developments are therefore strictly human, having nothing of divine sanction or authority, and being matters fairly open to the discussion, the approbation or rejection of the most pious and conscientious. So regarded, we perfectly approve the theory of development, and concur in Mr. Newman's statement, that one cause of the corruption in religion is the refusal to follow the course of doctrine as it moves on, and an obstinacy in the notions of the past," as we see conspicuously in the history of the chosen race." In how great a degree his own conduct is now serving the cause of corruption, we will not inquire; for we have two objects which, before we close this notice of his work, we wish to accomplish, and these will fully occupy the remaining space which we can reasonably occupy. The first is, to apply the rule of Vincentius, that “Christianity is what has been held ALWAYS, EVERY WHERE, AND BY ALL. We think our author's unreasonable fears induced him to say, that "the rule is more serviceable in determining what is not, than what is Christianity." Great difficulty attends the application of a principle which ranges over the religious history of eighteen centuries and asks the opinions of them all. But we think the inquiry may be made so as to elicit the truth, and present a far more sublime and comprehensive idea of the true Catholic Church of Christ than either the Roman Catholic or the Protestant, in their narrow and circumvented attachment, can be willing or even able to admit.

Always, then, every where, and by all, the doctrine of One God, one Supreme Object of worship, has been recognized, has been professed. Mr. Newman's authority on this point is satisfactory. "As God is one, so the impression which He gives us of himself is one; it is not a thing of parts; it is not a system; nor is it any thing imperfect and needing a counterpart. It is the vision of an object. When we pray, we pray not to an assemblage of notions or to a creed, but to One individual Being. This being the case, all our attempts to delineate our impression of Him go to bring out one idea, not two or three or four; not a philosophy, but an individual idea in its separate aspects."

Always, every where, and by all, human responsibility, a moral Providence, a righteous retribution, judgment to come, and judgment continually abroad in the earth, have been the faith of Christians. That faith alone can save, that substitution can make up for the absence of personal exertion, that rites and ceremonies can obviate the evil effects of a wicked life, or that a death-bed repentance can alter the judgment of our earthly course, are tenets that have never more than partially prevailed. The universal Church knows them not, or does not join her unanimous voice in expressing and approving them.

Always, every where, and by all, it has been maintained that sincere attachment to truth and equity are indispensable marks of the Christian character; that what we know to be true, what we believe, we are bound to avow, regardless of consequences, looking only to the final approbation of our God.

As universally has it been taught that we have authentic documents containing an account of our religion as it was inculcated by its divine Author, as it was promulgated and enforced by his apostles; and that these documents are the final appeal in all cases of disputed opinions. Even the greatest sticklers for Tradition and for the authority of Popes

and Councils profess to regard these as entitled to implicit reverence, because they are the most faithful and infallible interpreters of the word of God. But by such an opinion we are not bound, for it lacks the requisite concurrence of the universal Church of Christ.

Always, every where, and by all, Jesus is acknowledged to be the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of Man, the Son of God. He is revered for his works and for his word; he is loved, devoutly loved, for his disinterestedness, his benevolence, his personal sacrifices, and his unconquerable love to mankind. His example is regarded as the perfect model for human conduct, and a faultless exemplification of the principles of piety and morality which he taught.

Always, every where, and by all, an after-life is expected: happiness for the good, righteous punishment for the evil, are anticipated; and a preparation through life for that eternal state is regarded as the paramount duty of the Christian course. In innumerable facts and principles, the result of those already stated, a concurrence as perfect and universal has prevailed, and does prevail, and will prevail, till time and man shall be no more. This, then, is Christianity. Error does not destroy it. Decrees of Popes, decisions of ecumenical Councils, Protestant creeds and disputes, fanatical extravagances or philosophical speculations, do not confound it. It lives in the universal mind, in the universal heart of the universal Church. Paganism on the one hand, and Scepticism on the other, are alone its natural and bitter foes; and in the true spirit of its Master, where it is felt, it yearns to bless them in patient efforts to convert them.

