from ambiguity. Mr. McNeile, in passing, has laid his finger on this inconsistency, and points it out in the following words.

"Mr. Faber proceeds to give his own view of what the primitive Christians taught. Who will question his right, or, to speak more properly, his duty, to exercise and express his private judgment on the teaching of antiquity? And who can claim, for the conclusion he comes to, any higher authority than his private judgment? I feel assured that Mr. Faber would be among the last to be guilty of the petitio principii of asserting that any of his brethren, in opposing his view of the teaching of the primitive church, were therefore opposing the voice of antiquity." (p. 47.)

"Now what has the church catholic said upon these words? (Eph. i. 33.) Any thing to prevent our attempting to understand them as we would any other words, in the exercise of the intellectual and moral powers of our common nature, and the spiritual teaching of our common Christianity? If we must wait for an unanimous consent of the Fathers, and not presume to interpret Scripture but in accordance with this consent, we must render this, in common with other portions of the same word, practically useless; and if we interpret in agreement with some Fathers, and in opposition to others, we must exercise our private judgment." -(p. 53).

In the present instance the working of the two opposite principles may be clearly seen. Mr. McNeile asserts the doctrine of personal election to life to be a revealed truth, and Mr. Faber denies it. Mr. McNeile reasons from Scripture, closely and powerfully, in its favour. Mr. F. affirms that such reasonings are mere paralogism, for they can only prove what is Mr. McNeile's own private exposition of Scripture, and can never decide what was the true and primitive doctrine. He therefore appeals to the early Fathers. Mr. M. rejoins, naturally, that this appeal can only prove Mr. F.'s private judgment on the doctrine of the Fathers, and can neither decide what was their uniform doctrine, nor whether this doctrine, when ascertained, is the full truth of Scripture. Mr. F. asserts that they all hold, down to Augustine, an ecclesiastical election to Christian privileges, and the means of grace. Mr. McNeile allows the fact, and also that the doctrine, so held, is Scriptural and true. Mr. F. asserts further, that they all, before Augustine, denied a personal individual election to life. Mr. M. disputes the fact, and maintains that, even if it were true, the reasonings of Augustine, based on the word of God, are more just, accurate, and Scriptural than the opposing view. So that the questions we have to decide are these. First, are direct reasonings on Scripture, to determine the doctrine of Scripture, entirely worth

less? Are they not rather the chief and main element of all sound judgment concerning revealed truth? Secondly, because the early Fathers held an ecclesiastical election, which both writers allow to be a scriptural fact, is it safe to infer that they denied that personal election, which Mr. McNeile asserts to be separately and plainly revealed? Thirdly, if none of the Fathers before Augustine had held this doctrine, would this be sufficient proof that Augustine's reasonings are unsound? In other words, is no truth provable from Scripture, which was not clearly affirmed by the few writers now extant of the three first centuries? On all these points, we believe that Mr. McNeile's remarks are "forcible and conclusive." He has shewn, we think, that Clement, Hermas, and the Epistles ascribed to Ignatius, assert or imply the same doctrine which Augustine maintains, and that, at least, it is far clearer that the doctrine is affirmed in Scripture, than that it is denied and rejected by any of these early Fathers.

But Mr. F. inquires-If Ignatius and Hermas held the doctrine, why did not Augustine quote them, in answer to the challenge of his opponents? Here we have an example how this kind of reasoning, which professes to avoid the dangers of private judgment really multiplies them, and loses itself in the sand. The question relates to a great and momentous doctrine, whether it be, or be not, revealed with sufficient evidence in the word of God. To determine this question, all reasoning from Scripture is first declared to be useless, and a mere paralogism. What is then offered in its stead, to be a surer guide? The private judgment of our valued correspondent, on the fact that Augustine, at a particular moment of his life, had read and remembered three particular passages in Ignatius, Clement, and Hermas, and understood them aright. In other words, it is a private opinion of Mr. Faber, on a private opinion of Augustine concerning the private opinions of Clement, Ignatius, and Hermas. Such a threefold cord, we are persuaded, is far more easily broken, than the clear and simple reasoning of Mr. McNeile from that one verse-"Even so then at this present time also, there is a remnant according to the election of grace."

