open always to spiritual enterprise and ambition. Protestant So far as considerations of this sort should be allowed to Churches have failed to calculate upon certain unalterable influence spiritual affairs, the question would deserve to be tendencies of human nature, and have made no provision for entertained, Whether a permanent and readily available progiving vent to exuberant zeal. The very same minds which, vision should not be made within the arms of a protestant during the first four centuries, or among ourselves, would church for giving a range to those extraordinary dispositions have headed a faction, and given their name to a hostile and and talents which in all times make their appearance, and separate communion, have, under the fostering care of the which, if not preoccupied, do not fail grievously to trouble Papacy, lent their extravagance to the Church itself, and the community that neglects them.

have proved its most efficient supporters. Fanaticism, we have said, has first an active or turbulent, Either as Founder of a new order, or as Regenerator of an and then a settled and moderated form; for that which begins old one, energetic and ungovernable spirits saw before them with inflammatory symptoms, subsides into a chronic deat all times an open field. It is true that a curbing hand was rangement. In its earlier state it attaches chiefly to minds of held by the popes upon this species of ambition; yet the res- inferior quality; but in its latter it insidiously invades the traint was not more than enough to enhance, by difficulty, the most generous, vigorous, and accomplished; and from these passion for enterprise. The young and frenzied devotee, after it draws a thousand recommendations that ensure to it credit astounding the monasteries of his native province by unheard- and perpetuity. So was it (as we have seen) with the frenzy of severities-by portentous whims-by wastings, whippings, of asceticism, which, after raging among the vulgar-the Anvisions, ecstacies; and after imposing upon his superiors an thonys and the Symeons of Egypt and Syria, became epiunfeigned terror by turbulences of behaviour-always tho-demic in the high places of the Church, and overpowered the roughly catholic, and therefore so much the more difficult to sense and piety of Basil, Gregory, Chrysostom, Jerom. So be dealt with, obtained their ready leave (with flaming cre- again the fanatic cruelty of intolerance, at first entertained dentials in his hand) to beg his way bare-foot from Spain, only by the basest natures, crept at length upon the noble; France, or Germany, to Rome. At the foot of the Sovereign and a Ximenes is seen to take up the tools of a Torquemada. Pontiff he threw himself in the dust-prostrate, body and And so with the fanaticism of religious war; where Peter the soul:-there he wept and raved his season-already he had Hermit and Walter the Pennyless led the way, Godfrey and vowed himself the dauntless Chevalier of the Virgin," and Louis follow, with Bernard as their guide. only waited permission to fight her battles, and those of the The very same kind of progression has had place, and even Church, under sanction of its Head. During the weeks or with worse consequences, in the history of the Fanaticism of months of suspense, his austerities and his pretensions rous-dogmas and creeds. The authors and prime agitators of coned a hundred jealousies among the comers and goers of the troversy-the men whose plebeian names descend as an obpapal court: feuds and seditions made a perpetual din under loquy to after ages, have (with a few exceptions) possessed the windows of the Vatican; and it seemed as if all the de- but a poor title to celebrity; and, apart from the turbulence mons had flocked together to thwart if possible the holy pur- of their tempers, or their insatiable ambition, could never have pose of the new adventurer, from whose hand they expected attracted the attention of mankind. But the agitation so enmany a terrible buffet. At length the Holy See, having prov- gendered spreads; and at length none can well avoid ranging ed the constancy of the candidate; or shall we rather say, themselves on this side or on that of the question: great talhaving ascertained that his frenzy was of the sort which, ents and solid virtues are drawn into the vortex; and so it though it might be managed, could not be repressed, and glad happens that, while the ostensible mischiefs of strife-the to rid itself of the importunity, granted the desired sanction, rancour and the violence of the feud are moderated, its esand signed the Brief.* sential evils are deepened, and rendered permanent. A chris

The Founder or the Reformer, now big with a licence that tian country, or a community, is in this manner cast into a would reach all extents of absurdity, paced his way back-factious condition, and in that state abides age after age.patrician mendicant! to his native mountains. Monasteries But factious religionism, how much soever it may have been spring up about him in each cleft of the rocks:-his rule at- tamed and curbed, will not fail to be encircled by wide spread tracts every moon-stricken brain of the province; and in a impiety, and infidelity, as the direct effects of the scandal of year or two he moves about, the admired patron of insanity-division. Factions, moreover, benumb the expansive powers far and near. Such, in substance, has been the history of of Christianity, and prevent its spread. They create too a scores of adventurers who, had it been their ill luck to be universal confusion, entanglement, and perversion of religious born on protestant ground, could have done nothing more notions. No inquiry can be calmly prosecuted, no results of illustrious than give an ignoble name to an ignoble sect-have solitary meditation can be safely reported, nothing can be troubled their own age by angry divisions, and have confer-looked at in its native form, so long as the jealousies and the red upon three centuries after them, the burden of some hard-interests of eight or ten ancient and corporate factions spread to-be-uttered epithet of faction. themselves over the field of theology. Even those few insu

