161, entirely deny the genuineness of the second epistle of St. Peter. And so had Mr. F. W. Newman, in his Phases of Faith, page 185, spoken of " the doubtful authenticity" of that epistle, and decided that, in one view, it was "clearly spurious."

7. Mr. Wilson, at page 177, holds that the Sixth Article leaves every one free in judgment as to "the reality of demoniacal possession, and the personality of Satan." Mr. Newman, ten years ago, had said, "That painful and gratuitous imagination, the Devil, had become a waning phantom to me, from the time that I saw the demoniacal miracles to be fictions." (p. 189.)

8. Dr. Temple rejoices that "the Bible, by its form, is hindered from exercising a despotism over the human spirit; if it could do that, it would become an outer law at once," but "it imposes on us no yoke of subjection." (p. 45.)

And Mr. Newman, long ago, had protested against "the Protestant principle of accepting the Bible as the absolute law," and against "representing it as of all things most desirable to be able to benumb conscience by disuse, under the guidance of a mind from without." (p. 207.)

9. Lastly, the whole theme and argument of Dr. Temple's essay, that "Providence had been educating the world" by means of Egyptian, Greek, and Asian idolatries, and thence upwards through Christianity, was all given in this same Phases of Faith, in the year 1850. Mr. Newman had there argued that,

"The law of God's moral universe, as known to us, is that of progress. We trace it from old barbarism to the methodized Egyptian idolatry; to the more flexible polytheism of Syria and Greece; the poetical pantheism of philosophers, and the moral monotheism of a few sages. So in Palestine, and in the Bible itself, we see, first of all, the image-worship of Jacob's family, then the incipient elevation of Jehovah above all other Gods by Moses, the practical establishment of the worship of Jehovah alone by Samuel, the rise of spiritual sentiment under David and the Psalmists, the more magnificent views of Hezekiah's prophets; finally, in the Babylonish captivity, the new tenderness assumed by the second Isaiah and the later Psalmists ;"-(p. 223.)

with much more of the same kind- all of which Dr. Temple has very plausibly expanded into an Essay of forty-nine pages.

Enough, then, has been given to shew, that in all the characteristic features of their system, Theodore Parker, in 1847 and in 1859, Francis William Newman in 1850, and the Seven Essayists in 1860, are all in harmony. In language, indeed,-in freeness of tone and expression, there is just the difference which might be expected between men who, like Parker and Newman, have thrown off all conventional bondage, and those who, like the Seven Essayists, are professors in Oxford, or vice-principals, or headmasters of colleges or schools, or incumbents of parishes in the established church. But while there is this difference in the tone and freedom of expression, there is none in actual creed. All are

agreed, the seven as well as the two, in rejecting" supernaturalism," in placing conscience above the Bible, and in throwing altogether out of sight the grand topics of God's word-the introduction of sin, and the gift of a Saviour-man's ruin, and man's redemption. Our conviction is, that none of them have any real faith in either the one or the other of these great truths.

Yet we can believe, without much strain upon the imagination, that some of these writers, especially Dr. Temple and Mr. Jowett, do not really mean to abandon Christianity;-do not justly appreciate their own position ;-but imagine that they can retain the spirit of Christianity, while throwing off all allegiance to the letter. We feel that we ought to accept the declarations of such men; and look upon them rather as self-deceived, than as deliberate deceivers. Now Mr. Jowett's own words are these:

"Is it a mere chimera that the different sections of Christendom may meet on the common ground of the New Testament? Or that the individual may be urged by the vacancy and unprofitableness of old traditions, to make the gospel his own,- -a life. of Christ in the soul, instead of a theory of Christ which is in a book or written down? Or that in missions to the heathen, Scripture may become the expression of universal truths, rather than of the tenets of particular men or churches?" (p. 423.)

"The Bible will no longer be appealed to as the witness of the opinions of particular sects, or of our own age; it will cease to be the battlefield of controversies." "The book which links together the beginning and the end of the human race, will not have a less inestimable value because the spirit has taken the place of the letter." (p. 425.)

"It is not the book of Scripture which we should seek to give them, to be reverenced like the Vedas or the Koran, but the truth of the book, the mind of Christ and his apostles, in which all lesser details and differences should be lost and absorbed." (p. 427.)

