This done, every thing else would follow in due time, and the promise be fulfilled, "The meek will he guide in judgment, and the meek will he teach his way." And here the word of God must have far greater power than all the volumes of the Fathers. "What is the chaff to the wheat, saith the Lord? Is not my word a fire, saith the Lord, and a hammer to break the rock in pieces ?" Lastly, when conviction is hopeless, and our sole aim is to silence gainsayers, we must use all the evidence that exists, and place it in its strongest light, but be careful not to exalt any beyond its due importance. We must show the direct proofs of the doctrine in Scripture, and confirm them by the fact of its general reception by those who lived nearer the time of the Apostles, and had the earliest access to the New Testament. We may thus leave those without excuse, who dare to cast it aside, without a most serious, cautious, humble, and prayerful inquiry. Where such a consent plainly exists, we should omit one powerful means of impression, were we to exclude it from our appeal. But if we urge this alone, and neglect all the direct evidence of the word of God, we are guilty of a far more dangerous and fatal omission. This consent of the early Church just fulfils the part of the cypher in numeration. When proofs from Scripture go before, it may add greatly to their practical force on the minds of men; when used to supersede those proofs, it is utterly vain and worthless.

We do not, then, refuse the testimony of antiquity in its own place. We only restrain and limit this appeal by two conditions, without which it may soon become worse than useless. First, it must be employed only to fortify and confirm direct Scriptural evidence, and never to displace or exclude it. And secondly, it must be of a positive, and not of a negative kind. It can only confirm the probable truth of a doctrine by its general reception in early times; but it can never prove its falsehood, because it has been passed over in silence. The reason of this maxim is plain. A doctrine could scarcely be received by all early writers, on the faith of Scripture, unless the Scriptures had really taught it. But there may be a thousand truths, less evident or vital, contained in the same Scriptures, which few Christians, or none, might recognize in those first ages. The fountain of truth, in the Word of God, is always the same. The actual apprehension of it, like the river from the sanctuary, may go on enlarging perpetually from age to age. Mr. Faber, we think, has transgressed both of these rules, and Mr. M'Neile, on the contrary, has faithfully observed them.

4. Beside the difficulty we have now removed, Mr. Faber thinks us guilty of a non sequitur; as if we had reasoned, that on this

point there is no ambiguity in Scripture; therefore Mr. M'Neile's view must be right, and Mr. Faber's must be wrong.

Here again, the logical confusion, we submit, is entirely on the side of our venerable friend. We have said nothing that could give a just ground for his charge. How then has it arisen? Merely from the fact that Mr. Faber sees no medium between self-evidence, and total, helpless ambiguity. We never pretended that the doctrine, held by Mr. M'Neile, was so plainly the doctrine of Scripture that no honest mind could doubt its truth. We are sure of the contrary, that many sincere and pious men do more than doubt, and positively disbelieve it. But neither can we admit that Scripture is so vague in its statements, as that no valid arguments, on either side, can be based upon them. Mr. Faber, because good and honest men differ about a doctrine of Scripture, would infer that all Scriptural reasonings upon it are worthless. In our opinion this is just the case in which they are of the highest value. Where truths are self-evident, argument is needless; and where nothing has been revealed, it is hopeless. But where much has certainly been revealed, and still its meaning is not selfevident to all honest minds, there reasoning, like that of Mr. M'Neile, has its right place. To express our judgment that his argument was forcible and conclusive, was our evident right, and with our convictions, a plain duty. We claimed no infallible wisdom, and never dreamt of settling, by one stroke of our pen, a question which has vexed the Church of Christ for long ages. But we dreamt as little that either friend or enemy could interpret the remark into such a foolish syllogism as,-Scripture is self-evident, and therefore Mr. M'Neile must be right and Mr. Faber wrong. Our real view was sufficiently plain from our words, and may be stated as follows. "Scripture is here not self-evident, or else argument would be superfluous. Neither is it utterly and hopelessly ambiguous; or else neither early fathers nor later divines, neither Mr. Faber nor Mr. M'Neile, could ever arrive at more than a baseless and utterly uncertain opinion. Its true meaning needs care to ascertain it, but still it may be ascertained. Mr. M'Neile has therefore done well to use Scriptural arguments, and Mr. Faber has done ill to set them aside. The former has also, in our own opinion, reasoned well, and come to just conclusions. We do not repeat his reasonings, nor expect our Arminian brethren to agree at once in our verdict. We merely refer those who have doubts, and desire to have them relieved, or who reject the doctrine, and wish to see what reasons may be urged in its favour, to the work itself, which is well worthy of their serious and attentive perusal." This, we submit, is perfectly clear, and logically consistent. But to say, as