Deprived of its monkish apparatus (considered only as a lated articles of Christian belief or speculation, or of abstruse means of drawing off restless ambition) the Romish hierarchy science, which have not been claimed by party zeal, are often could not have stood its ground so long. Only let us follow found to alarm the wakeful fears of this or that guardian of up to its consequences the supposition that it had had, age sectarism, merely because the method of argument which may after age, to contend with the dauntless spirits that originated have been employed in such instances, is foreseen to have a or restored the several orders-with St. Dominic, and St. bearing upon matters. that are to be held inviolable. The Francis; with St. Bernard, with Loyola, and with De Rance; opinion in itself may be innocent enough; but the logic that in that case it had long ago been rent and scattered to the winds.

sustains it is dangerous. Better then quash at once the suspicious novelty, which, though it may be good and true, is not momentous, than favour it, and so open the door to no one can say what innovations!

The career of Ignatius Loyola combines, in the most complete So poor, so timid, so feeble, so inert, so grovelling, so inmanner, all the proper elements of ambitious sectarian fanaticism; fatuated is the human mind! Truth, which alone can be perand a well written life of this illustrious founder might subserve manently advantageous, and which alone can reward labour other purposes than that of exhibiting the folly, knavery, and super- or compensate losses, is looked at and listened to with eaglestition, that are encouraged by the papacy. We much need-prot

estants as we are, to have placed before us, and for our instruction, eyed alarm; nor is entertained until she has protested, ten those vivid instances of delusion and extravagance which the annals times over, that she means to rob us of nothing we dote of the Romish Church so abundantly furnish. Whoever has closely upon.

and calmly watched the growth and maturity of fanatical illusion in Less than two hundred years ago-even so late as the close the case of certain noted individuals that still figure on the stage of of the seventeenth century, this very same sectarian infatuaghostly ambition, must have become convinced that nothing but ac- tion, this fanaticism of the creed and symbol, enthralled the cidents and names-costume and phrase, often distinguishes canon

ized from uncanonized heroes. Might it be hoped that the parties physical and abstruse sciences, throughout Europe. No prothemselves, or at least their well-read chiefs, would look into the cess of nature, no mechanic law, could be investigated or disglass of history, and catching there their own resemblances, draw an cussed apart from the interference of the fierce jealousies of inference of incalculable importance! Would any one who retains rival schools. A chemical mixture could not change from a particle of good sense or sober Christian feeling wish to find that blue to red, from transparent to opaque-an apple could not his public course has been, in its essential motives, and in very many fall to the ground, nay, the planets might not swing through of its circumstances, the counterpart of that of men whose names are their orbits, without kindling angry feuds in colleges. Not signalized as the spiritual fathers of innumerable cruelties, impos

tures, and corruptions? Let Gonzales and Ribadeneira be read and only was the method of obtaining knowledge utterly misundigested by any who, while panting for the notoriety of miracle, are derstood; but it was not believed, or not felt, that Knowledge forgetting truth, honour, reason, faith, virtue. is always the friend of man, and his coadjutor; Error his ene

my. This degraded condition of the human mind was at last of Interpretation must restore to the church (under that guiremedied by nothing but the bringing to bear upon the MET- dance which is never denied when ingenuously sought) the APHYSIC-PHYSICs of Des Cartes and Aristotle, a method of pure meaning of Scripture. The charm that cements petty reasoning so absolutely conclusive that resistance was found communions will then dissolve; the excellence of Truth will to be useless. Prejudice and antiquated jealousy did not be felt, and the fanaticism of dogmas will die away, when freely yield themselves up and dissolve:-they were under-all men learn to hold in contempt every thing in religion, but mined, they fell in, and were seen no more. the ascertained sense of God's Revelation. Diversities of

This deliverance of Philosophy-a very recent deliverance, opinion must indeed remain so long as there are differences though effected within a particular precinct of inquiry only, of intellectual and moral power; but these will engender no rapidly extended itself over the entire field of the sciences. heat, and will produce no divisions, when all minds shall be Whether or not immediate success attended the pursuit of moving on toward one and the same centre. knowledge, every thing was scouted but its attainment. The It would not have been anticipated as possible, that among scientific community blushed at the fond folly of ranging those who reverenced the Scriptures, a superstition such as itself under rival leaders;-it coalesced as one body or pha- that of the papacy should at all have had existence. But lanx, advancing under one banner. history, in two many instances, and in this, contradicts reaCan it be conceived of as a thing even possible that pure sonable calculations, and shows that the perversity of man reason should have had sway in philosophy so long as the may thwart every beneficient provision of heaven. In interests of sects were to be cared for? Those two powers, like manner it might have been thought that the internal conTruth and Party, were not in fact contemporary scarcely a stitution of the Inspired Volume, as well as its express preyear: or contemporary only as Night and Day are so, through cepts, would have precluded the factions that have rent the the hasty moments of twilight. Indeed the mere existence Church in every age. It has not been so; nevertheless this of factions in any department of opinion, is a conclusive proof internal constitution well deserves our attention. It is only that the method of inquiry, in that department, has not yet while we distinctly regard it that we can see in a proper been found; or at least is not generally understood. light the folly of those disorders which fill out the volume

