At Gateshead, Durham, on the 21st of January, the Rev. Hamilton Murray, aged 55. On the 23d of January, the Rev. Henry Norman, M.A., of St. Catherine Hall, Cambridge, Perpetual Carate of Moreton Say, Salop. At Islington, on the 26th of January, the Rev. John Ray, BA, formerly of Exeter College, Oxford, aged 34; he took the degree of B.A. Nov. 21, 1833. Rev. Thomas Saul, Perpetual Curate of Wilton, Yorkshire. At Wolvesay, the Rev. Thomas Stevenson, M.A., Rector of St. Peter's, Cheesehill, and Master of St. Mary Magdalen Hospital, in the city of Winchester, aged 30. Rev. George Stevenson, M.A., Rector of Redmarshall, and Perpetual Curate of St. Thomas's Church, Bishopwearmouth. On the 31st of January, the Rev. William D. Thompson, Vicar of Mitford, near Morpeth, aged 64. At the Close, Norwich, on the 18th ult., the Rev. John Thurlow, A.M., Vicar of Hindringham, Norfolk, aged 30. Rev. Wm. John Travis, A.M., Rector of Lydgate, Suffolk, and Chaplain of Trinity College, Cambridge, aged 35. On the 28th of January, the Rev. Henry Ware, Rector of Ladock, Cornwall, aged 37. On the 26th of January, the Rev. Wm. Woollen, LL.D., Vicar of Bridgewater-cumChilton, and Rector of Kilton; many years a magistrate for Somerset. Rev. Stephen Woodgate, Vicar of Pembury, Kent, fourth son of the late William Woodgate, Esq., of Somerhill, in the county of Kent. Rev. James Donne, D.D., Vicar of Llany- Rev. Henry Freeland, twenty-four years On the 8th ult., at the Rectory-house, the Rev. Thomas Jack, Rector of Forncett, in Rev. James Jones, Vicar of the united Rev. John Jope, sixty-seven years Vicar of Very Rev. Thomas De Lacy, Archdeacon of Rev. George Kingston, Rector of Syderstone Rev. Edward Leathes, Rector of Reedham and Freetham, Norfolk, aged 67. On the 23d of January, the Rev. John Molesworth St. Aubyn, Vicar of Crowan, Cornwall, aged 52. Rev. George Walton Onslow, aged 76. At Rider's Wells, near Lewes, on the 12th On the 24th of January, the Rev. Henry V. EDITORIAL RETROSPECT. Ir is with grateful satisfaction that we continue to receive testimonies of approval, and assurances of support. With these we have also been favoured with several suggestions, to which we shall attend. From those, however, who call upon the Editor to exercise his vigilance, so as to make all his contributors conform to one plan and code of treatment and opinion, he must beg to dissent. This is a "Protestant" Magazine; and every contributor, therefore, must have and exercise in it his "right of private judgement." We, however, agree with those who require impartiality in our criticisms. We shall deal justly with all parties. We shall not dispraise a good book, because it is written by a Tractarian; nor extol a bad one, because it is written by an Anti-Romanist. Against one class of religious literature, however, we have determined to make our foreheads strong; we mean, that superficial, popular kind, by whomsoever written, which has given so much just occasion to the Tractarians to cast contempt on many of the Anglican Clergy. Even books, more ambitiously designed, are frequently found wanting in the sterner, logical elements. We have reason, in these days, to hail with peculiar pleasure every H attempt on the part of theological writers to ascend in their investigations to First Principles. This is, indeed, to emulate the fame and the usefulness of Hooker, and Taylor, and Leighton, and Bull, and Waterland, and the most eminent authorities in the Reformed Church. We are therefore disposed to welcome kindly every work that makes such a profession; and yet somehow we wish that many had been more exact in philosophy, and more profound in theology. How often are we told that "Divine Revelation commences with the statement of a fact. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth?" It is to the word "fact" that we object. The word "fact" signifies a thing done in time, while the text refers to a thing done in eternity. Not in time-but in the Beginning of Time-that is, in Eternity-God created the heavens and the earth. In other words, the statement in the text is not of a phenomenon, but of a Principle and that is the force of the phrase "In the Beginning." It is as if the writer had said (what he would have said if writing in these days), "The Principle of Cosmogony is this-God is the Parent of the Heavens and the Earth." Next, we are told by a late writer, that the Inspired Volume describes in one brief and impressive sentence the character of those philosophers who have affirmed the eternity of matter, in order to deny the existence of God; which sentence is, "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God." Now, we are instructed by the best commentators, that this text has no reference to such philosophers, and is inapplicable to them; but that it relates merely to the profane and vulgar atheist, who is such, not because he thinks too much or too little on the philosophy of the universe, but because he does not think on it at all, and is altogether engrossed with the criminal gratification of his animal appetites and physical propensities. The reverend author may apologise for this misstatement by pleading an intended popular character for his book; but this is inadmissible, as First Principles are not generally classed in the category of