Inspiration and Interpretation Part 5

'_ciel_,' etymologically imply no less.

Now I contend that Moses employed the word "_rakia_" with exactly the same propriety, neither more nor less, as when a Divine now-a-days employs the English word "firmament." It does not follow that the man who speaks of "the s.p.a.cious firmament on high," is under so considerable a delusion as to suspect that the firmament is _a firm thing_; nor does it follow that Moses thought that "_rakia_" was _a solid_ substance either,--even if _solidity_ was the prevailing etymological notion in the word, and even if the Hebrews were no better philosophers than Mr.

Goodwin would have us believe. The Essayist's objection is therefore worthless. G.o.d was content that Moses should employ the ordinary language of his day,--accommodate himself to the forms of speech then prevalent,--coin no new words. What is there unreasonable in the circ.u.mstance? What possible ground does it furnish for a supposition that the _etymological_ force of the word,--or even that the popular physical theory of which that word may, or may not, have once been the connotation,--denoted _the sense in which Moses employed it_? Is it to be supposed that when a physician speaks of a "_jovial_ temperament," he insinuates his approval of an exploded system of medicine? Do astronomers maintain that the Sun has a _disk_, or the Earth _an axis_?

that the former _leaves its place_ in the heavens when it suffers 'eclipse[123]?' or that the latter has a superior _lat.i.tude_, from East to West? To give the most familiar instance of all,--Do scientific men believe that the sun _rises_, and _sets_?--And yet all _say_ that it does, until this hour!... Why is Moses to be judged by a less favourable standard than anybody else,--than Shakspeare, than Hooker, even than Mr.

Goodwin? The first, in an exquisite pa.s.sage, bids Jessica,--

"Look how the floor of heav'n Is thick inlayed with patens of bright gold."

Did Shakspeare expect his beautiful language would be tortured into a shape which would convict him of talking nonsense?--But this is poetry.

Then take Hooker's prose:--

"If the frame of that heavenly arch erected over our heads should loosen and dissolve itself; ... if the Moon should wander from her beaten way[124]," &c.

Did Hooker suppose that heaven is "an arch," which could be "loosened and dissolved?" or that "the way" of the moon is "beaten?"--But this is a highly poetical pa.s.sage, written three centuries ago.--Let an unexceptionable witness then be called; and so, let the question be brought to definite issue. _I_, for my part, am quite content that it shall be _the philosopher in person_. The present Essayist shall be heard discoursing about Creation, and shall be convicted out of his own mouth. Mr. Goodwin begins his paper by a kind of cosmogony of his own, which he prefaces with the following apology:--"It will be necessary for our purpose to go over the oft-trodden ground, which must be done with rapid steps. Nor let the reader object to be reminded of some of the most elementary facts of his knowledge. The human race has been ages in arriving at conclusions now familiar to every child." (p. 212.) After this preamble, he begins his "elementary facts," as follows:--

"This Earth, apparently so still and stedfast, lying in majestic repose beneath the aetherial vault,"--(p. 212.)

But we remonstrate immediately. "The aetherial _vault_!" Do you then understand the sky, firmament, or heaven to be "a permanent solid vault, as it appears to the ordinary observer?" (p. 220.)

"The Sun which seems to leap up each morning from the east, and traversing the skyey bridge,"--(p. 212.)

"The _skyey bridge_!" And pray in what part of the universe do you discover a "skyey bridge?" Is not _this_ calculated "to convey to ordinary apprehensions an impression at variance with facts?" (p. 231.)

"The Moon which occupies a position in the visible heavens only second to the Sun, and far beyond that of every other celestial body in conspicuousness,"--(p. 212.)

Nay, but really Mr. Philosopher, while you remind us "of some of the most elementary facts of our knowledge," (p. 212,) you write (except in the matter of the "leaping Sun" and the "skyey bridge,")--_exactly as Moses does_ in the first chapter of Genesis! What else does that great Prophet say but that "the Moon occupies a position in the visible heavens only second to the Sun, and far beyond that of every other celestial body in conspicuousness?" (p. 212.)