Mr. Faber says here, that because Calvinists and Arminians differ on the sense of Scripture, we must leave the text, and decide by the fathers, is really to revive the error he had just exploded, that the Scriptures are helplessly ambiguous, and the Fathers, in comparison, free from all ambiguity.

5. This brings us to a fifth topic. For Mr. M'Neile had entered on this very ground of antiquity, as our correspondent might infer from our short paragraph, and claims from him at one stroke his three earliest witnesses, Clemens, Ignatius, and Hermas. Clemens ascribes the non-imputation of sin to those, and by natural implication, to those only, who are " elected of God through Jesus Christ." Ignatius describes the Church, as "always predestinated before the world," not simply to ecclesiastical privileges, but "to glory." Hermas says that "the elect of God shall be pure and immaculate unto eternal life." For brevity, we refer to Mr. M.'s work, and to his letter in our last number.

Here also we think Mr. M'Neile clearly in the right. He does not "gratuitously ascribe his own sense to the word election in these passages; but urges the plain fact, that they assert an election, not to ecclesiastical privileges, but to eternal life itself, and to glory. He admits fully, with Mr. Faber, an ecclesiastical election to privileges. He also receives, what Mr. Faber denies, a personal election to glory. To which of these, he asks, do these passages expressly refer? The answer is plain. They speak of an election to eternal life and glory, the very doctrine which Mr. Faber would disprove by the silence of the fathers.

Again, Augustine has quoted passages from Cyprian, Gregory, and Ambrose, in testimony of the same doctrine. Mr. Faber says that they are quoted unfairly, and that their real sentiments are the reverse, as appears from other passages, which Augustine and Calvin have not quoted. But Y. Z. inquires very naturally— Where is Mr. F.'s evidence that these texts do not mean what Augustine says they do? Who can tell what Augustine might have thought on the other texts, and whether he might not suppose the texts he does quote enough to prove that the others have a sense the exact reverse of what Mr. Faber assigns to them? Why, in short, if reasoning on Scripture is worthless, because Calvinists and Arminians differ, is Mr. Faber's ipse dixit, or even his reasoning, on the fathers, to be heard, when Augustine and Calvin take just an opposite view of their meaning? We have not the passages before us, and therefore will not pretend to say that Mr. Faber, on this point, may not have formed a juster opinion. But when we have toiled through the inquiry whether Mr. Faber or Augustine is the best interpreter of Cyprian and Ambrose, we are

still nearly as far as ever from a strictly evidential conclusion, whether Mr. Faber, Cyprian and Ambrose, or Mr. M‘Neile, Augustine, Ignatius and Hermas, are the better expositors of the doctrine of St. Paul.

6. And now we hasten to the last subject, the negative argument from authors whom Augustine, when challenged, did not allege. We said before that Mr. Faber had almost practised a reductio ad absurdum on his own evidential principle; and replaced the direct teaching of Scripture on a grand, solemn, and mysterious truth, by his own private opinion, on the private opinion of Augustine, concerning the private opinion of Ignatius and Hermas. Since, however, our honoured friend does not understand the remark, we will explain our meaning more fully, and thus terminate the whole discussion.

