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while we fondle and cherish our own. We should deprecate violent and revolutionary changes, and, most of all, the national abrogation of our sublime and venerable reformed Liturgy. But we long, like the Archdeacon of Lewes and the Canon of Chester, for a wise and healing latitude, which may open the door of churchfellowship to those faithful servants of Christ, whom custom or prejudice, or the natural recoil from a barren uniformity of ritual, concealing a vast diversity in doctrine, has exiled from the ministry or lay-communion of the Established Church. The measures we should desire to see adopted would be of the following nature. First, as less distracting than Mr. M.'s own suggestion, more double forms, optional in their use; which might be adapted to meet all those scruples that depend on the wording of a doubtful phrase, and would also, by giving variety to the service, be a great help to sustain the spirit of real devotion. Secondly, the practical revival of the order of deacons, and wide extension of lay-agency, distinctly recognized as a lawful and necessary part of the system of the Church. Thirdly, the admission to curacies, or less responsible spheres of duty, of those who can yield only a partial subscription to the Articles or the Book of Common Prayer, when the bishop is satisfied with their general competency for the office, and soundness in the faith, and a definite, but more limited subscription has been made. Fourthly, the same latitude in receiving Dissenting ministers and congregations, of proved orthodoxy, to partial communion; so that such ministers and the clergy might freely interchange in preaching, and the lay members in receiving the Lord's Supper, without infringing on the custom of either party in the other ordinances of worship.

Such measures, tending to lengthen the cords of the Church of England, and to strengthen her stakes, would go very far to heal our actual divisions. But how can we hope for these changes, in which truth, liberty, and order would alike be honoured, while our priests are coquetting with Rome, and our statesmen are lending their patronage to that foul combination of slavery and falsehood? How can our Church hope for benefit, even from her own convocation, when the prelate who pleads most loudly for the revival of its dormant powers is one who can swallow the camel, by endowing the idolatry of Maynooth, and then squeamishly strains at the gnat of an Evangelical Alliance? Truly in vain may we look for salvation to the hills and mountains, to statesmen or Church rulers. Our only hope must be in the direct outpouring of the Spirit of God, to bring peace out of our divisions, and light out of our confusion and darkness.

But we must return to Mr. McNeile. We fully agree in all

'the main principles he has advanced, and these are the questions on which we diverge from his statements. We would ask, first, -Though Christian unity may and does exist, even where there is no visible church-fellowship; and though, instead of consisting in outward uniformity, it may flourish most where outward diversities are allowed, and may wither and die where these are crushed and forbidden; does it not still require, for its right and healthy exercise, visible acts of fellowship and communion? Secondly, if the Act of Uniformity has been, as Mr. M. believes, "the prolific source of divisions," by the needless barriers it has interposed, and the jealousies that have followed, on both sides, from mutual isolation, ought we not, besides longing for the removal of a barrier most unwisely, and therefore sinfully, imposed, to cultivate meanwhile a brotherly intercourse with orthodox dissenters, and to practise a visible communion, up to the farthest limit which our own personal obligations, and the actual laws of the Church will allow? Thirdly, if every difference of judgment in minor things is fatal to co-operation, must not this objection be conclusive against every other effort, as well as the proposed Alliance? Or, again, if it be affirmed merely that visible union, as well as a secret unity, is essential to all useful co-operation, are not those Christians, who recognise each other sincerely as brethren, bound to seek for this union, and to co-operate so far as their actual measure of union will allow, instead of resting content with a barren and hidden unity, in which both union and co-operation are entirely wanting, and where the world can see nothing but discord and direct collision? These are the practical questions which all true Christians have to answer; and we cannot think that Mr. McNeile, with all the deep truth which this chapter contains, has answered them rightly. We fully agree with him that there is more union among Christians, even now, than worldly eyes can discern; that uniformity is neither desirable nor attainable; that we should seek to open wider the doors of our Church in questions of discipline and mere form; and that some degree of visible union must first be attained, before there can be wide and effective co-operation. But we believe also, that till the existing barriers are lowered and partially removed, we ought to cultivate communion with our brethren up to the very limit those barriers will allow; that visible union is quite distinct from uniformity, and is a plain scriptural duty; that the sin of our divisions belongs to all parts of the Church of Christ, though to some more than others; that individual Christians are bound to do their utmost in removing them, till the whole body of the Church, on one side or another, repent of their sins, and cast them away; that the want of personal intercourse among pious

Christians of different names, while it is the fruit of their separation, tends to aggravate and perpetuate the evil; that if our actual measure of communion be small, this is a strong motive to labour for its increase; and, finally, that although it would be rash and dangerous to attempt wide co-operation, however sincere the mutual love, while the visible union is weak and imperfect, those who can unite at all may co-operate in some measure, and every advance towards fuller union must widen the field of safe and wise co-operation. The passages which Mr. McNeile adduces and explains, pp. 91104, prove clearly that uniformity is not enjoined in the Scriptures. But they do not prove that different bodies of Christians may lawfully continue isolated from each other, and content themselves with labouring in the same vineyard, while they hold no visible intercourse and communion. The inference to which they lead is exactly the reverse. The Jews and Gentiles (Rom. xiv.) were joined in the same church at Rome. The apostle does not say to to them-You may worship separately in two different churches, and need to hold no visible communion with each other. He charges them to live in unity of love in the same church. He does not sanction separation, but enjoins mutual forbearance. The High Churchman may lay the sin of our divisions entirely on the Dissenters, and the rigid Voluntary on the mere existence of an Establishment, while more thoughtful and candid men will share the guilt between harsh imposers and self-willed church-dividers, the Act of Uniformity and the whole race of libellers, from Martin Marprelate down to the Appledore Tracts. But that there is much sin in our actual state, when we take the scriptures for our guide, is perfectly clear; and if Mr. McNeile will be careful to distinguish visible communion from uniformity on the one side, as well as from spiritual unity on the other, his clear and vigorous mind cannot fail, we think, to modify and correct some of his own statements, and the practical conclusions to which they lead.