The next object which we wish to illustrate briefly is the application of the principle of a true development. Mr. Newman has more than once or twice alluded to our Lord's conduct as affording instances of developments, and has justly remarked, "Our Lord found his people precisians in their obedience to the letter; he condemned them for not being led on to its spirit, i. e. to its developments."-"The whole Bible is written on the principle of developments. As the revelation proceeds, it is ever new, yet ever old. The same test of development is suggested in our Lord's words on the Mount, Think not that I am come to destroy the law and the prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.' He does not reverse, but perfect, what has gone before." Mr. N. adds this illustration after his own fashion: "Thus with respect to the evangelical view of the rite of sacrifice; first, the rite is enjoined by Moses; next, Samuel says, 'To obey is better than sacrifice; then Hosea, I will have mercy and not sacrifice; Isaiah, Incense is an abomination unto me;' then Malachi, describing the times of the gospel, speaks of the peace-offering' of wheat-flower" (he had spoken before, by the bye, of their offering "polluted bread" and maimed, defective animals); "and our Lord completes the development when he speaks of worshiping 'in spirit and in truth.' If there is any thing yet to explain, it will be found in the usage of the Christian Church immediately afterwards, which shews that sacrifice was not removed, but truth and spirit added." But if sacrifice were brought into honour by the Christian Church, after the repeated declarations of their inutility, of their offensiveness to the Most High, when regarded as a substitute for better things, after the description of acceptable worship by our Lord, and after his prediction of the destruction of the temple and the

altar, on which sacrifice was prescribed to be offered, then the Church reversed the process of development, and introduced a corruption which has no support but in the figurative language of the New Testament incorrectly understood and applied. The plain development of the doctrine of sacrifice is the conversion of the practice of it into the simple exercise of those dispositions of love, gratitude, penitence and humble dependence, which it externally expressed, and the ceasing to use the language except in a figurative sense. A like instance respecting divine honours paid to the second and third persons of the Holy Trinity, is quoted from Butler:-" In what external manner this inward worship is to be expressed, is a matter of pure revealed command; ..... but the worship, the internal worship itself, to the Son and Holy Ghost, is no further matter of pure revealed command than as the relations they stand in to us are matter of pure revelation; for the relations being known, the obligations to such internal worship are obligations of reason, arising out of those relations themselves." This development of worship leads Mr. N. to complete the process in these words:"There is a development of doctrine into worship: in like manner the doctrine of the beatification of the saints has been developed into their cultus; of the EOTÓKOS or Mother of God, into hyperdulia; and of the real presence, into the adoration of the Host." In like manner, indeed, this process has gone on; but it is a process of development only in the same manner in which "the three black crows" are a development of "something as black as a crow." There is " addition" to the words, the sense, the objects, presented in the Scriptures; but, in what is added, there is perversion and manifest corruption of the original idea of the true object of worship exhibited from the beginning to the close of the canons of Jewish rites and Christian duties and privileges.

The real developments which religion, as taught by Christ and his apostles, will experience, and which it is evidently designed should take place in the progress of its vital influence, are first and foremost of a moral nature, carrying out the spirit of the system into the wide range of human obligations. Thus slavery existed in the time of Christ: to hold slaves is not condemned by him nor by his apostles:* Paul advises the called, being a slave, not to care for it: yet Christianity cannot triumph till slavery is abolished; and though no precept enjoins, the spirit of our religion develops itself legitimately, naturally and most convincingly, into an utter abhorrence of slavery as a great curse and crime. War is in almost every case hostile to the spirit of Christianity, and most especially so in all wars professedly undertaken in its behalf: yet it has required ages to bring this iniquitous inconsistency to light, and it is a disgrace to Christendom that principles of political economy. have accomplished more in this respect than the principles of the gospel, though it is a proof that all true science will harmonize in its moral effects with the benign tendency of that wisdom which is from above. The true position and influence of woman, in all the highest and most amiable objects which ought to engross the care of man, has grown out of a development of what is consistent with the station woman holds in fervent attachment to the Founder of our faith; and all that is mer

* Perhaps avdpamodioraîg, 1 Tim. i. 10, is the single exception to the truth of

this statement.

cenary and purely selfish, and at variance with the equal rights of mankind, in her treatment, is fast subsiding under the expanding influence of the spirit of Christ. The value and importance of human life, as Christianity develops in its all-embracing efficacy, will be more and more regarded, till the iniquity of legal capital punishments will press upon the executive, as it is constantly forcing itself upon the consideration of our legislative government; and the anomaly of punishing crimes by depriving the criminal of life, will be substituted by the corrective discipline which tempers judgment with mercy, and then dismisses the penitent so to sin no more.