Where a doctrine of Scripture is to be determined, our first duty is to consult Scripture itself, and to submit to what is expressly "contained therein," or, in the absence of an explicit statement, what "may be proved thereby." Whatever does not come under this description, is neither essential to salvation, nor even to revealed truth. This direct evidence of Scripture, in most fundamental doctrines, and sometimes in those of lesser moment, may be further strengthened by the fact of their general reception in the first and purest days of the Church. We may lawfully and profitably, therefore, reason on the conclusions to be drawn from Scripture, where its sense has been disputed; and lawfully, though less profitably, on the meaning of the Fathers, where their sentiments have also been made subjects of dispute. The latter evidence, however, is always quite subsidiary, and unless their general consent be nearly self-apparent, since after all it is only the opinion of so many pious, but fallible men, it will be nearly worthless in helping us to a true decision.

Mr. Faber's main fault is, that he would supersede direct reasoning on Scripture, where honest minds differ, because each party can only prove what is his own opinion of Scripture, and not what is its true meaning. He does not see that this admission would really tend to what he most abhors, universal scepticism; for the same principle will set aside all appeal to antiquity also. His first step, in applying his maxim, was to declare Mr. M'Neile's scriptural arguments, before he had seen them, and therefore, because they were scriptural arguments only, to be gratuitous assumptions and mere paralogism. His next step was to transfer the issue on the sense of Scripture, from Scripture itself to the evidence of antiquity. Here again, Mr. M'Neile claims his three earliest, and we may infer from his own principles, his three best witnesses. Augustine,

also, claims certain passages in Cyprian, Ambrose, and Gregory. Mr. Faber opposes to Augustine his own private opinion, that other texts in those fathers disprove the construction Augustine has put on their words. But how does he meet Mr. M'Neile's and Milner's claim to Ignatius, Clement, and Hermas? Does he reason directly on the passages themselves, that glory and eternal life, can really mean only ecclesiastical privileges? No, again he leaves the direct evidence for the most circuitous and indirect. Augustine, he says, was challenged to produce earlier authorities in favour of his own doctrine. He quoted Cyprian, Ambrose, and Gregory, but did not cite these earlier writers. He must have read them, and as the earliest, they would be his best authorities. Since he did not quote them, he must have thought them nothing to the purpose. Therefore they are nothing to the purpose, and M'Neile and Milner have alleged them in vain.

The argument, then, is this. Mr. Faber thinks that Augustine must have read these passages, and supposes that they were present to his memory. He presumes that Augustine would not omit such early writers, since he remembered them, if they were really to the purpose. He infers that they do not support Augustine's view, and hence that Clement, Ignatius and Hermas, reject the doctrine for which Mr. M'Neile alleges them. Therefore the chain of consent is now complete, by the insertion of their names, and the doctrine of personal election must be an unscriptural novelty of Augustine himself.

Now what is this argument, when briefly defined? Mr. Faber has formed a private opinion, first on the reading, and then on the memory, and finally on the judgment of Augustine. Augustine himself has formed a private opinion on the true meaning of Ignatius and Hermas. These again, have formed their private opinion on the doctrine of election, contrary to the seeming tenor of their own words. Through these steps we climb to our final conclusion. Reasonings, however close and exact, on the words of inspiration, are to be worthless in fixing our decision. But then Mr. Faber has a private opinion, on what grounds we do not know, that Augustine must have remembered these passages in Clement, Ignatius and Hermas; and that his opinion must have been that their opinions were opposite to his own, and unscriptural. This proves that their opinions were opposite to Augustine's. When we combine these opinions, thus determined, with the opinions of Cyprian, Ambrose, and Gregory, as determined by the opinion of Mr. Faber himself, in direct opposition to Augustine's, we have gained a Catholic consent, which proves that the doctrine of personal election is unscriptural and untrue.

Such is