hot or cold. They look like the offspring of a union between inconsiderate haste and the latitudinarian hankering after conversions made by compromise. They limit their confidence like the sagacious Bottom. "Masters, I am to discourse wonders; but ask me not what; for if I tell you, I am no true Athenian." The Elizabethan pacificators were of that sort who turn a country into a wilderness, and then boast that peace has been happily restored. Their Es. tablished Church was not a religion, but a machinery for enabling men to dispense with religion in their daily lives; and every attempt to graft religious feeling upon its sapless stock has ended in discord. Having no efficient discipline, no central authority, no energetic corporate action, not audible dogmatic voice, and no intelligible symbols of faith, and receiving its hierarchy from the state with abject submissiveness, it has never got so far as to attempt to fulfil any of the functions of the church. Its usual condition has been that of a bundle of differences held together by some fleeting economy or the presence of the state. Scarcely had it settled down into any thing like an organized polity, when the Puritan schism became formidably apparent; and by the accidental bias of political association, the Churchman and the Puritan became the champions respectively of prerogative and of libery. The church rallied round the monarchy, because the favor of the crown was the breath of its nostrils; and persecution made the Puritans ripe for rebellion, and therefore ready to fight for the cause of liberty in any shape. The men who began the Great Rebellion were politicians, not religious enthusiasts; but they gained the day by enlisting on their side that religious enthusiasm which afterward declared that "the Lord had no need" of the Rump Par liament. When the intolerable government of the saints had made inevitable the restoration of Charles, the Established Church came back with the crown almost as naturally as the court of chancery and the privy council. Nothing could be more in keeping than that the ecclesiastical loyalty which had blossomed into the divine right of kings under the earlier Stuarts, should bear its fruit in passive obedience after the restoration. This much had been claimed by Henry VIII. in that edifying manual, "The Pious and Godly Institution of a Christian Man; and it now became the touchstone of Anglican orthodoxy, almost to the exclusion of dogmatic considerations. It is true that Archbishop Laud had long before begun what he meant to be a theological reaction; but in his scheme the position of an altar or the use of a vestment counted for more than the gravest doctrinal questions, and he did not scruple to act cordially with men whose theological views differed very widely from his own. Whatever claim the Established Church may seem to have made to doctrinal infallibility or to magisterial decision, we think that it will be found on closer inspection to resolve itself into this, that every preacher was allowed to propound his own crotchets as infallibly true, provided only that his fidelity to the great dogma of passive obedience was beyond suspicion. Yet the prominence of this one proposition, and the vehemence of the clergy in preaching it, gave a certain aspect of unity to the church, and somewhat resembled the energy with which divine truth should be taught. The establishment has grown up into a great and conspicuous edifice, imposing from its ma jestic appearance and the apparent solidity of its foundation, and endeared to many by the recollection of sufferings endured in a cause with which it seemed to be inseparably bound up. Her ministers "agreed in essentials;" that is to say, in the fundamental rules of morality and passive obedience. It was the very strength of the church's position which made the violence of James II. so disastrous to her influence. The clergy found themselves before the horns of a fatal dilemma, when they were compelled to choose between their church and their king. The people, long used to hear that passive obedience was the first duty of a Christian, saw with a sceptical shock the defection of the clergy from their most sacred tenet. The non-jurors set up a fresh schism, and the shattered establishment could offer no effectual resistance to the phlegmatic William and his latitudinarian primate. By the revolution the Anglican was finally and for ever cut off from all appeal to the living authority of the church; and it is well worthy of note that when the high Anglicans of this century, after the tractarian movement had set in, began to appeal to authority, they could find no living authority whither to carry their appeal, and were forced to set up the dead authority of books and records. At the close of the seventeenth century, there would seem to have been a good opportunity for anticipating by a hundred and fifty years the tractarian revival; and perhaps we may regard the career of the non-jurors as a proof that Sancroft and his brethren were utterly removed from every breath of the Catholic spirit. Cut off at that time from all appeal to authority, yet forc ed to lay down some ground of belief, it remained for the establishment to choose between reason and the witness of the Spirit, or the purer light manifesting itself to the separate conscience of the individual. This latter had been the basis of independency, and of those still darker sects which sprang from independency during the commonwealth. It had appeared that this guidance might be made to lead anywhere, except in any direction that a sane man would choose, and therefore it remained to put reason on-its trial. Thenceforth the appeal of the Anglican was addressed to the reason of his hearers, and the reasonable was the basis of argument between parties. Different men believed different things; but each admitted that his creed must stand or fall according as it should or should not approve itself to reason. That knowledge of God and of his will which could be discovered by unaided reason was styled natural religion; and this