It is in these and other kindred, noble influences that our divine religion, spite of the maxims, the policy, the scepticism of an unbelieving world, will develop itself, deigning to receive aid from the progress of mind and of all social institutions, which owe much of their advance to its indirect operation. Had not a mystic contemplation of what he calls "the romance of early Church history" misled so learned and so amiable a man, Mr. Newman himself could have ably traced these moral developments, and would not have sought them in the gradual growth of the doctrine of the Trinity, in the triumph of orthodoxy in the adoption of SEOTókos as the name of Mary, the mother of Jesus, in the efficacy of penance, the merits of fasting and celibacy, and the virtues of holy water. The sanctity of relics, the real presence in the Eucharist, the supremacy of one man over the minds and consciences of all other men, the apostolic descent of the clergy and bishops, baptismal regeneration in infancy, and the benefit of extreme unction in death, would in a less secluded and Christian life have been regarded by him as the romance of religion," originating in the superstitions of imagination, and in the perversion of all that is most sacred and affecting and useful; and he would have delighted the thoughtful world with a picture of the developing power of religion to make of all who embraced it, "a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, to shew forth the praises of Him who hath called them out of darkness into marvellous light." (1 Pet. ii. 9.)

In the next place, developments of a strictly intellectual character will perpetually be made to the credit of our religion, in perfect accordance with its original character, and conducive to the better understanding of its doctrines. To this end, the progress of learning, in the just estimate of the value of Manuscript authorities, in the more critical knowledge of the learned languages, in the better understanding of the true principles of interpretation, and, with these advantages, the unfettered exercise of inquiry, free alike from civil restraint and from superstitious terrors, will contribute; and while in their apparent destructive agency a host of errors and follies will be swept away, a true conservative policy will be demonstrated in the result, which will be to preserve intact, to place in clearer light, and to invest with more practical power, all that is Christianity, viz., that which has been received ALWAYS,

EVERY WHERE, AND BY ALL.

In the spread of Christianity to different countries, and in the varying tastes and habits of the people who successively embraced it, developments would take place and have been adopted in forms of worship and in modes of church government. Jews adhered to Jewish rites, even after they became Christian converts. Heathens transferred some

of their rites and festivals to Christian usage. At first, the heart-stirring truths of the gospel were sufficient excitement, with no appliances to interest the assembled believers in the pure worship in which they engaged, assembling in a room, or in the open air, or, in times of persecution, in caverns and secret retreats, for their united service. As the religion spread and became a common blessing, temples were converted into churches, and exciting forms, adding embellishment and attraction of ceremony to order, were introduced into the services. A regular and educated ministry was supported, exclusively set apart to minister in holy things. Singing became an object of great attention. This most natural and inspiriting part of devotion has had the aid of the most consummate skill and science, and the compositions for the Church by foreign masters, and by the school of old English Church-music composers, have in many of their strains surpassing beauty and pathos. Where these accessions became too prominent, where form usurped the place of piety deep and fervent, and the service became almost exclusively a gratification of the taste instead of a moving of the affections and an appeal to the conscience and the understanding, there the means adopted to interest the people were corruptions, and not legitimate developments of the resources of devotion. But much that has been formerly used, might, especially with regard to music, be adopted with great advantage amongst Dissenters, now we have no reason to dread that any refinements in this most pleasing exercise will prove any leaning towards a system that in its accumulated Jewish and Heathenish observances, its proud hierarchy and its profane assumptions, has been the most awful perversion of the pure simplicity of Christian worship, as in its erroneous doctrines it has been the grossest misrepresentation of Christian truth. All that is adopted in the various modes of conducting religious services should be regarded as means to an end. If it preserve order and decorum, favour the exercise of the best affections, tend to enlighten the mind and raise and gratify a pure taste, if it make our services attractive, never forgetting the solemn purpose for which as Christians we assemble together, time and the progress of society furnish us with means which may be laudably adopted to deepen and strengthen the interest in truths and feelings of religion, when familiarity has too commonly the tendency, combined with the influence of mere worldly cares and pleasures, to create an unhappy and withering indifference. We can in our mind's eye behold a service rich in all that is subservient to the highest moral and intellectual purposes, adapted equally to attract, and fill the eager minds of rich and poor in its holy, sublime and solemn and affecting exercises. But prejudices must die; zeal for God's house must revive and glow; and an earnestness now rarely felt must pervade the Christian community, before our visions become realities, and absence from such service shall be bewailed as amongst the greatest calamities of social life. But we must conclude; and in conclusion express our deep regret that a work containing so much profound thought, fraught with so much recondite learning, evincing such sincere piety and earnestness, should be the melancholy advertisement of its author's secession from the Protestant to the Catholic Church; and of his approval of all that is distinctive of the Papal faith and worship, as an illustration of a true development of the Christian religion. H. H. P.