violent party, whom they themselves had excited, began to demand of them to put the law in force against the rising Christian Church. But we may perhaps without offence suggest that the line of attempting to please both parties is the least dignified of any. It would not seem very difficult to say to an angry deputation-"I am but an administrator of the law, and the law according to the mere letter of the Rubrics seems to be not unfavourable to these vestments; indeed, so far as legal decisions have touched on these questions, the result has been to declare them lawful. What would you have me do? Propose a change of the law? This is too large a question for me to enter upon here, or with reference to this single point: nor indeed supposing there were no other objections, would it seem quite the time to urge such a proposal, when men's minds are unduly agitated." We admit that this style of reply would not be pleasing to Archdeacons Wordsworth or Sinclair, much less to the (anti)-Church Association, but it would at least be intelligible and true, nor would it deceive people by leading them to believe that if they can only make noise enough they will be sure to gain your support.

Meantime we would say to Ritualists, do, pray, come to some understanding as to what you will adopt. We see looming in the distance many future disputes as to whether the Roman or the Sarum sequence of colours ought to be adopted-as to whether the Roman fashion or the old English fashion of vestments is to be preferred, as to whether the Eastern or Western mode of wearing the stole and of giving benediction should be introduced. That it is impossible to stop the Ritual movement, no one who has thrown himself into it, is, we are sure, doubtful about, nor does he hesitate to say that his efforts must be in the direction of dignifying the Eucharistic service in the first place. Whilst the movement is yet within manageable proportions, let us attempt to prevent future disputes by agreeing to act together. In the absence of any authoritative direction, which it is simply hopeless to expect until the movement is demonstrably independent of such aid-alas that we should have to say so!might not such a body as the E. C. U. agree to submit the question to the district Unions, and then send forth a series of plain practical instructions on the subject? The details they could not prescribe; but a good historical account of the ancient usage of the English Church, with a well-considered body of principles to guide in the restoration of what we have lost, would be of immense value. Men would have to fill in

the details for themselves; and in doing so they will not fail to consult the elaborate pages of the Directorium Anglicanum.

We have only to add that everywhere where the vestments, incense, and lights have been re-introduced the congregations are unanimous. It is not, as in the surplice riot, that halfinstructed congregations dislike the imposition of a badge which they have been led to identify with an object of their hatred. This ought to afford a reply to those bishops who now maintain that the re-introduction of the legal vestments ought to be an act of authority. Authority tried to force the surplice and failed. Opinion and religious conviction have done that for the vestment question which authority could not do for the surplice. Unanimity and a hearty intention to maintain their legal rights is the characteristic of the Ritual congregations. The vestments are merely the flowers on growing plants whose roots are deep down in the ground of orthodox doctrine. Before you can destroy the tendency to develope in this way you must root up those doctrines which men esteem dearer than life. The opposition, therefore, is simply hopeless. You may check it, but you cannot destroy it, for love is stronger than death.

ART. X.—1. Ἡ ἁγία καὶ οἰκουμενικῆ ἐν Φλωρεντία σύνοδος Διὰ μονάχου Βενεδικτίνου. Rome, 1864. 8vo. 2. The History of the Council of Florence, translated from the Russian, by Basil Popoff. Edited by the Rev. J. M. NEALE, D.D. London: Masters, 1861. 8vo.

IN offering the result of my researches on the Decree pronounced by Eugenius IV. as president of the Council of Florence, to the general reader in a somewhat crude state, I am not going to refer to the controversy which there has been between the Dublin and this Review, or between the Dublin Review and myself, except so far as to show what the original points in dispute really were, and how a new and a much wider question, of which I was conscious all along, but wished particularly to keep clear, for reasons which will appear in the sequel, has been forced on out of them. One of these reasons I have no objection to state beforehand: namely, that my researches are still incomplete for want of materials; of access to works not to be had in this country: or to MSS. not easily to be got at even abroad, if they exist at all now. However, it may be well to state such facts as I have got together already, as the question has been fairly started: and invite others to supplement them, or set me right if I have mis-stated them. I aspire to be nothing more than a plain verifier of historical facts, and have never claimed to be a student in any other department than ecclesiastical history; in that capacity I desire to speak always under correction, and as one whose knowledge of facts is limited, capable at all times of receiving additions or emendations.