Causes which need hardly be specified, have hitherto ex- of Church history.

cluded from the precincts of Theology the reform that has Let it then be assumed that two main purposes were to be spread through every department of natural science. The secured in giving a written rule of faith to mankind, namedogmatic fanaticism which raged at the time of the Reforma-ly, first, an infallible conveyance of that PRINCIPAL SENSE of tion, passed down uncorrected upon the political and ecclesi- Revelation which is essential to genuine piety; and secondly, astical constitutions of the northern nations of Europe, and such a conveyance of the ADJUNCTIVE or secondary portions especially upon those of England, and it now firmly grasps of religious truth as should render despotic determinations on the religious commonwealth. The violence of religious strife the one side, and scrupulous schisms on the other, manifestly has indeed long died away; or it breaks out only for a mo- unreasonable. We have to see in what manner both these ment; but no relief has yet been administered to the settled ends are provided for by the actual constitution of the canon ill consequences of that delirium. So far as we are religious of Scripture.

at all, the English people is a nation of sects, and our theol- It is saying little to affirm that no composition, whether ogy is necessarily the theology of faction. Not a false the- historical or didactic (if the language in which it is written ology-thank God; but a theology that is confused, entan- be understood) fails to convey to readers of ordinary intelligled, and imperfect, gloomy; a theology which, while it abund-gence the Principal Intention of the writer, unless indeed he antly breeds infidelity among the educated classes, fails to himself be wanting in sense, or designedly conceals his meanspread through the body of the population, and but dimly, or ing under ambiguous or enigmatic terms. This is plainly imonly as a flickering candle, illumines the world. plied when it is granted that language is a good and sufficient

The recent consolidation of religious liberty, while it may means of communication between mind and mind. To fairly be hailed as an auspicious event, and likely to bring affirm any thing less were to stultify humanity, and to break about at length the disappearance of faction, is utterly mis-up and derange the entire machinery of the social system. understood by those who regard it as equivalent to the eman- All men might as well become anchorets at once, if indeed cipation of Christianity. Far from being the same thing, language is found to be a fallacious medium of intellectual this overthrow of ecclesiastical despotism has, in its imme- exchange.

diate effects, as was natural, highly inflamed the sectarian And what is true of oral communication, is true also (with sentiment, or has given it a new birth. The exultation of a very small deduction) of written communication. Morethe triumphant party, and the discontent of the defeated party, over what may be affirmed concerning the written conveyance have, in different modes, infused an energy into the virulence of thoughts among contemporaries, becomes liable only to of both, which seems not unlikely to prolong the existence an inconsiderable discount, when we have to do with the of our absurd divisions, perhaps a fifty years. writings of past ages. This discount is much reduced if the

A happier destiny may sooner break upon us! But whether composition in question forms part of a vast collection of it does or not, it is certain that an unobtrusive power has contemporary literature. As it is certain that men must be been some while at work beneath the entire ground of our fools or knaves when permanent misunderstandings arise sectarian edifices-a power which must (unless arrested) in-among them in regard to the main intention of their personal evitably in the end bring them down to the abyss. The communications; so is it certain that the principal scope of a philosophy of the schools sunk to rise no more when the book, ancient or modern, is always to be known where both true method of science gained its first indisputable triumph. writer and reader are ingenuous. But although the same method is not formally applicable to theology, yet the principle of it is so, and is actually in its incipient stage of application-or perhaps has gone a step beyond that stage.* The art of criticism and the true logic

Nothing less then than an extreme perversity of judgment, such as renders the powers of language nugatory, can, in any case, give rise an entire misunderstanding of an author's principal sense. Admit only these ordinary conditions-that the writer was honest and of sound mind-that he was mas* Many more talk of the Baconian method than seem to be ter of the language he employs, and that he made it his serimasters of it; or than have probably ever read ten pages of the ous business to convey to his reader in the best way he Novum Organon. The assertion may be hazarded that, even in the could, certain capital articles of information-historical or walks of physical science, multitudes of those who are pretty well versed in the actual products of the modern philosophy, have not a moral, and then it follows, without an exceptive case, that conception of the principle of investigation as set on foot by Bacon. his meaning on those prime articles is readily attainable by This ignorance is still more prevalent on the side of Intellectual, whoever himself owns common sense and a competent acEthical, and Theological Science. To speak only of the latter, it is quaintance with the writer's languge. To take apart, for deemed a thoroughly Baconian process to adduce, in series, all the example, any one of the canonical writers, it is absolutely texts that bear upon a certain article of faith, and at the end to sum certain that the leading facts or dograas which he means to up the evidence. This is called Induction. But now if we look a teach, stand upon the surface of his composition. Has dislittle closely to the method and principle of interpretation, as applied

