which, these gentlemen are the redoubled and able champions. But the sketch of M. Michelet from the domestic history of France, struck us so forcibly that we could not refrain from giving its pendant from the domestic history of England. We have related" owre true a tale," we can only say in conclusion, “look on this picture and on that." CORRESPONDENCE. TO THE EDITOR OF THE CHURCHMAN'S MONTHLY REVIEW. SIR,-For a person in his 73d year, it is rather too late to enter into the field of regular controversy, particularly when the subject in hand has been pretty well exhausted. Yet, as an act of justice to "a grave and reverend senior," whether " potent" or not; you will perhaps have the goodness to insert this small notice in the Churchman's Monthly Review. You state, that Mr. Mac-Neile's confutation of my Treatise on the Primitive Doctrine of Election is complete. I have not read that gentleman's work: nor did I know, till I saw it in your last number (that for May), that he had taken me in hand. But, so far as I can judge from your account of his argument, it rests altogether upon his own exposition of Scripture, which he assumes to be the true exposition. This argument, you say, " is clear, forcible, and conclusive." I have carefully studied Scripture as well as Mr. Mac-Neile: but, I own, I do not perceive, how either my interpretation of Scripture, or Mr. Mac-Neile's interpretation of Scripture, can afford any legitimate proof, that either my view or his view is correct. In arguing thus, we should severally, in each case alike, produce a mere paralogism. We, both of us, hold Scripture to be the sole binding Rule of Faith: but, if either of us maintains, that his own interpretation of Scripture MUST inevitably exhibit the true sense of Scripture, we do not argue; we merely dogmatize. In other words, the question between us respects, not the authority, but the meaning, of Scripture and, how Mr. Mac-Neile's argument, from his own gratuitous interpretation of Scripture, can be so "clear and forcible and conclusive," as to bring out "a complete refutation" of my strictly evidential Treatise, I must confess I do not understand. When the dispute respects, not Scripture, but the sense of Scripture, it can never be settled by a stiff maintenance on either side, that this interpretation or that interpretation MUST be the true one. Such a dispute, in the very nature of things, can only be settled by a preponderation of evidence: and, accordingly, the whole of my Treatise is purely evidential. I know not, whether Mr. Mac-Neile attempts to produce any evidence for the purpose of substantiating his own private view of Scripture which private view, and NOT Scripture itself, as I gather from your statement, forms the groundwork of his argument. You yourself remark (but, whether or not from Mr. MacNeile, does not appear), that " several of the Fathers, as Ignatius, "Hermas, Jerome, and Augustine, speak also of another election "of persons chosen to eternal life." That Augustine does this, at the beginning of the fifth century, we all know but I find nothing of the sort in either Ignatius or Hermas or Jerome; and, even if Jerome maintained any such doctrine, he would be far too late to be of the least evidential value. Prior to the time of Augustine, the only election which I can discover to have been known to the Church, was an Election into the pale of Christ's Vineyard in order to the attainment of eternal life. If Mr. Mac-Neile produces any documentary evidence to substantiate his own view, as being the actual view taken by the Church through the whole period between the Apostolic Age and Augustine, I can only say, that it has inadvertently escaped my own diligent and strictly honest research. When Augustine first brought forward his own interpretation of Scripture, which corresponds (I suppose) with that of Mr. MacNeile, he was forthwith charged with introducing a doctrine which had never been heard of before: and, at the same time, he was respectfully desired to produce any single ecclesiastical writer, who previously to himself, had ever put such a sense upon Scripture. After a succession of Ambages which (as I duly read them) seemed to be well nigh interminable, he at length produces quotations from Cyprian, Gregory-Nazianzen, and Ambrose: and he avowedly produces them for the purpose of shewing, that they understood Scripture, as he THEN did, though as he had not ALWAYS done. Now, even if his quotations had really been to the effect which he would have us believe them to be; still they would be far too late to possess any evidential value, unless supported by more ancient concurring testimony: for Cyprian, the oldest of the three, flourished no earlier than the middle of the third century. But, in truth, as I have fully shewn in my work, the quotations are all, either quite wide of the mark, or else unfairly adduced as exhibiting sentiments the very reverse of those really entertained by their authors. This last matter is perfectly clear from various passages, which Augustine, and Calvin after him, have not chosen to produce. You speak of Ignatius and Hermas. Yet Augustine, like myself (who have carefully read the whole of their remains, and perhaps more than what