Enough, it is presumed, has been offered in reply to Mr. Goodwin, and his notions of "Mosaic Cosmogony." He writes with the flippancy of a youth in his teens, who having just mastered the elements of natural science, is impatient to acquaint the world with his achievement. His powers of dogmatism are unbounded; but he betrays his ignorance at every step. The Divine decree, "Let us make Man in Our image, after Our likeness[125]," he explains by remarking that "the Pentateuch abounds in pa.s.sages shewing that the Hebrews contemplated the Divine being in the visible form of a man." (!!!) (p. 221.) A foot-note contains the following oracular dictum,--"See particularly the narrative in Genesis xviii." What _can_ be said to such an ignoramus as this? Hear him dogmatizing in another subject-matter:--"The common arrangement of the Bible in chapters is of comparatively modern origin, and is admitted on all hands to have no authority or philological worth whatever. In many cases the division is most preposterous." (p. 222.) That the division of chapters is occasionally infelicitous, is true: but is Mr. Goodwin weak enough to think that he could divide them better? The division into chapters and verses again is _not_ so modern as Mr. Goodwin fancies. Dr.

M'Caul, (in a pamphlet on the Translation of the Bible,) shews reason for suspecting that some of the divisions of the Old Testament Scriptures are as old as the time of Ezra.

To return, and for the last time, to Mr. Goodwin's Essay.--His object is, (with how much of success I have already sufficiently shewn,) (1) To fasten the charge of absurdity and ignorance on the ancient Prophet who is confessedly the author of the Book of Genesis: (2) To prove that a literal interpretation of Gen. i., "will not bear a moment's serious discussion." (p. 230.) I look through his pages in vain for the wished-for proof. He has many strong a.s.sertions. He puts them forth with not a little insolence. But he proves nothing! At p. 226, however, I read as follows:--"Dr. Buckland appears to a.s.sume that when it is said that the Heaven and the Earth were created in the beginning, it is to be understood that they were created in their present form and state of completeness, the heaven raised above the earth as we see it, or seem to see it now." (pp. 226-7.)

But Dr. Buckland "appears to a.s.sume" nothing of the kind. His words are,--"The first verse of Genesis seems explicitly to a.s.sert the creation of _the Universe_: the Heaven, including the sidereal systems,--and the Earth, ... the subsequent scene of the operations of the six days about to be described." (pp. 224-5.)

"This," continues Mr. Goodwin, "is the fallacy of his argument."

(p. 227.)

But if this is "_the_ fallacy of his argument," we have already seen that it is a fallacy which rests not with Dr. Buckland, but with Mr.

Goodwin. He proceeds:--

"The circ.u.mstantial description of the framing of the Heaven out of the waters proves that the words 'Heaven and Earth,' in the first verse, must be taken proleptically."--(p. 227.)

But we may as well stop the torrent of long words, by simply pointing out that "the heavens," (_hashamaim_,) spoken of in Gen. i. 1, are quite distinct from "the firmament," (_rakia_,) spoken of in ver. 6. The word is altogether different, and the sense is evidently altogether different also; although Mr. Goodwin seeks to identify the two[126]. And further, we take leave to remind our modern philosopher that _no_ "circ.u.mstantial description of the framing of the heaven out of the waters," is to be found either in ver. 6, or elsewhere. And this must suffice.

The entire subject shall be dismissed with a very few remarks.--Mr.

Goodwin delights in pointing out the incorrectness of "the sense in which the Mosaic narrative was taken by those who first heard it:"

(p. 223:) and in a.s.serting "that this meaning is _prima facie_ one wholly adverse to the present astronomical and geological views of the Universe." (p. 223.) But we take leave to remind this would-be philosopher that "the idea which entered into the minds of those to whom the account was first given," (p. 230,) is not the question with which we have to do when we are invited to a "frank recognition of the erroneous views of Nature which the Bible contains." (p. 211.) "It is manifest,"--(in this I cordially agree with Mr. Goodwin,)--"that the whole account is given from a different point of view from that which we now unavoidably take:" (p. 223:) and, (I beg leave to add,) _that_ point of view is _somewhere in Heaven_,--not here on Earth! The "Mosaic Cosmogony," as Mr. Goodwin phrases it, (fond, like all other smatterers in Science, of long words,) is _a Revelation_: and the same HOLY GHOST who gave it, speaking by the mouth of St. John, not obscurely intimates that it is mystical, like the rest of Holy Scripture,--that is, that it was fashioned not without a reference to the Gospel[127]. But we are touching on a high subject now, of which Mr. Goodwin does not understand so much as the Grammar. _He_ is thinking of the structure of the globe: _we_ are thinking of the structure _of the Bible_. But to return to Earth, we inform the Essayist that it is simply unphilosophical, even absurd, for him to insist on what _shall_ be implied by certain words employed by Moses,--(of which he judges by their etymology;) and further to a.s.sume what erroneous physical theories those words must have been connected with, by his countrymen, and so forth; and straightway to hold up the greatest of the ancient prophets to ridicule, as if those notions and those theories were all _his_!

