169, ad Autolyc. iii. 22; and what other authentic writers are there within that period from whom we could expect much support?

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