to each passage, we shall find that the prime maxim of the dogmatic agreement arisen in regard to these main facts or dogmas ?— and scholastic divinity, which demands that every thing should be

judged of according to THE ANALOGY OF FAITH, and nothing ad-stance. A good work would it be to deduce from the Novum Orgamitted which cannot be reconciled thereto, or which may by infer-non those capital and universal principles which are indeed applicaence give countenance to a known heresy, rules throughout. This ble to Intellectual and Sacred Science. Etiam dubitavit quispiam surely is not to learn from prophets and apostles, but to teach them; potius quam objiciet, utrum nos de naturali tantum Philosophia, an and it is precisely the method which swayed so long the dark etiam de Scientiis reliquis, Logicis, Ethicis, Politicis, secundum viam realms of pseudo-philosophy. In theology we have the forms of the nostram perficiendis loquamur. AT NOS CERTE, DE UNIVERSIS HÆC, inductive method often where there is little or nothing of its sub-QUE DICTA SUNT, INTELLIGIMUS.

nothing less than the egregious wilfulness of the human mind can have caused it.

Of all impracticable miracles (if the solecism may be pardoned), the most impracticable and inconceivable would be On the ground of the admitted principles of language and that which should exempt a mass of ancient writing from of historic evidence, any one of the Gospels, with the Acts, those accidents whence ambiguity or difficulty of interpretaand any one of the larger epistles, would amply and indubi- tion, in single instances, arises. Any such interposition, to tably have handed down to us the SUBSTANCE of apostolic have been effectual, must not only have extended through the Christianity. If it be not so-a thousand tomes cannot do it. original document, imparting to each sentence, phrase and If it be not so, we might stand by with indifference and see word, an insulated perfection, and imbuing each verse with a another Amrou throwing his brand upon a pyre that should sort of phosphorescence; but must have pervaded all times and contain every existing relic of antiquity. places, guiding the hand of every drowsy copyist, and inspirBut the Divine indulgence has far exceeded necessary bounds ing every translator. Nor would even this have been enough; in affording to mankind the materials of sacred knowledge. No for the miracle, to have subserved any practical purpose, must parsimony is to be complained of on the part of the Instruc- have reached as well to the reader of Scripture, as to the tor: nothing is wanted but ingenuousness in the scholar. The writers and transcribers :-all minds must have enjoyed the great articles of belief and duty have come to us through the very same measure of native power-must have possesed the Instrumentality of nearly forty writers, to each of whom was same preparatory knowledge, the same simplicity of purpose, allowed his entire and undisturbed mental individuality-his the same temper, industry and power of retention. First the personal temper and taste, his own stlye, both of sentiment book a perpetual miracle; and then every reader a prophet! and of language, together with whatever speciality, either of The simpler method surely would have been for a voice to sentiment or of language, he might draw from the influence have sounded incessantly from the sky, repeating every hour of time and country. Each writer, while the track of his the monotony of truth!

thoughts is steered by an unseen hand, moves on in a spon- The Divine machinery is of another sort; and our gratitude, taneous course. Can any provision be added to this arrange- informed by reason, should follow the steps of that wisdom ment which should promise to exclude the possibility of a which adapts common instruments as well to extraordinary failure in transmitting the elements of religious knowledge? as to ordinary occasions; and so adapts them, as to include Let it be imagined that, out of the forty, two or three, or even various ends in one and the same system of means. seven, were obscure, abrupt, elliptical, mystic: yet all will Do we possess the rational satisfaction of perusing the not be so for one whose style is emblematic or difficult, history of our Lord's ministry in the words of four writers? there will (on common principles of probability) be five that Yes, but this important advantage is taxed with the inconare natural and perspicuous. venience (if such it be) of presenting frequent diversities of But we have asked for another security against failure in circumstance, order and phraseology. Now can we really the conveyance of the main points of religion; and we find it wish that the evangelic records had been so exempted from in the fact that this congeries of witnesses has been drawn, the operation of ordinary causes as would have been requisita not from one century, but from the course of fifteen. What- for excluding every diversity? Are we willing that these, the ever diversity time can impart is by this means included-so most important of all historical compositions, should forfeit the broad is the base of that pyramid which was to stand through special characteristics that mark them as original and genuine all ages, pointing man to the skies! Are we then to be told writings, for the sake of our being saved the infirm disquithat what prophets and apostles believed, and what they etudes of a superstitious temper? Those who will, with a taught to their contemporaries, and what they intended to blind and perilous pertinacity, rest their belief upon a verbal transmit to posterity, comes down to us under an impenetra- exactitude, meet a proper rebuke when they find that evanble obscurity? No miracle would be so hard of belief as gelists and apostles, with the freedom that is natural to truth this. and honesty, are negligent of matters that in no way affect the vast affairs committed to their trust. If critics are sometimes frivolous, the Apostles were no triflers.