popular items; and even if so, why should misstatements be preferred for the purpose, especially in a book devoted to First Principles? "Our first notion of Deity," says the same writer, "is Intelligence in Action, and the action is that of creating." We ardently wish that he had not troubled his readers with either their or his "notions," but had taken them, with himself, at once to the fountain of Revelation. St. John commences the enquiry a step higher. According to the Evangelist, the First Principle of Theology is, that the Divine Intelligence and the Divine Being are correlated and identified eternally, so that in all true philosophy and theology the Identity of Being and Intelligence is a necessary assumption, and one which is demonstrated to us in that self-conscious being, which, as God's image, is realised in man. The correct "first notion," therefore, is not of intelligence in action, but of Being in Act, such Act being its Intelligenceits Word, as the Being itself is God. It is true that the clever essayist afterwards quotes St. John, and asserts the doctrine of the Trinity; but it is asserted as an arbitrary statement, and not as a necessary assumption, to which we as logically ascend by considering the nature of mind, as we do to "Intelligence in Action" when considering the nature of matter. The statement that we have no experience of human intelligence creating or causing "things which are seen" to be made of "things which do not appear," will not bear philosophical investigation; and is, therefore, not capable of sustaining the burthen of proof that the confident author lays upon it. On such a theory, he must show us whence we obtain the idea of a Creating Act. If we know no more of the term than that it is so much articulated air, it must be treated as one of those arbitrary logomachies which, since the time of Bacon, we have all thought it wise to banish from the vocabulary of science: but, verily, it is a word expressive of an idea, and that idea. nothing less than one of those primary acts of intelligent being which are constitutive of man's rational nature. Would divines consider these principles, they would at the same time justify their calling, and add to the evidence for the arguments which they seek to enforce. Not only the external, but the internal, evidences of religion, would then corroborate and testify to the truth of their conclusions. It is from want of attention to these points that Tractarianism has gained a temporary triumph over Evangelical dogmatism. Let us not so popularise theology as to mislead men into the "notion" that there are no deep places in it, and that the language of the market is quite adequate to the expression of its profoundest truths. This is a delusion of the fearfullest nature, and pregnant with consequences awful to imagine. As we proceed in this book we meet with other pieces of loose statement e. g., "Now, this language being taken, as the language of the Divine Records should ever be, in its plain, and obvious, and literal significance" Now, we would ask whether the respected author seriously thinks that this is the one and only Canon for the interpretation of Scripture language? We are compelled to ask this question of Dr. Pusey, when he demands a literal interpretation of the words, "This is my body," &c.: to be consistent, we must ask the same question of other divines. Not even for popular purposes should such gratuitous statements be ventured. In like manner, has not our author decided too peremptorily a point still open to question, when he declares, without doubt or reservation, that brutes have no souls. "The SPIRIT of man goeth upward-the SPIRIT of the brute goeth downward to the earth." What does he understand by the word spirit? He fails, also, to perceive that the original creation of man in the image of God refers to the archetypal man, or man in the Divine Idea, as contrasted with man in the sensible intuition; and that the former as necessarily implies human perfection, as the latter excludes it. This results, however, from mere literal interpretation; instead of spiritual, it becomes phenomenal. Let us, however, not be mistaken. Had the author proposed a merely popular book, we should not have subjected him to this process of criticism; but he has set forth his production as a manual of First Principles; and therefore we demand from him something more than a mere historical statement of the literal sense of records, however sacred. First Principles belong to the philosopher, and the writer has very successfully avoided the character. Hence, there is a lamentable want of precision in his terminology. Thus, while, in relation to the brute creation, he seems to make a distinction between the words "soul" and "spirit," we find him, in a subsequent essay, stating that "Experience of ourselves will tell us, that dust we are;' observation of others, like ourselves, that 'to dust we shall return:' but what, except a revelation from God himself, can teach us what we shall be hereafter, when the body has returned to the dust as it was, and the spirit shall return to Him who gave it?" Thus implying what afterwards, in fact, he states in words, that spirit is synonymous with living soul. "God," he says, " is a Spirit, and on this ground we might