Now the two points-and there were never more than two, sought to be established in the UNION REVIEW for November of last year, p. 686, et seq., and by myself subsequently, in three letters that appeared in the Weekly Register for December 16 and two following weeks, were confined to the Greek and Latin versions given by Mansi, (Concil. tom. xxxi. p. 1032,) of that clause with which the Decree of the Council of Florence, so far as it relates to the primacy of the Pope, terminates; namely, that "to him, in blessed Peter was given by our Lord Jesus Christ full power of tending, directing, and governing the Holy Catholic Church-καθ' ὅν τρόπον καὶ ἐν τοῖς πρακτικοῖς τῶν οἰκουμενικῶν συνόδων καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἱεροῖς κανὸσι διαλαμβάνεταιquemadmodum etiam in gestis acumenicorum conciliorum, et in sacris canonibus continetur." . . . Of the Latin it was said, 1. that it was a mis-translation of the Greek

in three particulars, as italicised. And 2. that it was a translation from the Greek, placed in Mansi side by side with it, and the work of John Mathew Caryophilus, a Cretan, about 150 years after the date of the Council. On this being called "an amazing proposition" by the writer in the Dublin, a fortnight or so before the January number of that Review came out, in a letter to the Weekly Register, I rejoined that it was simply so headed in Mansi, if he would look back so far (p. 464,) and referred him to Justiniani's preface in Labbe and Cossart (Concil. tom. xiii. p. 827 et seq.) for full particulars of the circumstances under which it was made: the translation by Bartholomew Abram which had been made previously, not having given entire satisfaction. And I wished it to be understood that it was this version, as printed in Mansi, and cited by him and me, that I charged with mis-translation, and no other. I had my own reasons for so restricting myself: I did not wish to be drawn into that other question, which the Dublin has insisted on discussing, and which I well knew to be a wide and not altogether a pleasant one.

So much for that version. Now for its defects. That the particle kal may or must be rendered "etiam" occasionally, when it stands alone, is clear enough; not so, when it is followed by another xai. In that case the proper equivalent is in each case, "et;" in English we should translate the former "both," and the latter "and." Thus were we desirous of translating that part of the clause in question from Greek into English, we could only do so by rendering it, "as both in the acts of the cecumenical synods, and in the holy canons." Now, I should like to see any schoolboy, who was not absolutely courting a flogging, translate that English sentence back into Latin by "etiam in," &c., instead of "et;" or again, I should like to see any boy in the head-form of any of our public schools, who, having to translate that simple Greek sentence into Latin, would hesitate for a moment, as to whether he should translate the first kaì by "et," or " etiam." To translate the first cai by "etiam" could only be the part of one ignorant of the rules of Greek syntax, or else of one who was deliberately seeking to attach a new meaning to the clause by means of the Latin translation, alien to the "literal and grammatical" sense of those words in the Greek.

We pass on to the next word, "πpaкTIKOIS." Few will dispute that "actis" rather than "gestis" is the proper word here. It may seem of little importance which; but let us remember that we are dealing with people who were measuring their every word: and Greek and Latin theologians, who were

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well acquainted with Aristotle, and with the schools. With Aristotle the word "páis," and with S. Thomas "actus," are both words having a special meaning of their own, indicative of moral action, and deliberate purpose. That meaning passes into their various inflexions equally. It is not every chance occurrence that may take place in a General Council that is covered by the term "πρакTIKôis:" but only what is transacted with full purpose and sense of responsibility by its members. "Gestis" need not, plainly, convey as much. In the same way "continetur" is a very poor and inadequate representative of diaλaμßáveтai,” which bears a striking and a pregnant sense: and, as the writer of the Dublin points out, occurs some fourteen or fifteen times in the Acts of the Council, as though it expressed what no other word could equally well. Its tense is not the least important part of it. Had it been "kaľŐV TρÓTTOV εἴρηται,” οι “ γέγραπται,” its meaning would have been limited to time past, and all reference to present or future councils or canons would have been expressly cut off. But it is just here that the force of the Greek present comes in, which representing, as it does, a continuous action: what is being done, not what is over: one that is still going on and never ended: including, of necessity, all Councils and Canons, whether before or since that Council, to the end of time. That is to say, it points to the Church, living and acting through all time, with equal authority. The writer in the Dublin will search Gallican works in vain for any hint of this kind: and it was precisely for this reason that they were well satisfied with "continetur," because the meaning of that word, in spite of its present tense, favoured their view. They saw that it appealed exclusively to what was passed and gone and strove to circumscribe all things present and future by it. What former Councils and Canons had attributed to the Pope, so much it would attribute to him likewise, but no more. The line had been traced once for all: no future Councils or Canons could, under any circumstances enlarge or advance beyond it. The Greek present alone, I say, is destructive of the Gallican view, unless coupled with a verb, whose inherent meaning counteracts its force. Such a verb is the Latin "continetur." The Greek "Siaλaμßáveтai," naturally, has just the opposite effect. That verb, I said in my first letter to the Weekly Register, "clearly means," as Liddell and Scott have it, "to grasp with both hands, weigh, debate, and so determine." Now, I think, it was for that very reason, that this word was chosen by the Council of Florence, where every word was carefully weighed, to express the joint action of East and West in the matter.