It need not be added that the correlative security of ancient versions and interpretations, in endless abundance and variety, surrounds these documents of our faith, and every way precludes the chances of capital error in relation to the principal sense of the whole.

Who or who that understands and respects the laws of testimony, does not gladly turn from secondary evidence, though more methodical and perspicuous, to original evidence, There is an infirmity of the mind which impels us, on many even though charged, as it almost always is when genuine, occasions, to overlook or distrust those special circumstances with incompleteness in the details, with apparent inconsistwhereon our welfare really depends, while we anxiously encies, and with a hundred unexplained allusions? The search for provisions of safety that either are utterly unat-compiler of history is an INTERPRETER of the story: not so tainable, or that would be pernicious if possessed. How often the contemporary and original narrator of facts, who seldom have feeble minds (and perhaps some strong minds) wished or never turns aside from the vivid objects that fill his mind, that a perpetual miraculous interposition had been accorded, to provide for the ignorance, or to prevent the cavils of possuch as should have exempted the Inspired Writings from terity. Unless we be slaves of superstition, we shall then the accidents and ordinary conditions that attend other com- hail with pleasure those very imperfections (imperfections positions, and that affect ancient literature in the course of they are not) which mark the canonical books-historical, its transmission from age to age. Given at first by super-didactic and epistolatory, as unquestionably genuine. Thanknatural means-why has it not been accompanied and pre-fully shall we embrace those obscurities which are the seal served by miracle through the periods of its descent to our of truth. Deprived of its difficulties, every well informed mind would be staggered in admitting the Bible to be what Need we reply-because it is from these very diparagements it professes.

times?

(if such they should be deemed), that are to be gathered the And yet from this distinctive glory of the documents of our best evidences of the genuineness of the document itself. And religion are drawn, by the superstition and the overweening it might be added-because the accidental difficulties or ob- dogmatism of zealots, endless occasions of strife. That ab scurities that belong to the Scriptures in common with all rupt form which belongs to original evidence, is a roek other literary remains of antiquity, have a direct tendency (if) whereon wranglers of every age have split. Some usage we will but admit it) to disturb and put to shame the sense-some circumstance or ceremonial, infinitely trivial, but which less superstition-the doting upon particles, and worshipping a compiler of history might probably have supplied or exof iotas, which makes duty and faith to hang upon this or that etymology or syllable.*

any usage of words, any principle of construction, any special sense of terms, the knowledge of which is important to an exact gram

It is perhaps quite unnecessary to point out the conspicuous dis-matical rendering of the sacred text, the utmost diligence should be tinction between an overweening zeal for this or that interpretation employed in fixing beyond doubt the rule, with its exceptions. When of single passages or phrases-and the laudable endeavour of the erudition has done its utmost on such occasions, it has done nothing critic to ascertain, first, the real text of an inspired writer; and then more than bring our modern mind into contact with the mind of the the actual sense in which his words were understood by the persons writer. Thus, for example, the inestimable labours of Bishop Midto whom they were addressed. We have affirmed above, that the dleton, and others, have just served to annul the disadvantage of Scriptures, like all other rational compositions, will not fail to con- receiving the testimony of the apostles on the most important doevey their principal sense to every ingenuous mind, if the language in trine of the New Testament, through the medium of a dead laswhich they were written is really and fully known to the reader. Now guage. The critic, in such a case, and so far as his labours extend, the important labours of the Biblical critic are directed to this very resuscitates the Greek of the apostolic age; and gives us the boorft purpose of putting the modern reader (so far as is possible) into the of listening to the living voice of Paul, Peter and Jolin. Preposposition of the ancient reader. Dogmatic interpretation should not-terous then, as well as illiberal, is the objection of those who encannot reasonably commence, until the language, with all its essential deavour to evade the force of irresistible evidence by saying that proprieties, is brought under our falimiar cognizance. If there be the doctrine of the article is a trivial matter.

plained, is left open to conjecture in the apostolic record. Science often stands embarrassed, where Art moves on at Alas the lamentable omission! Why did the inspired wri- ease. Science is indeed the proper mistress of Art; neverters grudge us the single decisive particle which must have theless she should have discretion enough to be willing to reexcluded doubt? So does the zealot repine in secret over the ceive lessons of homely dexterity from her menial. Men of sacred page. But in public he loudly denies any such defi-speculation are always splitting upon the reefs in these ciency of evidence in reference to the disputed point. Among shallows. Presuming that the Abstract is always purer, and his followers, and in presence of the simple, he becomes of more avail than the Concrete, they reform-not for the bethoarse in protesting the demonstrable certainty of his assump-ter, but the worse; and, impatient of ideal faults, plunge tions. Language, he assures us, has no means left for making themselves and others into real and fatal perplexities. How plainer than it is, what was the apostolic usage in this mat- often does the unthinking artisan employ simple expedients ter! which the philosopher could never have taught him; and ac