are really their remains), evidently considered their loose language, as either nihil ad rem, or else adverse to him: for, otherwise, he would surely have cited such very ancient witnesses. And further: though many early writings, which have now perished, were extant in the days of Augustine; nevertheless, with the whole Materia Theologica before him, he does not even so much as attempt to produce any witnesses, save one in the middle of the third century and two in the latter part of the fourth century. Can either you or Mr. Mac-Neile account for this ominous silence, when the good Father had received a determined, though courteous, challenge and can you explain the singular historical fact, that Augustine's doctrine, if founded upon the true sense of Scripture as delivered by the Apostles, should yet have never been taught by the regular Catechists, and should never so much as once have been heard of, until the beginning of the fifth century ? If I may venture to speak of myself, I am as free from prejudice, I believe, as most people. In fact, all my early prejudices, should I ever have had any, were in favour of Calvinism: for some of the most excellent and valued men that I ever knew, were doctrinal Calvinists; while the "high-and-dry Party" in Oxford, as they have been amusingly, though very correctly, designated, most certainly, from their bigoted opposition to all that was good, and their miserable spirit of persecution (so far as persecution was in their power), possessed but a very scanty share of either my respect or my affection. Yet, even then, before I had sifted the subject of Election as I have since done, my Calvinistic friends, though their eminently christian life and conversation did honour to their opinions, always, as I remember, fell into the very paralogism, which seems to characterize the Treatise of that truly good man Mr. MacNeile. They gratuitously put their own interpretation upon Scripture and, then, argued onward from their own interpretation, just as if it and Scripture were identical. Grant their interpretation to be correct: and, by a much better development than Mr. Newman ever devised, the whole system, no doubt, will regularly follow; follow, if the argument be fairly carried out, even to the highest form of Supralapsarianism. But here was the hitch. I had no proof, beyond their own assertion, that their interpretation was correct. The vital doctrine of Justification through Faith and on account of the sole Merits of Christ, though, either ignorantly or dishonestly, Mr. Newman and Mr. Ward give the illustrious Luther the credit of being its inventor, is written, as with a sunbeam, on the Documents of the Church through the first eleven centuries and most remarkable it is (may we not rather say, providential?), that the first and the last on the long list of patristic witnesses, Clement of Rome and Bernard of Clairvaux, are especially clear and definite and specific. Now, if the Augustinian Scheme of Election be equally the mind of Scripture: why have we no traces of it before the fifth century; and why is it impossible to produce a chain of concurring witnesses from the first century down to the twelfth? My old and valued friend the Bishop of Calcutta has nobly come to the rescue in the matter of Justification. But here he had stable ground: while the vagaries of Tractarianism and Popery go not further back than the latter half of the twelfth century, notwithstanding the Tridentine boast, SEMPER hæc Fides in Ecclesia Dei fuit. Were the speculations of the undoubtedly great Augustine equally well supported by Historical Testimony, I would most conscientiously have become and avowed myself a Doctrinal Calvinist. Sherburn-House, G. S. FABER. THE CHURCHMAN'S MONTHLY REVIEW AND CHRONICLE. JULY, 1846. THE EDUCATION OF THE POOR IN ENGLAND AND EUROPE. By JOSEPH KAY, B.A. London: Hatchard. 1846. THERE is a tendency in the body politic as well as human, after unusual excitement upon any point of pressing importance, to relapse into a somewhat proportionate degree of supineness. In the great struggle of parties, both the intoxication of triumph on the one side, and the depression of defeat on the other, are most commonly followed by the same practical indifference about the matter at issue-the one from regarding further exertion as needless; the other from thinking it to be hopeless. The political history of our country within our own memory has furnished some striking proofs of this: and that question of questions-the education of the poor on a large and national scale, is, we greatly fear, likely to supply an additional one. The almost universal admission which is now made, that education ought to be the patrimony of every individual born within the realm, is indeed a satisfactory proof of the progress which the question has already made. But that a vast amount of culpable neglect or delusive apathy may comport with such an admission, is a mournful truth applicable not only to this, but to all means and measures for advancing the moral and spiritual interests of mankind. Or else, what is still more painful to witness, while this fundamental principle is fully admitted, subordinate matters of theory or belief are nevertheless |