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The Paraphrastica Expositio takes the articles singulatim, giving the judgment of the author upon each, and further illustrating several of them by divers "problems." Of the

Thirty-nine Articles, Sancta Clara adjudges eighteen to be Catholic throughout, viz., the first five, the 7th, 8th, 10th, 16th, 17th, 18th, 23rd, 26th, 27th, 33rd, 34th, 38th and 39th. Of the remainder, nine are adjudged partly to be Catholic, and in the doubtful part capable of explanation, viz., the 6th, 9th, 14th, 19th, 20th, 21st, 25th, 28th, 37th; two, the 11th and 12th, are regarded as concerned with mere logomachia; and the rest, as requiring, though capable of, careful explanation. These latter are examined at some considerable length, and with the greatest judgment and moderation. The points involved are these: Works before Justification, (Art. 13;) the Sinlessness of Mary, (Art. 15;) Purgatory, Indulgences, Cultus of Images, and Invocation of Saints, (Art. 22;) the Vernacular in Public Worship, (Art. 24;) Transubstantiation, (Art. 28;) the Reception of the Wicked, (Art. 29;) Reception in both Kinds, (Art. 30;) the Oblation in the Mass, (Art. 31 ;) the Marriage of Clerics, (Art. 32;) the Pope's Jurisdiction, (Art. 37;) and the Validity of Anglican Orders, (Art. 36.)

It must, of course, be borne in mind that, from Sancta Clara's standpoint the task of reconciling the phraseology of the Articles on these heads with his own Church's definitions of Catholic truth was considerably more difficult than is the case from an Anglican point of view. And for this reason: Sancta Clara had to judge the language of the Articles by that of the Council of Trent, and the Articles, though drawn up without any reference to the decrees of that Council, which were not then promulgated, were, as far as they were definite at all, the expressions of a theology more or less opposed to the Tridentine. For prior to the Reformation two schools of theology had been struggling for the mastery-the Scholastic and the Patristic. And side by side with these a spirit of lawless rebellion and self-will, which, though more or less consistent in its hatred of the Catholic faith, does not deserve the name of a school. The conscience of the Church of England accepted, and threw the weight of her influence into the scale of the Patristic School. But in doing so, she evoked that lawless and undisciplined spirit of self-will which had already culminated on the Continent in the Foreign Reformation. The Articles, then, which should have been an expression of pure Patristic theology, became a kind of comprehensive formula, arranged so as to satisfy alike the Catholic and the Puritan. Hence a phraseology, which at first sight would

appear violently anti-Roman existing side by side with a liturgy and office-book which, however defective in fulness and variety, contain no single expression opposed to Catholicity. Meanwhile the Council of Trent, shackled by no such exigencies, had set its seal upon much of the Scholastic theology. We might, therefore, have expected that, even were the Articles capable of bearing a Catholic sense, that sense would have fallen far short of Tridentine requirements. As a bold comparison, then, of the Articles with the highest rather than with any lower expression of Western theology, Sancta Clara's treatise acquires an importance which would not otherwise nave attached to it. This, too, will account for the stress laid upon comparatively minor points of controversy, e.g., the vernacular service, in considering which Sancta Clara had (not to leave the matter open, as Anglicans might, as a subject easily arranged when matters came to arbitration, but) to reconcile the language of the Article with that of the Council of Trent, which had anathematized any who should say that mass ought only to be celebrated in the vulgar tongue, or that the opposite practice is contrary to Christ's institution.-(Sess. 22, c. 9.)

Sancta Clara, in considering the Articles most apparently obnoxious in expression, has shown how mercifully the Church of England was preserved from throwing up any real barrier to the future healing of the schism. At the same time we cordially agree with the editor that the Church has everything to gain and nothing to lose were the Articles eliminated in toto. While, on the one hand, the three creeds of Catholic Christendom and a reception of the Ecumenical Councils provide all the tests that are needful, or indeed that can be healthily imposed, it cannot be denied that the Articles are couched in language which, if theologically capable of an innocent sense, is singularly open to misconstruction. In fact, we may say that much more of the substance of English Protestantism has been derived from a hasty and untheological assent to certain loose statements in the Articles than from the writings of Luther or Calvin. We all know the non-natural sense that positive statements of the weightiest character assume when read by the light of a contrary tradition. No Church in Christendom probably asserts the truth of baptismal regeneration in plainer terms than does the Anglican, and, (certainly prior to the Oxford revival,) in no Church in Christendom was the truth less believed in. But the Protestant sense of which the Articles are capable was favoured by a growing tradition; and in that sense, therefore, the majority of persons have signed them. In vain does the Creed assert the Communion

of Saints: an Article (claiming, as Mr. Lee truly remarks, to be not an article of faith, as is the Creed, but "of religion" merely,) condemns in obscure terms the "doctrina Romanensium" touching the Invocation of Saints, and behold, ere long; not merely the Roman doctrine, (whatever that is,) but any doctrine of the Communion of Saints has become almost as dead a letter as though there were no such Article in the Creed at all. It is the same with regard to Purgatory. The "doctrina Romanensium" is condemned; and with it goes all definite belief in the intermediate state. So with Transubstantiation. The term is repudiated; and in vain do Creed, Catechism, and Liturgy assert the Real Presence in the most unequivocal terms; the doctrine loses its hold upon the people. Is a gross carnal theory of "the sacrifices of masses condemned? And lo! there springs up a religion practically without a sacrifice; and astonished Christendom sees the unique spectacle of a nation professing a zeal for the Fourth Commandment, almost Judaic in its sternness, yet habitually breaking that commandment in its spirit by neglecting the only ritual that the Divine Redeemer appointed for its sanctification under the New Law! Is Penance asserted to be a sacrament "not of like nature" with Baptism and the Eucharist? And behold, multitudes living and dying without making use of the Divinely-appointed remedy for sin and uncleanness ! Is the same statement made of Confirmation? and from a channel through which the faithful receive the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit, behold it degraded to a mere empty form of renewing one's baptismal vows! And yet the distinction. between sacraments of the Gospel" and sacraments of apostolic institution is found in Catholic writers, nay, even in the schoolmen; and all that the Article probably intended to hit was such assertions as that of Bellarmine, that Confirmation is a greater sacrament than Baptism, because, forsooth, the matter, Chrism, is costlier and more excellent than water.t