A signal advantage it is that the Scriptures (of the New tually carries his work triumphantly through theoretic imTestament especially) have traversed the wide and perilous possibilities, and how often, in the business of governwaters of Time, not on one keel only, but a thousand. No ment, does common sense, with ancient usage as its guardian, ancient text has been so abundantly secured from important prove itself a vastly better mistress of affairs than abstruse corruption as the text of the New Testament: in the present calculation.

state of critical science, who entertains a doubt of its substan- A Consistory of Divines might spend a century in digesting, tial integrity? But the consequence, the inevitable conse-first a profession of faith, and then a code of morals and a quence of this multifarious transmission of copies has been rule of discipline, such as should stand as a universal law the origination of innumerable verbal variations. Here again of Church communion. In the mean time a Christian socithe superstition which dotes upon jots and tittles, is broken ety fraught with the vital principle of piety, and faithful to in upon. Heaven has treated us as MEN; and it supposes itself, and to its trust, far from awaiting impatiently the rethat we shall prefer what is truly valuable to what is trivial.sult of the conference, might rather hail demur after demur, We receive a most important confirmation of our faith; but and fervently hope that the sittings of this Sanhedrim of are denied the fond and idle satisfaction of posessing a Text Christendom might be protracted to the consummation of all for every particle of which, and for the position of every sylla-things. Nothing that is truly important need be foregone ble and letter, Divine authority might challenged. Are we until the creed and code should be brought to perfection; still disquieted and discontented? It is manifest then that nothing that we need sigh for would be conferred upon us by our estimate of what is desirable differs widely from that of the boon when at length it should be granted. the Author of Revelation. He has bestowed upon us the The question-How may the Church be preserved from better and the greater advantage; we fretfully demand the less. desecration?-if propounded in cases where nothing exists Entertainment (and instruction too) might be drawn from that is indeed holy-nothing but the rites and semblances of an exhibition of certain instances in which, if we had actu-Christianity, is one which may well be reserved for an idle ally possessed fewer means of information than we do, we day. And no such question need be discussed at all where might have pronounced decisively upon points that are made the religion of the New Testament-its faith, and its moralquestionable by the additional evidence. If one apostle only ity, actually subsist.

had spoken, we should have been free to dogmatize stoutly; The distinction between Christians and others is obviousbut two have glanced at the matter; and we are plunged into or obvious enough for the practical purposes of ecclesiastical doubt! Sometimes, as we have seen, the sacred writers say government, if looked at in the concrete, and under the daytoo little; and anon too much! The very copiousness, of light of common sense; but it quite eludes research if subour means of knowledge deducts in such cases from our cer-mitted to analysis. The living are never much at a loss in tainty; that is to say, it disturbs the presumption of igno- recognizing the living; and no artificial process will avail to rance and baffles the arrogance of bigotry. Are there those-enable the dead to exercise any such discriminative office. one might almost believe it from their temper, who so love Is it demanded to frame a creed and a rule by the due applidarkness rather that light, that they would willingly sur- cation of which secular men--frivolous and perfunctory, shall render the three testimonies, or the five, which bear upon a be able to keep charge of the fold of Christ, and to open and controversy, so that they might, with unrebuked fervour, shut the doors of the Church? Absurd problem! Idle enassume and assert their factious opinion? deavour! The CHURCH wants no such rule, and needs no

While it is certain that the Scriptures will, like all other such guardianship; and a better employment may easily be rational compositions, convey their principal purport to every found than that of sitting a watch and putting a seal at the ingenuous mind, it is not less certain that these books, in com- mouth of a SEPULCHRE!