"After all," (as Dr. Buckland remarked, long since,) "it should be recollected that the question is not respecting the correctness of the Mosaic narrative, but of our interpretation of it:" (p. 231:)--"a proposition," (proceeds Mr. Goodwin,) "which can hardly be sufficiently reprobated." But I make no question which of these two writers is most ent.i.tled to reprobation. For the view which will be found advocated in Sermon II., (which is substantially Dr. Buckland's,) (p. 24 to p. 32,) it shall but be said that it recommends itself to our acceptance by the strong fact that it takes _no_ liberty with the sacred narrative, whatever; and receives the Revelation of G.o.d in all its strangeness, (which it _cannot_ be a great mistake to do;) without trying to reconcile it with supposed discoveries, (wherein we _may_ fail altogether.) I defy anybody to shew that it is _impossible_ that G.o.d may have disposed of the actual order of the Universe, as in the first chapter of Genesis He is related to have done; and _probability_ can clearly have no place in such a speculation. I would only just remind the thoughtful student of Scripture, and indeed of Nature also, that the singular _a.n.a.logy_ which Geologists think they discover between successive periods of Creation, and the Mosaic record of the first Six Days, is no difficulty to those who hesitate to identify those Days with the irregular Periods of indefinite extent. Rather was it to have been expected, I think, that such an a.n.a.logy would be found to subsist between His past and His present working, when, 6,000 years ago, G.o.d arranged the actual system of things in Six Days.--Neither need we feel perplexed if Hugh Miller was right in the conclusion at which, he says, he had been "compelled to arrive;" viz. that "not a few" of the extant species of animals "enjoyed life in their present haunts" "for many long ages ere Man was ushered into being;" "and that for thousands of years anterior to even _their_ appearance many of the existing molluscs lived in our seas." (p. 229.) I find it nowhere a.s.serted _by Moses_ that the severance was so complete, and decisively marked, between previous cycles of Creation and that cycle which culminated in the creation of Man, _that_ no single species of the prae-Adamic period was reproduced by the Omnipotent, to serve as a connecting link, as it were, between the Old world and the New,--an identifying note of the Intelligence which was equally at work on this last, as on all those former occasions. On the other hand, I _do_ find it a.s.serted _by Geologists_ that between the successive prae-Adamic cycles such connecting links are discoverable; and this fact makes me behold in the circ.u.mstance supposed fatal to the view here advocated, the strongest possible confirmation of its accuracy. At the same time, it is admitted that in every department of animated and vegetable life, the severance between the last (or Mosaic) cycle of Creation, and all those cycles which preceded it, is _very_ broadly marked[128].

Mr. Goodwin's method contrasts sadly with that of the several writers he adduces,--whether Naturalists or Divines. Those men, believing in the truth of G.o.d'S Word, have piously endeavoured, (with whatever success,) to shew that the discoveries of Geology are not inconsistent with the revelations of Genesis. But he, with singular bad taste, (to use no stronger language,) makes no secret of the animosity with which he regards the inspired record; and even finds "the spectacle of able, and we doubt not conscientious writers engaging in attempting the impossible,--painful and humiliating." He says, "they evidently do not breathe freely over their work; but shuffle and stumble over their difficulties in a piteous manner." (p. 250.) He a.s.serts dogmatically that "the interpretation proposed by Buckland to be given to the Mosaic description, will not bear a moment's serious discussion:" (p. 230:) while Hugh Miller "proposes to give an entirely mythical or enigmatical sense to the Mosaic narrative." (p. 236.) He is clamorous that we should admit the teaching of Scripture to be "to some extent erroneous."

(p. 251.) He "recognizes in it, not an authentic utterance of Divine Knowledge, but a human utterance." (p. 253.) "Why should we hesitate,"

(he asks,) "to recognize the fallibility of the Hebrew writers?"

(p. 251.)

