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asserts"the quotation" "most expressly declares" what he wishes. Why so angry, then, that we introduced a witness on our side whose evidence told against us? He proceeds, "The first sentence is taken from ch. v. of that treatise; but when they come to viventem, instead of going on as in the original, quæ proprietas conditionum, &c. they go back to a preceding part of the same chapter, where the following words occur, Scelestissime, &c. and out of these take just as much as suits the place assigned to it.' Indeed, sir, you are much in error here too; for the whole of chapter v. is so much to the point that we regret not having given it entire. However, it is true that, in copying out the extracts of different writers upon slips of paper, some of these slips did get transposed in passing through the printer's hands; and a reference to a tract of Novatian, bound up in the same volume with Tertullian's tract De Carne Christi, was omitted altogether. But what will this criticizer of the length of hyphens, and of the number of dots and asterisks between words to determine honesty or dishonesty of quoters, say to the Bishop, who begins with De Res. Carnis, c. 2, and, " instead of going on as in the original," proceeds with De Carne Christi, c. 1; "out of this takes just as much as suits the place assigned to it," and then passes on to c. 6; omits 7, 8, and 9 altogether; and lumps 10, 11, 12, and 13? In short, the Bishop has done just what we have done, and what every other human being has done who ever quoted from another writer-namely, given what suited the point in hand, and no more. We are sick of defending ourselves against such drivelling.

We must give one more extract from the Bishop's work. "One of the questions on which theological ingenuity has exercised itself is, whether the flesh of Christ was corruptible or incorruptible. We have seen that Valentinus asserted a difference between Christ's flesh and human flesh. In replying to this assertion, Tertullian observes that Christ would not have been perfect man had not his flesh been human, and CONSEQUENTLY CORRUPTIBLE." p. 566.

The unlearned inquirer, whom we supposed anxious to hear from an impartial witness on which side the truth lay between the contradictory assertions respecting the doctrine of Tertullian made by us on the one hand, and by our opponents on the other, will have no difficulty now in coming to a proper decision. What, then, it may be asked, can be the motive of these persons in bringing forward this charge of garbling? We answer, partly ignorance of the doctrine, and thereby not knowing what to agree with, or what to oppose; and partly an endeavour to turn off the reader's attention from their own ignorance by fixing it on some irrelevant and fallacious point. They have been told over and over again, that as Christ's flesh was corruptible (though

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they, like Valentinus, dény that it was corruptible), and He not corrupt; so was his manhood mortal, and HE immortal; his flesh sinful, but HE sinless; his flesh created, but HE uncreate 7 his flesh finite, but He infinite; his flesh temptible, while it was not possible that HE should fall. But the modern heretics, by denying all these necessary qualities of flesh, do necessarily deny Christ's true humanity; do deny that he was capable of being tempted in all points like as we are; and do assert that his temptations were mere phantasms, and the scene in the wilderness with Satan a transaction without a meaning or an end.

One of the quibbles by which they escape here, is to say that Christ took our sinless infirmities, but not our sinfulness. If by this they mean any thing essentially different from us, they should explain their creed more fully; for as it stands, by being put as a contradiction to us, it is an absurdity. An infirmity is neither sinless nor sinful: just as it is neither green nor blue. An infirmity is an occasion of sin to every human being, and causes him to sin: ignorance is an infirmity, and is the occasion of the creature's sin: why was there no ignorance in the humanity of Christ? because the Holy Spirit of Wisdom possessed it from the first moment of its being called into personal subsistence. But according to them His human mind must have been omniscient. Hunger, thirst, and all the wants of helplessness, cause man to sin, while they are at the same time the proofs of fallen beings. These outward proofs of being in the condition of fallen creatures Christ gave, but they never produced in him those consequences which they invariably produce in men. To say he had infirmities and yet was not under the conditions of the Fall, is again to assert that he was a phantasm, and gave signs of being that which he was not. To say that he had infirmities and yet did not sin, is to assert the very point we maintain.

Another quibble they resort to is, to take an expression of Mr. Irving's, and if they cannot find the words and letters of this expression in Tertullian to vow that the idea was unheard of till now. That Mr. Irving has taught them much truth they never previously dreamed of, there is no doubt; but they are not to set down all things as new which they do not know. We defend neither the expressions of Mr. Irving nor of the Morning Watch, nor of any human being; but we defend the truth, and maintain that in the main Mr. Irving has put forth the sound and orthodox faith, and that those who have attacked him are preaching rank heresy: not for their single words, which they complain of being perverted, but for their whole tenor of doctrine; since, as we observed before, the whole framework of their theology is built upon the one idea of sacrifice and substitutionthis first step in the Christian creed, beyond which these

"babes" have never advanced and to the propriety of which the difference of nature between the sacrifice and the worshipper is not felt: and thus they make the perversion of one doctrine the means of perverting another. We have not made them offenders for words, but for the doctrines which avowedly they have endeavoured to express; while they have adhered in their charges to the words, although they know that the inference they draw from those words has been over and over again denied by him who has employed them. To those who admit the truth we have no objection to give up any words; but we will give up no expressions to cavillers who only carp at the words for the purpose of denying the truth which they were intended to convey.