mon with other remains of ancient literature, must present The duty of those, whether they be the few or the many, thousands and tens of thousands of questionable points, crit- to whose hands are entrusted ecclesiastical powers, is not ical, historical, or dogmatic. On this ground industry and that of a Rhadamanthus. Responsibility does not stretch erudition find their field; and what labour can be more noble beyond natural powers, and it is quite certain that men have or more worthy than that of endeavouring to fix or to eluci-no power to search each other's bosoms; nor should they date the sense of writings in which (beside their unparal- think themselves charged with any such endeavour. The leled merits as human compositions) are imbedded the inex-pretender and the hyprocrite belong always to the Divine haustible treasures of heavenly wisdom! How honourable are Jurisdiction; the Church will be asked to give no account of our modern Christian Rabbis employed in bringing to light, them so long as they successfully conceal the fatal fact of from day to day, some hitherto neglected particle of the "true their insincerity. The exceptive case of the hypocrite thereriches;" and how thankfully should we-the unlearned, re-fore excluded, not a shadow of difficulty-of practical difficeive these products of the diligence of our Teachers! One culty, attends the discharge of Church guardianship. Let might properly notice here the benificent provision made for but a community, whether more or less extended in its sphere, perpetually supplying new matter of instruction to the Bib-be pure in manners-PURE, not sanctimonious; let the Scriplical teacher, so that the zest and expectation of the taught tures be universally and devoutly read by its private memneed never become languid. Sacred Science, in all its de-bers, and honestly expounded by its teachers; and in this partments, having been diffused miscellaneously through the case it will be very little annoyed by the intrusion either of substance of a volume so large as the Bible-and an ancient heretical or licentious candidates. A Church of this order volume too, the time will perhaps never come (certainly it offers nothing which such persons are ambitious to possess: has not yet come) in which it might be said that the sense of they will stand aloof. Tests will be superseded; and the every portion has been determined.-All would be well if the rod of discipline brought out only on the rarest occasions. simple principle could be remembered-That although the It is the heat of controversy between sect and sect, that perfection of knowledge in matters of religion is an object of ordinarily generates the malevolence which (according to our the most worthy ambition to every Christian for himself, definition) is essential to fanaticism, and which distinguishes something immensely less than the perfection of religious it from enthusiasm. Yet there are cases where, without this knowledge is all we are entitled to demand from others extrinsic excitement, modes of opinion such as must be as the condition of holding with them Christian fellow-deemed extravagant, have assumed a gloomy and irritated ship. aspect. Instances of this sort have of late abounded, and

The vexatious question of Terms of Communion presents some reference to them seems proper. one of those instances-and there are many such, in which, A singular revolution has marked the progress of religious while formidable difficulties attach to the THEORY of the sentiment among us within the last few years; and it is this, affair, none whatever, or none that are serious, are found that while the tendency to admit enthusiastic or fanatical (unless created) to belong to the PRACTICAL OPERATION. sentiments belonged, till of late, almost exclusively to the

lower and uneducated classes, it has recently deserted the-a discipline more careful of faith than of morals-it is only quarters of poverty and ignorance, and taken hold of those by such means, that the melancholy impatience belonging to who are clothed in purple, and frequent palaces. The social degradation and distress, gives a dark colour to the fanaticism of Want, and the fanaticism of Plenty, though poor man's piety.

To such

identical in substance, naturally differ much in form. The Those will be at no loss in verifying or in rebutting our characteristics of each are worthy of notice. present allegation, who have been personally conversant with We know and think far too little of the feelings that are the religious sentiments of the lower classes in certain deworking in the bosoms of the abject and wretched poor: if partments of our ecclesiastical commonwealth. we knew and thought more on this subject we should look might be recommended an inquiry of this sort, namely-How with dread and wonder at the placid surface which, in com- far those forms of doctrine among us which tend to favour mon, the social mass exhibits. The personal endurance of malign spiritual arrogance, and which confessedly are of famine, cold, and discomfort, from day to day, and the worse ambiguous moral tendency, and how far certain strait and abanguish of seeing these evils endured by children, breeds a horrent rules of communion, and how far an excessive leanfeeling which, did it but get vent, would heave the firmest ing to the democratic principle in the management of Church political edifices from their foundations: but the writhings of affairs--a leaning wholly incompatible with pastoral indetortured hearts are repressed, diverted, and only on rare occa-pendence, how far these evils--if they any where exist, savour sions burst forth in tumultuous acts. With many, indeed, of what may be termed plebeian fanaticism.

all sentiment and moral consciousness gives way under the But the favourites of Fortune, as well as her outcasts, have pressure of woe; or is dissipated by debauchery-the soul sometimes their Fanaticism: there is a sleek and well-bred sinks even below the level of the wretchedness of the body: religious delirium, as well as one that is rude and squalid. hope, the spring of life, long ago took her flight, and is totally forgotten: every ember of joy and virtue is quenched.