With one general reflexion, I pa.s.s on to the next Essay.--The Works of G.o.d, the more severely they have been questioned, have hitherto been considered to bear a more and more decisive testimony to the Wisdom and the Goodness of their Author. The animal and the vegetable kingdoms have been made Man's instructors for ages past; and ever since the microscope has revealed so many unsuspected wonders, the argument from contrivance and design, Creative Power and infinite Wisdom, has been pressed with increasing cogency. The Heavens, from the beginning, have been felt to "declare the glory of G.o.d." One department only of Nature, alone, has all along remained unexplored. Singular to relate, the Records of Creation, (as the phenomena of Geology may I suppose be properly called,)--though the most obvious phenomena of all,--have been throughout neglected. It was not till the other day that they were invited to give up their weighty secrets; and lo, they have confessed them, willingly and at once. The study of Geology does but date from yesterday; and already it aspires to the rank of a glorious Science.

Evidence has been at once furnished that our Earth has been the scene of successive cycles of Creation; and the crust of the globe we inhabit is found to contain evidence of a degree of antiquity which altogether defies conjecture. The truth is, that Man, standing on a globe where his deepest excavations bear the same relation to the diameter which the scratch of a pin invisible to the naked eye, bears to an ordinary globe;--learns that his powers of interrogating Nature break down marvellous soon: yet Nature is observed to keep from him no secrets which he has the ability to ask her to give up.

In the meantime, the att.i.tude a.s.sumed by certain pretenders to Physical Science at these discoveries, cannot fail to strike any thoughtful person as extraordinary. Those witnesses of G.o.d'S work in Creation, which have been dumb for ages only because no man ever thought of interrogating them, are now regarded in the light of depositaries of a mighty secret; which, because G.o.d knew that it would be fatal to the credit of His written Word, He had bribed them to keep back, as long as, by shuffling and equivocation, they found concealment practicable. It seems to be fancied, however, that _that_ fatal secret the determination of Man has wrung from their unwilling lips, at last; and lo, on confronting G.o.d with these witnesses, He is convicted even by His own creatures of having spoken falsely in His Word[129].--Such, I say, is the tone a.s.sumed of late by a certain school of pretenders to Physical Science.

What need to declare that to the well-informed eye of Faith,--(and surely Faith is here the perfection of Reason! for _Faith_, remember, is the correlative not of _Reason_, but of _Sight_;)--the phenomenon presented is of a widely different character. Faith, or rather Reason, looks upon G.o.d'S Works _as a kind of complement of His Word_. He who gave the one, gave the other also. Moreover, He knew that He had given it. So far from ministering to unbelief, or even furnishing grounds for perplexity, the record of His Works was intended, according to His gracious design, to supply what was lacking to our knowledge in the record of His Word.... "Behold My footprints, (He seems to say,) across the long tract of the ages! I could not give you this evidence in My written Word. The record would have been out of place, and out of time.

It would have been unintelligible also. But what I knew would be inexpedient in the page of Revelation, I have given you abundantly in the page of Nature. I have spared your globe from combustion, which would have effaced those footprints,--in order that the characters might be plainly decipherable to the end of Time.... O fools and blind, to have occupied a world so brimful of wonders for wellnigh 6000 years, and only now to have begun to open your eyes to the structure of the earth whereon ye live, and move, and have your being! Yea, and the thousandth part of the natural wonders by which ye are surrounded has not been so much as dreamed of, by any of you, yet!... O learn to be the humbler, the more ye know; and when ye gaze along the mighty vista of departed ages, and scan the traces of what I was doing before I created Man,--multiply that problem by the stars which are scattered in number numberless over all the vault of Heaven; and learn to confess that it behoves the creature of an hour to bow his head at the discovery of his own littleness and blindness; and that his words concerning the Ancient of Days had need to be at once very wary, and very few!"

VI. By far the ablest of these seven Essays is from the pen of the "REV.

MARK PATTISON, B.D., Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford." It purports to be an Essay on the "TENDENCIES OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT IN ENGLAND, 1688-1750;" but it can hardly be said to correspond with that description. In the concluding paragraph, the learned writer gives to his work a different name. It is declared to be "_The past History of the Theory of Belief in the Church of England_[130]." But neither the t.i.tle at the head, nor the t.i.tle at the tail of the Essay, gives any adequate notion of the Author's purpose.