We repeat, that we are bound to believe, and do believe, that Mr. Jowett means exactly what he says. But then he is selfdeluded. Indeed, to fancy that he can retain the building, after having cut away the foundation, is as strange and as lamentable a delusion as ever possessed any man's mind. Long ago was this perilous error detected and exposed in Dr. Robert Vaughan's admirable discourse on the Letter and the Spirit. A single passage from that powerful argument must suffice :

"The words that I speak unto you,' said the Lord Jesus, 'they are spirit, and they are life.' If this statement has meaning, it must mean, that the spirit and life of Christianity are not, where the words, the doctrines of Christianity, are not. Reception of the words is necessary to an experience of the life."

"The religion of the letter, taken alone, is not only barren, but corrupting. It is not only devoid of the fruits proper to true religion,-it is productive of fruits proper only to false religion. But the religion of the spirit, as existing among our philosophical spiritualists, is itself an

error in an opposite direction. The religion of the letter alone, if carried fairly out, ends in a fanatical superstition. The religion of the spirit alone, if carried fairly out, ends in the most scientific form of mere deism. By the one, the Bible is denuded of its proper result; for souls are not regenerated. By the other, the Bible is denuded of its proper authority; for the authority of the interpreter becomes greater than the authority of the text. In either case, the loss is the loss of Christianity. In either case, there may be a kind of religiousness; but it will not be the religion of Christ. If the words the doctrines of Christ, are to be without historical certainty and authority, then nothing higher is left to mankind than such systems of religion as may be generated by their own experiences, in accordance with their own sense of need. σ we have not a Christianity sustained by authentic documents, we have none. All pretence to anything certainly Christian, on the part of men who repudiate the historical proofs of Christianity, must be simply absurd. When such men tell us, that they have tried the historical argument, and found it fail them, and still claim to be regarded as in possession of all that was most valuable in primitive Christianity, we are constrained to ask them, How do you know that? Certainly, the man who can persuade himself that he has a right to claim a place among Christians, while giving up the historical evidence of Christianity, must be in a state of mind to persuade himself of anything.”

war.

The doctrine which offended poor Theodore Parker, and after him, Francis William Newman, and now the Seven Essayists, is Supernaturalism. Against this, with one consent, they all make Parker covered it with the most vehement reproaches, in his Discourse on Religion. Newman equally abhorred it. The Seven Essayists have a like feeling; but a natural caution prescribes the use of more moderate language. Dr. Temple begins by hinting that "physical science and researches into history, &c., have enlarged our philosophy beyond the limits which bounded that of the church of the fathers." We perhaps must not "interpret the first chapters of Genesis literally,"" the narratives of the inspired writers had occasional inaccuracies," and so on. Dr. Rowland Williams suggests that "Questions of miraculous interference do not turn merely upon our conception of physical law, as unbroken, or of the Divine will, as all-pervading ;-they include inquiries into evidence, and must abide by verdicts on the age of records." "Those cases in which we accept the miracle for the sake of the moral lesson prove the ethical element to be the more fundamental."

Mr. Baden Powell is more explicit, and asserts, in plain language, the doctrine of Strauss, that "the chain of endless causation can never be broken, and hence a miracle is an impossibility.” Mr. Wilson particularizes, and names, as facts which we are not bound to believe, "the story of a serpent-tempter, of an ass speaking with man's voice, or an arresting of the earth's motion, of a reversal of its motion, of waters standing in a solid heap, of

witches, and a variety of apparitions." (p. 177.) In short, all that is supernatural, may be "accepted as parable, or poetry, or legend;"-but rejected as fact. Mr. Goodwin, in like manner, rejects the narrative of the Creation, and tells us, that "the human race has forgotten its own birth, and the void of its early years has been filled up by imagination, and not from genuine recollection." And Mr. Jowett, on the authority of his friends and coadjutors, adopts the same view, telling us, that "the best-informed are of opinion that the history of nations extends back some thousand years before the Mosaic chronology; recent discoveries in geology may, perhaps, open a further vista of existence of the human species; while it is possible, and may one day be known, that mankind spread not from one, but from many, centres over the globe; or, as others say, the supply of links which are at present wanting in the chain of animal life, may lead to new conclusions respecting the origin of man." (p. 349.) Thus the whole tenor of this new philosophy goes to banish the idea of God, and to enthrone what Mr. Powell calls "the universal self-sustaining and self-evolving powers which pervade all nature :"—" the grand principle of the self-evolving powers of nature." (pp. 134, 139.) Thus, with one voice, supernaturalism, or the existence of any Lord or Ruler of nature, is denied.