It is ever to be remembered, that the peculiarity of this controversy lies in its being the exact counterpart of that with the Arians which drew forth the Athanasian Creed. The Arians admit every term, which the orthodox can use from Scripture, that expresses God; and it is only when they come to define the meaning of the term, that, by denying to Christ the essential properties of Deity, they are convicted of denying his Godhead altogether. In the same manner the modern heretics talk of Christ taking our nature, and being a man, and of his humanity, &c.; but when they come to define what they mean by these terms as belonging to Christ, we find that the humanity they ascribe to him is more the nature of angels than of men. Exactly by so much as they make Christ's humanity to differ from the humanity of other men, by so much must they admit to the Arian that his Deity differs from that of the Father.

The properties which they have assigned to Christ's humanity are impeccability, incorruptibility, immortality, and non-existence before the days of the Virgin Mary. One of the first who started declares that Christ had no more the nature of his mother than an oak has of the nature of the soil in which the acorn was planted. Yet they strangely talk of admitting that the person of Christ could hunger, and thirst, and be weary, and be tempted. How a person composed of no corruptible or mortal particle could require the sustenance of material food, these philosophers have not thought it proper to explain. Moreover, the properties they ascribe to Christ's flesh differ in no respect whatever from the necessary properties of glorified flesh; or from the substance of the bodies of angels: for it is superior also to that of Adam, as at first created-if indeed there be any essential difference in Adam before and after the Fall. We tell them, however, that "furthermore it is necessary to everlasting salvation that they believe rightly the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the right faith is, that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man,

God of the substance of the Father begotten before the worlds; and man OF THE SUBSTANCE OF HIS MOTHER, born in the world," &c.

In conclusion, we beg to inform the person who has come forward most prominently out of the armies of the Philistines to defy the truth of the living God, and to sneer at the avowal of our determination to endeavour to write "as becomes Christians and Gentlemen," that such is still our resolution, although he should pertinaciously adhere in an opposite course both of precept and example. We are inclined to suspect that the Latinity of Tertullian is too hard for him. A violent tirade came forth from Edinburgh a few years ago against an edition of Strabo which was printed at Oxford, and various learned criticisms made upon its preface: it turned out, however, that the critics were wrong in almost every point; and although they had English help, the reputation of Scotch scholarship was not raised by their literary encounter. Our antagonist has betrayed that either he or the Bishop of Lincoln cannot construe Tertullian, for their judgments on the meaning of that author's writings are the very antipodes of each other. The Bishop's reputation is established of our critic we never heard before; but as he has made two such slips with the words os, and peccatrix, we apprehend it will be some time before he will be entitled to a much higher degree in literis humanioribus than he yet has taken in theology. In the mean time he may gain some light on the meaning of the word sinful by a diligent perusal of an article in No. V. of this Journal, p. 216.

REPLY TO A LETTER OF MR. M'CAUL ON THE REVIEW OF MR. MAITLAND'S INQUIRY.

"All the reviewers with whom we have any connection will be ever ready to SUBSTANTIATE the charges they make; or, if in error, FRANKLY and FULLY to acknowledge it."

A LETTER, with this sentence from a preceding Number of the Morning Watch as its heading, has been published, in defence of Mr. Maitland. This letter, or that which it professes to be, had been sent for insertion in our Journal some months ago. We thought it possible that time and reconsideration, by enabling the writer to become better acquainted with the subject, might have led him to a discovery of some of his mistakes; and that, finding himself wrong in part, he might have been induced to doubt of the whole, and withdraw his letter. But it has not been so the letter, with variations, has been printed, and distributed gratis; and as it brings against us very heavy charges of error, we, in our own defence, must expose the fallacy of its

imputations, the unfair grounds on which they rest, and the uncandid manner in which they are brought forward; thus redeeming the pledge which the writer appeals to, by now" substantiating the charges we have made," having at present no error to acknowledge. But we must first say a few words more on the delay. We received this reply some time in August lastconsequently after the French Revolution; but as it came from a considerable distance (it was written in Warsaw), and was brought by a private hand, we thought it nearly certain that it was written before that event, and were willing to wait till a sufficient time had elapsed to allow the writer to withdraw or correct his letter, if he thought fit to do so; wishing to know whether that practical refutation of Mr. M.'s hypothesis had wrought any change in his own mind or in that of his friends; and whether they began at length to see any glimmering of light in the interpretation of prophecy. But this new and striking æra now begun has not so wrought upon them. The voice of Providence, now adding its sanction to the interpretation of prophecy, and which has roused almost every other class of believers to attention, passes unheeded by them; and they still cling to flimsy theories, which the breath of the Almighty has now, like smoke before the wind, blown into air, and scattered like chaff before the whirlwind.

This letter is a curiosity in its kind such as we have never yet met with. We have seen other letters with many errors, and we have seen hasty letters entirely erroneous; but a letter deliberately written, with evident marks of attentive examination, and yet entirely erroneous, we had never seen before: but shall now prove that this whole letter is one tissue of blunder and misrepresentation from beginning to end. We formerly thought it unfortunate that Mr. M. did not consult some of his friends on the Hebrew points, in his " Inquiry;" but if the others are no better informed than the writer of this letter, it is fortunate he did not; for they would probably have increased, instead of diminishing, his errors; and he might have found them, as in the present instance, to be like trusting in the staff of a broken reed, whereon if a man lean it will go into his hand and pierce it.

The former half of this letter consists of some very inaccurate and loose remarks, the object of which is to support Mr. M.'s assertion, that a does not mean a week, but merely a seven, without defining whether it be seven days or seven years. Now it is curious to find, that in the latter half of this same letter, in which the writer charges six distinct errors upon our Review, two of these charges of error actually refute the first half of the letter: for, having in the first half asserted a to denote merely seven, he gives, in his third charge of error, yaw and yaw, as

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