Had we met with this production, isolated, in the pages of a Review, we should have probably pa.s.sed it by as the work of a clever man, who, after amusing himself to some extent with the Theological literature of the last century, had desired to preserve some record of his reading; and had here thrown his random jottings into connected form. There is a racy freshness in a few of Mr. Pattison's sketches, (as in his account of Bentley's controversy with Collins[131],) which forcibly suggests the image of an artist whose pencil cannot rest amid scenery which stimulates his imagination. To be candid, we are inclined to suspect that, in the first instance, something of this sort was in reality all that the learned author had in view. But we are reluctantly precluded from putting so friendly a construction on these seventy-six pages. Not only does Mr. Pattison's Essay stand between Mr. Goodwin's open endeavour to destroy confidence in the writings of Moses, and Professor Jowett's laborious insinuations that the Bible is only an ordinary book; but it claims a common purpose and intention with both those writers.

Mr. Pattison's avowed object is "to ill.u.s.trate the advantage derivable to the cause of religious and moral truth, from a free handling, in a becoming spirit, of subjects peculiarly liable to suffer by the repet.i.tion of conventional language, and from traditional methods of treatment[132]." We proceed therefore to examine his labours by the aid of the clue which he has himself supplied. For when nine editions of a book appear in quick succession, prefaced by a description of the spirit in which "_it is hoped that the volume will he received_,"--it seems a pity that the author should not be judged by the standard of his own choosing.

We are surprised then to find how slightly Mr. Pattison's Essay fulfils its avowed purpose. The learned author does not, in fact, _directly_ "handle" the cla.s.s of subjects referred to, _at all_: or if he does, it is achieved in a couple of pages. And yet it is not difficult to point out the part which his Essay performs in the general scheme of this guilty volume. With whatever absence of "concert or comparison" the authors may have severally written, the fatal effect of their combined endeavours is not more apparent than the part sustained by each Essay singly in promoting it.

While Mr. Goodwin demolishes the Law, and Dr. Williams disbelieves the Prophets; while Professor Powell denies the truth of Miracles, and Professor Jowett evacuates the authority of Holy Scripture altogether--while Dr. Temple subst.i.tutes the inner light of Conscience for an external Revelation; and Mr. Wilson teaches men how they may turn the substance of Holy Scripture into a shadow, evade the plain force of language, and play fast and loose with those safeguards which it has been ever thought that words supply;--Mr. Pattison, reviewing the last century and a half of our own Theological history, labours hard to produce an impression that, _here_ also "all is vanity and vexation of spirit." He calls off our attention from the Bible, and bids us contemplate the unlovely aspect of the English "religious world" from the Revolution of 1688 down to the publication of the 'Tracts for the Times,' in 1833[133]. "Be content for a while, (he seems to say,) to disregard the prize; and observe the combatants instead. Listen to the historian of moral and religious progress," while he depicts "decay of religion, licentiousness of morals, public corruption, profaneness of language, a day of rebuke and blasphemy." Come attend to me; and I will draw the likeness of "an age dest.i.tute of depth or earnestness; an age whose poetry was without romance, whose philosophy was without insight, and whose public men were without character; an age of 'light without love,' whose 'very merits were of the earth, earthy.'" (p. 254.) "If we would understand our own position in the Church, and that of the Church in the age; if we would hold any clue through the maze of religious pretension which surrounds us; we cannot neglect those immediate agencies in the production of the present, which had their origin towards the beginning of the eighteenth century." (p. 256.) Let us then "trace the descent of religious thought, and the practical working of the religious ideas," (p. 255,) through some of the phases they have more recently a.s.sumed. You shall see the Apostles tried on a charge "of giving false witness in the case of the Resurrection of JESUS;"

(p. 303;) and p.r.o.nounced "not guilty," by one whose "name once commanded universal homage among us;" but who now, (!) with South (!!) and Barrow, (!!!) "excites perhaps only a smile of pity." (p. 265.) You shall be shewn Bentley in his attack on Collins the freethinker, enjoying "rare sport,"--"rat-hunting in an old rick;" and "laying about him in high glee, braining an authority at every blow." (p. 308.) "Coa.r.s.e, arrogant, and abusive, with all Bentley's worst faults of style and temper, this masterly critique is decisive." (p. 307.) And yet, you are not to rejoice! "The 'Discourse of Freethinking' was a small tract published in 1713 by Anthony Collins, a gentleman whose high personal character and general respectability seemed to give a weight to his words, which a.s.suredly they do not carry of themselves." (p. 307.) [Why, the man ought to have been an Essayist and Reviewer!] ... "By 'freethinking'" he does but "mean liberty of thought,--the right of bringing all received opinions whatsoever to the touchstone of reason:"

(p. 307:) [a liberty which has evidently disappeared from English Literature: a right which no man dares any longer exercise under pain of excommunication!] "Collins was not a sharper, and would have disdained practices to which Bentley stooped for the sake of a professorship." (p. 310.) [O high-minded Collins!] "The dirt endeavoured to be thrown on Collins will cleave to the hand that throws it."