Before we leave this chapter we must offer one remark on the exposition Mr. M. has given of Matt. xi. 11. "He that is least in the kingdom of heaven," he explains to signify our Lord himself. Surely this interpretation is very forced and unnatural, and cannot sustain a close examination. The phrase cannot be meant to compare the Baptist with our Lord, for this would imply that both were in the kingdom of heaven, and St. John has just been declared to come before it. And when our Lord has really announced himself to be the Messiah, he cannot have meant to describe himself under so inapplicable a phrase, as "least in the kingdom of heaven." On the other hand, the interpretation which Mr. McNeile rejects, and which asserts every Christian to be greater than the Baptist, has

difficulties of an opposite kind. The truth, we apprehend, lies between these extremes. The term, as Mr. M. justly remarks, is comparative, and not superlative. The Gospel of St. Luke supplies a further explanation, in the words "There is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist." Combining these two remarks, we may paraphrase as follows,-" Notwithstanding, he that stands only in the second rank among the divinely-inspired teachers of the Gospel, is greater than he." Not only Paul, and James, and Cephas, and John, but even the least of the apostles, and all the evangelists and prophets of the early Church, stand higher than the Baptist in spiritual dignity and honour.

The three next chapters are on the holiness, the apostolicity, and the security and visibility of the Church. They are full of interest, and will repay the most careful perusal; we regret that we can notice only a few of the various truths which they unfold, and which are most seasonable at the present hour. The source of holiness is traced to "the sovereign energy of the Holy Spirit, who is in" the Christian," and dwells in him, and leads him." The means which the Spirit chiefly employs is the word of God. This is the seed of the new birth (1 Peter i. 23-25), the means of growth (1 Peter ii. 1, 2), the source of guidance and sanctification (Psalm cxix; John xvii. 17; Eph. v. 25-27), the victory over temptation. (Matt. iv.) And it fulfils this office in all its various characters, as a word of blessing, of practical guidance, of warning, and of judgment and reward. The holiness to which it leads is habitually sincere, continually progressive, but imperfect at the best on this side of the grave. "The spirit would be holy, nature cannot. Nature would be unholy, the spirit cannot. The spirit would be like God, nature cannot. Nature would be like Satan, the spirit cannot. A bird of paradise is detained in a cage of fallen humanity. The cage cannot kill the bird, the bird cannot free itself from the cage; neither can it transform the cage into its own likeness. It flutters and falls back. It sighs for liberty, and flutters again. It quiets itself in patience, and sings in hope of deliverance, and thus it shall flutter and sigh, and sing and wait, till the cage is removed." "At the resurrection of the body, and not before, the Church of God, perfected in the holiness of each member, and in the then complete assembly of all the members, shall be presented to the Lord, her Head, a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, but holy and without blemish. As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly."

The remarks on the doctrine of congruity, and the reply to Mr. Ward's invective on the doctrines of grace, in the opening of the

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chapter, are clear and powerful. The histories of the young Ruler, and of Cornelius, are separately examined, and shewn to lend no countenance to the Romish error. In the latter, however, Mr. McNeile has overlooked one chief objection which may be urged against the view he adopts, from the words of Acts xi. 14: "Who shall tell thee words whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved." In another edition it may be well, we think, to supply this defect, but we will not delay our readers with an explanation of our own. The general view of the passage is in our opinion, convincing and decisive.

Still more striking is the exposition of Matt. x. 41, 42, which is in Mr. McNeile's happiest style; free from paradox, and yet original and impressive. Indeed the whole subject of the reward according to works is here unfolded with great force and clearness of Scriptural argument. The remarks on the word of warning are no less striking and impressive. "It liveth and abideth for ever: and oh! how solemn it is, how awfully solemn! how well calculated to silence the superficial chatterings of unconcerned professors, and to harrow up the lower, more personal and selfish feelings of the Christian, who, for the time, has declined from the holy, self-forgetting attraction of the love of Jesus." The close of the chapter is a weighty truth. "The Church of God is holy, not as a corporation, in virtue of its office, and in defiance of the unholiness of its living members; but as a body, consisting of members, each of which discharges its own holy office; not as an aggregate invested with ideal holiness, though composed of unholy items; but as a company of men, women, and children, in each of whom the Holy Spirit of God really dwells, maintaining against all opposition, and gently strengthening under every pressure, faith, hope, and love, these three; and the greatest of these is love."

The following chapter on the Apostolicity of the Church, is equally valuable. It meets directly the popular delusion, connected with that high-sounding phrase, "Apostolic Succession." There is a real value, which we must not despise, in the historical continuity of the Church, and its ministry, from the earliest times. But when the authority of each separate minister is fancied to depend on a traceable and proveable succession, in one unbroken and canonical line, we plunge ourselves into a sea of "endless genealogies," and souls will have perished by ten thousands, before we can settle one half of the historical doubts that will arise. Mr. McNeile keeps close to the words of St. Luke, and the spirit of the New Testament. The true apostolicity, he maintains, consists in "the apostles' doctrine and fellowship;" in oneness of faith and of spirit with them; or, in other words, in

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