We by no means slight or despise that evidence of antiquity on which our excellent and venerable friend delights to dwell. Just because we believe, that Scripture may be understood by its own internal evidence, we freely concede the same clearness, though in a lower degree, to the writings of the Fathers. Their positive testimony, from the beginning, in favour of any doctrine, is, and ought to be, of great weight with every serious mind. It can never, it is true, supersede that direct appeal to Scripture on which all solid

faith must repose; but it may remind us how serious, modest, humble, and cautious, that appeal must be, if we hope to be guided by it into the fulness of Divine truth. And though mere negative evidence, that such or such doctrine was not prominently held in early times, is quite worthless to disprove one single scriptural argument, it may possibly teach us an important lesson on the relative proportion which various truths should hold in the public ministry of the word of God. Yet even here there is

a risk of serious error; for the mystery of iniquity began early to obscure the simplicity of the gospel, and truths neglected in one generation may be doubly seasonable and important in some later age.

One further remark, and we have done. It is untrue that Mr. M'Neile, and those who think with him, "gratuitously put their own interpretation on Scripture, and then argue onward from that interpretation, as if it and Scripture were identical." Mr. M'Neile, like every wise Divine, argues to his interpretation, and not from it. He does not assume that his interpretation is true, but offers reasons, from the context and general scope, to prove that it is the real meaning. He believes, as we believe, that St. Paul is ten times plainer, to a simple and teachable mind, than the Shepherd of Hermas. Others may think his reasonings unsound, and his conclusion erroneous; but no one has a right to deny the fact that he does reason, and reason seriously and closely, to prove the truth of his own view. When Mr. Faber can make so groundless an assertion, where the evidence of the contrary fact is perfectly clear, and this too in a work of the present day, we are taught once more how slippery and uncertain must be evidential reasonings on the opinions of writers ages ago, and how slight is the negative testimony of their silence, compared with the evidence which may be gained from a direct and simple appeal to the Urim and Thummin, the holy light and perfect wisdom, of the testimonies of God.

CORRESPONDENCE.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE CHURCHMAN'S MONTHLY REVIEW.

SIR.-Will you allow me the privilege of asking Mr. Faber a question in your pages arising out of his letter inserted in your number for June?

Mr. F. says, "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." The evidence, that is, upon which Mr. F. judges, what is the sense of Scripture, is the patristic interpretation of it; and he maintains just before, that if we say, without such evidence, that Scripture in such and such passages clearly delivers such or such a doctrine, we do not argue, we merely dogmatize," and "produce a mere paralogism."

Now, a little further on, when stating that Augustine was requested to produce passages from previous writers in favour of his doctrine, he tells us," he at length produces quotations from Cyprian, Gregory Nazianzen, and Ambrose; and he avowedly produces them for the purpose of showing, that they understood Scripture, as he then did, though as he had not always done." "But," adds Mr. F. "in truth, as I have fully shown 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 maintained by their authors. This last matter is perfectly clear from various passages which Augustine, and Calvin after him, have not chosen to produce."

But how is this? Where is Mr. Faber's "evidence" that these passages do not mean what Augustine says they do? "The dispute respects the sense of these passages. As to the other "various passages to which Mr. F. refers, who can tell what Augustine's opinion as to their meaning might have been? And as to judging by passages passed over or misinterpreted by your opponent, this is just what those who refer to Scripture as the just and only authoritative expositor of itself, that is of its "sense," do. We want then a "purely evidential" Treatise of " the sense of the Fathers. Alas! where shall we find it?

Yours,

Y. Z.

THE

CHURCHMAN'S MONTHLY REVIEW

AND CHRONICLE.

AUGUST, 1846.

THE CHRONOLOGY OF OUR SAVIOUR'S LIFE. By the Rev. C. BENSON.

1819.

HAND-BOOK OF CHRONOLOGY. By Dr. Ludwig Ideler.

Berlin. 1825.

FASTI HELLENICI.

Oxford. 1834.

Vol. I. By H. F. CLINTON, Esq.

THE CHRONOLOGY OF ISRAEL, &c. By W. CUNINGHAME, Esq. Glasgow. 1835.

THE FULNESS OF THE TIMES. By W. CUNINGHAME, Esq. London. 1836.

SUPPLEMENTARY DISSERTATION. By W. CUNINGHAME, Esq. London. 1836.

THE SEASON OF THE END. By W. CUNINGHAME, Esq.

London. 1841.

CHART OF SACRED CHRONOLOGY. By W. CUNINGHAME, Esq. 1845.

SYNOPSIS OF CHRONOLOGY. By W. CUNINGHAME, Esq. 1845.

THE TRUE AGE OF THE WORLD. By Professor WALLACE. Smith and Elder. 1844.

DISSERTATIONS ON THE HARMONY OF THE GOSPELS. By the Rev. E. GRESWELL. Second Edition, 4 Vols. Oxford. 1837.