(p. 309.) [O dirty Bentley!] And though "Collins's mistakes, mistranslations, misconceptions, and distortions are so monstrous, that it is difficult for us now, forgetful how low cla.s.sical learning had sunk, to believe that they _are_ mistakes, and not wilful errors,"

(p. 308,)--yet "Addison, the pride of Oxford, had done no better. In his 'Essay on the Evidences of Christianity,' Addison 'a.s.signs as grounds for his religious belief, stories as absurd as that of the c.o.c.k-lane ghost, and forgeries as rank as Ireland's 'Vortigern;' puts faith in the lie about the thundering legion; is convinced that Tiberius moved the Senate to admit JESUS among the G.o.ds; and p.r.o.nounces the letter of Agbarus, King of Edessa, to be a record of great authority.'" (p. 307, quoting Macaulay's _Essays_.) All this and much more you shall see.

Remember that it is the history of your immediate forefathers which you will be contemplating,--the morality of the professors of religion during the last century,--"the past history of the theory of Belief in the Church of England!" (p. 329.)

The curtain falls; and now, pray how do you like it? I invite you, in conclusion, to "take the religious literature of the present day, as a whole; and endeavour to make out clearly on what basis Revelation is supposed by it to rest; whether on Authority, on the Inward Light, on Reason, on self-evidencing Scripture, or on the combination of the four, or some of them, and in what proportions." (p. 329.) ... After this, you are at liberty to proceed to read 'Jowett on Inspiration,'--with what appet.i.te you may!

Such is the impression which Mr. Pattison's Essay is calculated to leave behind. That he had no wicked intention in writing it, no one who knows him could for an instant suppose: but _the effect_ of what he has done is certainly to set his reader adrift on a dreary sea of doubt.

Discomfort and dissatisfaction, confusion and dismay, are the prevailing sentiments with which a religious mind, unfortified with learning, will rise from the perusal of the present Essay: while the irreligious man will study it with a sneer of ill-concealed satisfaction. The marks of Mr. Pattison's own better knowledge, (sufficiently evident to the quick eye of one who is aware of the writer's high theological attainments;)--the indications of a truer individual judgment, (discoverable throughout by one who _knows_ the author's private worth, and is himself happily in possession of the clue by which to escape from this tangled labyrinth:)--_these_ escape the common reader. To _him_, all is dreary doubt.

I must perforce deal with Mr. Pattison's labours in a very summary manner. The chief complaint I have to make against him is that he has altogether omitted what, to you and to me, is the _most_ important feature of the century which he professes to describe,--namely, the vast amount of lofty Churchmanship, the unbroken Catholic tradition, which, with no small amount of general short-coming, is to be traced throughout the eighteenth century. To insinuate that the return to Catholic principles _began_ with the publication of the 'Tracts for the Times,'

(p. 259,) in 1833, is simply to insinuate what is _not_ true. But Mr.

Pattison does more than 'insinuate.' He states it openly. "In constructing _Catenae Patrum_," (he says,) "the Anglican closes his list with Waterland or Brett, and leaps at once to 1833." (p. 255.)--Now, since Waterland _died_ in 1740 and Brett in 1743, it is clear that, (according to Mr. Pattison,) a hundred years and upwards have to be cleared _per saltum_: during which the lamp of Religion in these kingdoms had gone fairly out. But how stands the truth? At least _four_ "Catenae Patrum" are given in the "Tracts for the Times[134];" _not one_ of which is closed with Waterland or Brett. On the contrary, in the two former Catenae (beginning with Jewel and Hooker) the names of these supposed 'ultimi Romanorum' occur little more than _half way_!... "Les faits," therefore, (as usual with 'Essayists and Reviewers,')--"_les faits sont contraires_."--It would be enough to cite Beth.e.l.l's 'General View of the Doctrine of Regeneration in Baptism,' which appeared in 1822; and Hugh James Rose's 'Discourses on the Commission and Duties of the Clergy,' which were preached in 1826. But the case against Mr.