Christianity rarely affects the opulent and the noble, except during disastrous epochs; or in those gloomy hours of a naBut with some of the Pariah class (numerous in every tion's history, when all things earthly are in jeopardy. It community) enough of the remembrance of hope survives to would seem as if nothing else than the most vehement agitaimpart sensitiveness to despair. The poor man, though he tions could be enough to dispel the illusions that beset luxury feels every day that he has given ground a little in his com- and honour. Be this as it may, the coincidence of causes bat with Want, and must renew the strife to-morrow with deserves to be taken account of, which, in such seasons of wasted strength, and from a worse position, and although, fear and tumult, affords to the Christian of elevated rank a when he throws himself on his pallet, he knows that the necessary counterpoise for his religious emotions, and tends Misery that haunts his hut does not sleep while he sleeps, to impart soberness to his piety. This indispensable counbut will be busy from the evening till the morning, in sapping terpoise is furnished to Christians of lower station by the the broken fabric of his comfort; although he knows and cares and labours of vulgar life. But the perils and vicissifeels this, yet the faint conception of a happier lot still haunts tudes of a revolutionary era bring home to the patrician orders him, and he asks-Might not I also be blessed? If he does a sense of the precariousness of earthly good such as, during not distinctly expect a reverse of his doom, he still meditates the tranquil flow of events, they are hardly ever conscious of. the abstract possibility of an amended condition. He is like At these times a difficult part is to be performed, and dangerthe shipwrecked mariner who takes his seat day after day on ous measures are often to be attempted, which fully engage the highest point of his rocky prison, and from sun-rise to every energy of the soul. It is then that public persons are sun-set, peruses the horizon, not certain but what a sail may thrown upon their principles, are compelled to look to the appear, and may make toward the islet of his despair. Such ultimate reasons of their conduct: and are in fact taught certhings (let us believe it) are felt and born by myriads near tain severe lessons of virtue, such as are never dreamed of in us, even while we are gaily gliding from scene to scene of the summer seasons of the world's affairs. It is at such times gain or festivity! that religious sentiments, if they exist at all in the bosoms of It is upon elements like these that political agitations the great, are brought into act, and are, by that means, prework; and our amasement should be, not that once and again served from exaggeration. in the course of years tumult and outrage break forth; but This general order of things being kept in view, we may rather that the public peace is so seldom violated; and that the more readily understand the somewhat singular appearwhen disturbed, any bounds are set to the vindictive passions ance which serious piety has assumed of late in a portion of of the million who have so long suffered in silence. the upper classes of England. The time we have lived

Experience has abundantly proved, even to the conviction through has indeed been a season of momentous change, and of irreligious statesmen, that the influence of religious motives has furnished excitements of the most unusual kind. And upon the lowest rank-taken at large, is decisively favoura- yet, to the people of the British Islands, the throes of the ble to public order, and is the most powerful prop of civil world and the sanguinary convulsions of the nations, have government. None now call this capital political truth in offered a SPECTACLE, rather than an arena of action and trial. question, but those the few, whose enormous usurpations During a full forty years, the English have stood crowding are of a kind that can be secured only by imposing brutaliz- their cliffs in mute astonishment, and have gazed upon the ing degradations upon the helot class. None now deny this distant prospect of blazing palaces, or demolished thronesfirst axiom of political science-that religion is the bond of of embattled fields, or of cities deluged by civil feud;-they peace; none deny it, we say, but the Planter and his Patron. have caught the muttering thunders of war and revolution; The cases are very rare in which a just and patriotic gov-but still have been able to turn the eye homeward, and have ernment (or even a despotic one) might not calculate its seen the smiling serenity of order and plenty spread over all security by the rule of the amount of religion among the their land. We have indeed entertained momentary alarms, labouring population of the country. There have been mo- and have groaned under burdens; but have hardly been called mentary exceptions; but they are quite intelligible, and when to meet the brunt of danger :-the stress of affairs has not properly understood confirm the rule which makes it the lain upon us, so as to engage the higher virtues. interest and duty, as well of the legislative as of the admin- The excitements of an era of commotion have been felt;istrative powers, to maintain, and to extend, and to invigorate, yet apart from its proper correctives. The spread of religious by all proper means, the Public Religion. feeling among the rich and noble may fairly be attributed (in

The fanaticism of poverty, which only under very unusual measure) to the salutary impression which the magnitude and provocations takes a political turn, or threatens civil institu- portentous aspect of events has made upon all minds. Yet it tions, somewhat more frequently offers itself to view within has been an impression without a conflict-an awe, but not an its proper circle of religious sentiment. The Gospel is the exercise. There has been no arduous part to perform, no chartered patrimony of the poor; and to affirm that the motives sacrifice to make, no privation to be endured. All this while of religion, as they bear upon the cares, privations, and con- the religious nobles have reclined upon a couch as soft as that tempt of a low condition, ordinarily pass into a malign state, of the irreligious noble; the silken banner of their ease has would be the same thing as to deny the divine origin of this floated in a summer's sky-they have fared as daintily, and Gospel. The contrary is most decisively the fact. The have been served as sumptuously, as if their portion were all partial evil has existence only when the theology that is in this world:-they have undulated from theatre to theatre promulgated among the people is of a murky and arrogant of pious entertainment, and have met acclamations and smiles; kind; when one set of ideas singly, and those of the least yet nothing has compelled them to act or to suffer like men. benign, is presented to the mind of the people; and when, There can be little room then for surprise if the result of either by abstruse dogmas, or by rigid and repulsive usages this peculiar conjunction of influences has been to give play -by the monotonous assertion of mysterious exclusive privi- to exorbitances of opinion, and absurdities of conduct, among lege, and by a stern, scrupulous, and sanctimonious discipline those of the rich and noble who have admitted religious in