There is a line of thought that naturally suggests itself to any one carefully perusing the Thirty-nine Articles by the light of Sancta Clara's gloss. If the impediments on our sideimpediments thrown up by the wilfulness and licence of the sixteenth century, and so mischievous, as we have seen, in their practical results are yet capable of such easy resolution when weighed in the balance of a discriminating theology, are those on the Roman side less so? The Creed of Pope Pius IV.

Thus, for instance, the Master of Sentences, libro quarto, "Sacramentum unctionis infirmorum ab apostolis institutum."

+ Art of Dying Well. Cap. de Confirmatione.

contains no single expression that is not at least as capable of satisfactory explanation as those in our own Articles apparently the most opposed to Rome: with this notable difference, we are bound to add, that whereas the positions in Pope Pius' Creed are definite, though singularly moderate, they bind those accepting them to Catholicity, without at all tying them down to any of those extreme popular theories which an Anglican usually understands by the term "Romanism" as opposed to Catholicism. In other words, the "doctrina Romanensium" in the sense in which the Articles use that term, is nowhere enforced in their Creed; and it would be at least as easy a task as that of Sancta Clara, if any one, in the interests of Unity, set himself to draw up a paraphrastic explanation of Pope Pius' Creed, by which the various propositions it contains might be reconciled with the language of Antiquity and with the teachings of our own best and most approved theologians. Not to enter into the matter more deeply here, let us take the one point of the intermediate state. All that the Creed requires us to profess is a belief "esse purgatorium," that there is a "place of purging," and that souls detained therein are assisted by the suffrages of the faithful. Of what nature that purging is, and where that "purging place" may be, is not defined. All that is enforced is that the intermediate state is a progressive one, and that the progress is helped and increased by the prayers of Holy Church. With facts like these before us, is it too much to say that a General Council, when God's good time for it shall come, will have but little beyond verbal differences and mutual misunderstandings to clear away on either side?

Before concluding our review of this thoughtful work-so necessary for these times-we may point out the only single instance in which, as far as we have seen, the exigencies of the author's position have led him to make a random statement. It occurs in dealing with the Thirty-seventh article, as to the Pope's Supremacy. He says "It is notorious that all the Saints who have ever existed have been in Communion with the Holy See." To say nothing of the vast number of Saints commemorated in the Eastern Calendars, and enrolled there not without the witness of miracles, this is not true. Blessed Collette, who espoused the cause of the Anti-pope, and is yet revered in the Church, and her office approved for use in the Franciscan Order, is an instance to the contrary.

It only remains for us to add-which indeed is no small praise that in typography and binding the present reprint is not unworthy of the work which it is designed to perpetuate.

ART. VIII.-The Victory of the Spirit; A Course of short Sermons, by way of Commentary on the Eighth Chapter of S. Paul's Epistle to the Romans. By JOHN M. ASHLEY, B.C.L., Curate of Swanscombe, and Sunday Lecturer at S. Mary's, Greenhithe. London : Joseph Masters, 1865.

Ir has been till lately a charge against the later English Church that she had produced no commentators worthy of the name. Though this is not exactly true, seeing that in diverse manners Mede, and Hammond, and Andrews had applied their learning to the elucidation of Holy Scriptures, yet it was undoubtedly the case that there were but few works of the sort to be consulted, and none to be wholly relied on. A grotesque and feeble attempt was made in the last century to meet this want, but Scott and Henry, much as one may commend the zeal and piety which led them to supply the acknowledged want, must be admitted to have been utterly incompetent to the task, even by their own narrow school of religionism. Learning as well as piety is needed for such a task as this. Nor can much more be said for Doyley and Mant, excellent doubtless as a family Bible, but throwing absolutely no new light on the exegesis of Scripture.

In our own day, however, a vast change has taken place. First came a succession of carefully-edited Greek Testaments, not always from the most orthodox hands, but still an immense improvement on those which had preceded them. Then the sphere of labour widened, and even sermons in many cases were published which furnished in their few pages a mine of learning and sound doctrine such as one might turn Scott's Commentary over from end to end without discovering. And taking the word in the extended sense of Sixtus Senensis, we can no longer complain of a want of English commentators. The translation of S. Thomas Aquinas' Catena Aurea by the editor of the Library of the Fathers was the inauguration of this new era. To mention but a very few of the best known works, we have Mr. Isaac Williams' valuable series on the Gospels, Archbishop Trench on the Parables and Miracles for popular reading, while Professor Lightfoot and Bishop Ellicott, Dr. Pusey and Dr. Neale have given us a long list of commentaries indispensable to the scholar. Even our strait-laced contemporary, the Dublin Review, is compelled to admire Dr. Pusey's perfect work on the prophet Daniel.

Now let it be observed, that the true idea of a commentary