was the whole of religion, according to the deists. According to the orthodox, natural religion was an outline, true as far as it went, the details of which were to be filled in by revelation. It was an obvious consequence of this view, that such parts of Christianity as could not easily be foisted in upon natural religion, came to be rejected as popish corruptions; and thus the distinction. between the orthodox and the deist became at last very shallow. Bishop Butler, a man of fervid piety and with a natural bias toward asceticism, whose disposition made him an exception in many ways to the common tendency of the age in which he lived, complains that religion had in his day become too reasonable to have any con. nection with the heart and the affections. The least deviation in any direction from the surrounding deadlevel was looked upon with suspicion; and Butler's Durham Charge caused him to be accused of "squinting" toward the superstition of popery. After his death, it was said by many that he had died a Catholic; and Secker came forward with indignant zeal to defend his memory from the "calumny." The depressing results of this pre vailing tone are well shown by its effect on the religious views of such men as Sydney Smith. A touch of fanaticism has great claims upon our respect, when it is seen in contrast to the heathenism which regards a good education and gentlemanlike manners as the most necessary qualifications for the spiritual guide. Those evangelicals, the "patent Christians" of Sydney Smith, were the representatives inside the Church of England of the feelings and aspirations which animated the Methodists outside; and if the church had been the same in the days of Wesley that it was in the days of Wilberforce, there would have been no separation. We remarked that the close of the seventeenth century seems to have presented a good opportunity for anticipating the tractarian movement; but the times were not ripe for it, and the attempt was not made. Wesley did attempt to anticipate the evangelical movement; but the times were again not ripe, and the attempt ended in extensive schism. The evangelicals were the true forerunners of the tractarians; and perhaps the Methodists had opened the way to both. And as the Church of England first drove out the Methodists, but acquired by the process a certain capacity to endure Methodism, so, perhaps, she drove out the Tractarians, and acquired thereby a certain leaven which enables her now to endure with comparative equanimity the presence in her bosom of men who profess Catholic doctrine. The church had no fixed spirit; she was put in motion by the clamors of unstable popular opinion; and popular opinion is liable to be modified by the views with which it is brought into contact, even when it attacks them most fiercely. Yet we think we see signs that a time is coming when the comprehensive shelter of the establishment will no longer be open to all who choose to stand under it. During this century three great movements have at different times made inroads upon the dead-level bequeathed by a former age. The evangelical movement has had its day, and its force is now spent ; it no longer does active work, but only serves as a protest and drag. The tractarian movement has passed into a second phase; but it is still so far vigorous that it makes progress; that is, it increases continually the number of exoteric members who hang upon its skirts, while the esoteric members become more and more thorough-going in their assertion of Catholic doctrine and practice. The third and last movement is the critical, which is an attempt imported from Germany, and in England supported with great ingenuity and learning, to set up a criterion of religious truth and error apart from the reception of the Catholic scheme. For a long time there was room enough for all these parties to exist together; and if they quarrelled, it was rather because they had a taste for quarrelling than because they were brought into collision. But now there is no longer room for them, and collision is imminent. We may expect soon to see the battle fought out between them; nor would it have been delayed so long had there been any ground solid enough for pitting one against another. The English ecclesiastical law is so vague that men hardly dare to invoke it, even when they hope to find it on their side; for it is impossible to predict its course with certainty, when once it is set moving. But recent decisions have tended more and more to bring out this much, that an exact compliance with the present law, so far as it can be fixed, would be equally distasteful both to the evangelicals and to the tractarians. It is, in fact, a compromise constructed with unusual clumsiness, which is now for the first time being exposed to a searching examination; and it is likely to meet with the just fate of compromises, by being found equally hateful to both of the parties whom it was meant to reconcile. The critical school, who greatly outweigh the two others in learning and ability, are more evidently outside the letter of the present law, though its machinery is too clumsy to be used against them with any great effect. But the matter will not long be left in the hands of the present law; and it is hard to foretell the legislation of the future. Nobody, we think, can now doubt that a few years will see some great change, either of secularization, or at least of redistribution, in the ecclesiastical revenues. A large section of the tractarian party now cries out for disestablishment, as the only way open to them by which they may keep the Catholic faith. When the catastrophe to which we are looking forward does come, no doubt there will be some splitting up of parties. Some, we hope many, of the tractarians will be received into the Catholic Church; and then it will be seen whether the remainder will be able to set up a free church, according to their darling scheme. Many of the evangelicals will doubtless join the various dissenting bodies; and some, perhaps, will coalesce with the liberals, (whom we