infer, if but from reason alone, that man, made in His likeness, apart from the body of dust, is a spirit also," &c. Sometimes, too, he contradicts himself, in two following sentences. Thus, he first tells us, in order to prove the distinction between soul and body, that "it is a fact, that shortly after the departure of the reasonable soul, which is the image and likeness of God, the body becomes the prey of corruption, which would of itself preclude all idea that IT could be the image of the incorruptible God." And then he tells us, that " we know from observation of man that the body cannot exist without the soul; but we know from revelation of God that the soul, regarded as Intelligence, can exist without the body." Surely, the body, after the departure of the soul, is shown, however much a prey to corruption, as existing without the soul. Furthermore, science shows us that the matter of the body, however its form may change, is in itself imperishable, save and except with the Universe itself. Nor must we forget that Scripture implies three things in the constitution of man-Spirit, Soul, and Body. The proper distinction being made between these, much perplexity is avoided. Such, then, are the defects of the work in question. When the author descends from the altitude of first principles, his course seems to be steady enough. What he states of the threefold birth of man is well stated. "The FIRST or NATURAL birth, the BIRTH OF BLOOD, the work of GOD, as the CREATOR, is necessarily common to all human creatures- God hath made of one blood all the nations that dwell upon the earth;' the SECOND or FEDERAL birth, the birth of water, is common to all who are admitted into the visible church by the sacrament that is symbolic of redemption, and are thus made parties to the covenant of life; the THIRD OF SPIRITUAL birth, is peculiar to those who are made, in this state of being, partakers of God's grace, and are destined hereafter to be partakers of his glory. By the first or natural birth, we enter into the world; by the second or federal birth, we enter into the church; but the third is still wanting to perfection; for, except a man be born of water AND OF THE SPIRIT, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.'” We are ready to acknowledge that it is not whether we can understand what God hath spoken, but whether what God hath spoken can be otherwise than true; but we are not so ready as some to admit, on insufficient evidence, that it is God who has spoken. God has, indeed, spoken in the Scriptures, but He has also given us the witness of our spirits with His Spirit, that He has so spoken, and we demand that to this testimony appeal shall be made, and will not permit that it shall be slurred over, as if it were of no account. This is to surrender the Scriptures into the hands of infidels and sceptics— nay, worse, to deprive ourselves as believers of all our defences. To allege the mere phraseology of Scripture, is, as the Rev. George Stanley Faber* observes, a mere petitio principii. We, therefore, cannot consent to take, upon the quotation of texts, the doctrine that baptism by water is essential to salvation, and also to the third or spiritual birth, the birth of the Holy Ghost. But what, for instance, says Justin Martyr on this point? “Τὸν Χριστὸν πρωτότοκον τοῦ Θεοῦ εἶναι ἐδιδάχθημεν, καὶ προεμηνύσαμεν Λόγον ὄντα, οὗ πᾶν γένος ἀνθρώπων μετέαχε· καὶ οἱ μετὰ Λόγου βιώσαντες Χριστιανοὶ εἰσι, κἂν ἄθεοι ἐνομίσθησαν· οἷον ἐν Ἕλλησι μὲν Σωκράτης καὶ Ηράκλειτος καὶ οἱ ὅμοιοι αὐτοῖς.” Justin. Apol. i. Oper. p. 65. This opinion of Justin is followed by Zuingle and Bullinger: "Nihil vetat, quo minus inter gentes quoque Deus sibi deligat, qui sese revereantur, qui observent, et post fata illi jungantur: libera est enim Electio ejus." Zuing. Oper. vol. ii. p. 371. "Deinde interrogatur: An opera, quæ faciunt Gentiles, ac speciem habent probitatis vel virtutis, peccata sint, an bona opera. Certum est, Deum et inter Gentiles habuisse suos Electos. Si qui tales fuerunt, non caruerunt Spiritu Sancto et Fide. Idcirco opera ipsorum facta ex fide bona fuerunt, non peccata." Bulling. Serm. Decad. Quinque. p. 174. Faber, who depreciates these opinions as fancies, nevertheless writes himself on the point thus: "I do not conceive that we have any special business to pronounce upon the fate of those who have never heard the sound of the Gospel, whose reception of it was thence a physical impossibility, and whose unbelief of it was involuntary, and therefore so far innocent; a condition, certainly very different from that of persons who have known the Gospel only to despise it and to reject it. Yet it is difficult to hold the doctrine of Universal Redemption, without admitting the possibility at least of salvation, through Christ, to those who, in the mysterious course of God's providence, have never been privileged to hear the name of Christ. Our Reformers, very wisely, do not enter upon this difficult question; thus, to the members of the Church of England, leaving it an open question: and I cannot do better than follow the example of their prudent moderation."-Faber's Primitive Doctrine of Election, p. 407. *This Mr. Faber is a different person from the individual of the same surname, mentioned in our first paper, this month. |