Well, gentlemen, we are not going, at this moment, to enter into any argument with you on this vast question; but we do want to come to an understanding. It is very desirable, and in fact necessary, that things should be called by their right names. ask, then, in plain English, Do you believe the Bible?

We

Do you believe the first chapter of Genesis, which sets forth, how God created or formed the present earth;-producing, step by step, land and sea, plants and fishes, beasts, and finally man; resting, after six days' work, on the seventh day, and hallowing that day for evermore? We have not the slightest doubt that all these Seven Essayists would answer, We believe nothing of the kind:

Do you believe, then, the second chapter, which places man in a garden, and miraculously provides him with a consort and helpmate? Or the third, which describes the temptation, the fall, and man's punishment and expulsion? With one voice, we feel assured, the Seven Essayists would reject all this, classing it with parable, or poetry, or legend." (p. 177.)

We pass on, then, to the fourth chapter, describing Cain's sin and punishment;-to the sixth and seventh, detailing the history of the deluge; to the eleventh, relating the confusion of tongues; to the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twenty-first, narrating the miraculous overthrow of Sodom, and the miraculous birth of Isaac:asking, Do these Essayists give credit to any of these statements? The answer must be, No.

Well, then, let us quit the Old Testament, and open the New ;

and try if we shall fare better there. St. Matthew's first chapter narrates the visit of an angel to Mary, and the miraculous conception. Are these facts received by the Seven Essayists? Several of them have answered, and we believe that all must answer, if asked, No.

The second chapter tells us of the star, and of the slaughter of the children of Bethlehem; and of two angelic visits to Joseph. The third shews us the Holy Spirit descending in the form of a dove, and tells us of an audible voice from "the excellent glory." The fourth describes the appearance of Satan, the fasting of Jesus for forty days and nights; and the casting out of devils. Do the Essayists give credit to these things? They plainly tell us, No.

In fact, the Bible is rejected. Supernaturalism is its character, from the beginning to the end. Not in one place, or two, or in ten, or in fifty, but throughout, it constantly introduces God as Creator, or Redeemer, or Sanctifier, overruling nature at His pleasure, with the same absolute will and power with which any human artificer disposes of his materials or his tools. "O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the Lord." "No," replies Mr. Baden Powell, with a profaneness which it is fearful to contemplate, "No, you cannot !"

But what is all this but a distinct rejection of the Bible, and of Christianity? If the Bible is plainly declared to have a great falsehood intertwined with its every page, how is it possible to build anything upon it? Take away the word of God, the Divine revelation, and Christianity is gone also. "Conscience," as it is called, reigns "supremely," indeed, as Dr. Temple would have it, but alone. For such men to seek to retain the name of Christian, is at least something approaching to a great abuse of words.

But if not Christians, may rejecters of the Bible be still called Churchmen? Such a question may seem a strange one, but it is necessary to put it. The Seven Essayists might allege that they have never subscribed to the truth of the Bible;* but surely, if they style themselves churchmen, they can hardly reject the creeds of the church, the faith into which they were baptized, the faith which, at confirmation, they each personally professed,-the faith which, in subscribing the Eighth Article, they have declared, ought thoroughly to be received and believed." What say they, then, to the Creeds, which, in common with all Christendom, the church of England sets forth as her first, most positive, and most indispensable standard?

The first creed declares God the Father to have been the maker of heaven and earth. It declares His Son to have been conceived by the Holy Ghost, and born of a virgin. It declares Him to have risen from the dead, and to have ascended into heaven. And it

* Probably most of them have forgotten the question put to them in their first ordination: 66 Do you unfeignedly believe all the Canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testament ?"-and their own answer : "I do believe them!"