called the critical school,) and it is possible that these latter may be left for a little while in possession of the whole of the temporalities of the church. This, however, we do not think likely; it is probable that disestablishment will be itself the occasion of a general dissolution. But the liberals have this great advantage on their side, that they are under no temptation whatever to split up. The agreement which holds them together is an agreement to differ; and their bond of union is a protest against all persons who consider dogmatic opinions of any kind to be a sufficient ground for breaking communion. Upon this understanding they are ready to shake hands with the whole world. And the opinions which are held by the esoteric members of the party (for some of them have opinions) are always embraced subject to the admission that they may possibly be false. They find truth everywhere, and close resemblances between things which are totally different. A bigot, according to the old joke, is a person who says that he is in the right, and that every body who differs from him is in the wrong; but a liberal is afraid to say that he is in the right, lest he should be obliged to say that somebody else is not. They avoid mistakes by saying as little as possible, and by using the vaguest terms they can find; and, above all, by cheerfully admitting that there is always a great deal to be said on both sides. As certain of their own poets have said, "Methinks I see them Through everlasting limbos of void time But it is only fair to say that here they are seen in their weakness, not in their strength. This vague and undecided habit of mind is the result. of the circumstances in which they had their beginning. The spectacle of a great number of sects, each in practice arrogating to itself infallibility while they teach incompatible doctrines, produces different effects upon different minds. Its natural effect upon the shallow, who are just deep enough to find out that other sects exist beside the one in which they were brought up, is to breed scepticism. They know that two contra dictory propositions cannot both be true, and they think that the one is as well supported by evidence as the other; and out of these premises, by the help of bad logic, they draw the conclusion that both must be false. But sounder intellects set about investigating more closely the criterion of truth and falsehood; and to such we owe the critical theory, which is not only ingenious, but even true so far as it goes. Something of the indecision of men who have seen so much of error that they now hardly believe in the existence of truth, clings to these critics; and this makes their proceeding seem to be sceptical when it is not really so. Their theory may be briefly summed up as follows: "Interpret the Scripture," says one,"like any other book." This in his mouth was a brief way of bidding us measure religious truth by the same tests, while we seek it by the same methods, as other truth. It is well known that the labor of successive generations of scholars, following the same main rules of criticism, has made a great approach to uniformity in the interpretation of profane authors; and nobody doubts that the common consent of the critics, if it could be obtained, would be the best possible evidence to the unlearned of the true meaning of an obscure passage. It is inferred that the same critical methods may be applied to the Bible, and that the same approach to uniformity of interpretation may thus be secured. Professor Jowett, Essays and Reviews, ninth ed. p. 377. This essay contains several jokes, which to us seem rather out of place. "Even the Greek Pla to," says the professor, (p. 390,)" would have coldly furnished forth the words of eternal life."" The reader will remember the words of Shakespeare, "The funeral baked meats Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables," This is a plausible theory; and it is sound so far as it goes. But it completely ignores the Catholic theory of the interpretation of Scripture. Its authors evidently suppose, for example, that if a text quoted by the Council of Trent in support of a doctrine could be critically proved irrelevant to the purpose, then the doctrine would be seriously shaken in the minds of Catholics. But this opinion rests on a profound misapprehension of the Catholic view. We accept the doctrine on the authority of the council, as the voice of the church, without criticising the source from which the words are drawn; and although the church in her decisions is guided by her unalterable tradition, yet it is a possible case that she might be quite assured of the fact of the tradition, and yet (to speak reverently) erroneously quote a document in evidence. A Catholic would be very cautious about attributing critical errors of this kind to a general council; but no theologian will deny that such a thing might happen. The function of the church in interpreting Scripture is by no means limited to ascertaining what the words written represented to the mind of the writer; the question is much wider than this, including all that was intended by God to be conveyed or suggested by the written words to the church at large. It does not follow that, because a given meaning is the only sense which the words could ap propriately bear at the time when they were written, therefore no other additional sense was intended to be conveyed at some future time. In proportion as we exalt the degree in which a passage or a book is supposed to be inspired, so much the more meaning (as is shown by the preceding words, Thrift, probable does it become that its thrift, Horatio!) that the marriage had followed so close upon the funeral that the pasties which had been hot at the one came up cold at the other. words will bear more than one meaning. In the higher sense of the word The new turn given by Mr. Jowett to his original inspiration, the human agent becomes has, we admit, a very humorous effect; but we cannot help thinking that he has been unseasonably witty. a mere instrument to convey a mes |