Pattison, as I shall presently shew, is abundantly stronger.

In short, to exclude from sight, as this author so laboriously endeavours to do, the Catholic element of the last century and the early part of the present, is extremely unfair. There had _never failed_ in the Church of England a succession of ill.u.s.trious men, who transmitted the Divine fire unimpaired, down to yesterday. Quenched in some places, the flame burned up brightly and beautifully in others. As for the 'Tracts for the Times,' they speedily a.s.sumed a party character: and by the time that ninety-seven of them had appeared, the series was discontinued by the desire of the Diocesan,--who was yet the friend of its authors. The Tracts do not all, by any means, represent Anglican (i.e. Catholic) Theology. They were written by a very few men; while the greatest of those who had materially promoted the Catholic movement out of which they sprang, (_not_ which they _occasioned_,) were dissatisfied with them; would not write in them; kept aloof; and foresaw and foretold what would be the issue of such teaching[135]. And yet, 'Tracts for the Times' did more good than evil, I suppose, on the whole.

The truth is, that in every age, (and the last century forms no exception to the rule,) the history of the Church on Earth has been a _warfare_. Mr. Pattison says contemptuously,--"The current phrases of 'the bulwarks of our faith,' 'dangerous to Christianity,' are but instances of the habitual position in which we a.s.sume ourselves to stand. Even more philosophic minds cannot get rid of the idea that Theology is polemical." (p. 301.) And pray, whom have we to thank, but such writers as Mr. Pattison, that it is so? I am one of the many who at this hour are (unwillingly) neglecting _constructive_ tasks in order to be _destructive_ with Mr. Pattison and his colleagues! So long as Infidelity abounds, our service _must_ be a warfare. 'The Prince of Peace' foretold as much, when He prophesied to His Disciples that it would be found that He had "brought on earth, a sword." As much was typically adumbrated, I suspect, (begging Mr. Jowett's pardon,) when, at the rebuilding of the walls of the Holy City, "they which builded on the wall, and they that bare burdens, with those that laded, every one with one of his hands wrought in the work, and _with the other hand held a weapon_. For the builders, every one had his sword girded by his side, and so builded[136]." May I not add that the unique position which the Church of England has occupied, ever since her great Reformation in respect both of Doctrine and of Discipline three centuries ago,--is of a nature which must inevitably subject her to constant storms? An object of envy to 'Protestant Europe,'--and of hatred to Rome;--exposed to the hostility of the State, (which would trample her under foot, if it dared,)--and viewed with ill-concealed animosity by Dissenters of every cla.s.s;--admitting into her Ministry men of very diverse views,--and restraining them by scarcely any discipline;--allowing perfect freedom, aye, licentiousness of discussion,--and tolerating the expression of almost any opinions,--_except those of Essayists and Reviewers_:--how shall the Church of England fail to adopt 'the bulwarks of the faith'

for one of her current phrases? how not, many a time, deem 'dangerous to Christianity' the speculations of her sons?... Nay, polemics _must_ prevail; if only because, in a certain place, the Divine Speaker already quoted foretells the partial, (if not the _entire_,) obscuration even of true Doctrine, in that pathetic exclamation of His,--"When the Son of Man cometh, shall He find the faith upon the Earth[137]?" ... In the face of all this, it is to confuse and mystify the ordinary reader to draw such a picture of the last century as Mr. Pattison has drawn here.

As dismal a view might be easily taken of the first, of the second, of the third, of the fourth, of the fifth century. What Mr. Newman once designated as "ancient, holy, and happy times," might very easily indeed be so exhibited as to seem times of confusion and discord, blasphemy and rebuke. A discouraging picture might be drawn, (I suppose,) of every age of the Church's history. But in, and by itself, it would never be quite a _true_ picture. For to the eye of Faith there is ever to be descried, amid the hurly-burly of the storm, the Ark of CHRIST'S Church floating peacefully over the troubled waters, and making steadily for that Heavenly haven "where it would be." ... Yes, there is ever some blessed trace discoverable, that this Life of ours is watched over by One whose Name is Love; whether we con the chequered page of History, Ecclesiastical or Civil; or summon to our aid the story of our own narrow experience. From the fierce and fiery opposition, Good is ever found to have resulted; and _that_ Good was _abiding_. Out of the weary conflict ever has issued Peace; and _that_ Peace was of the kind which 'pa.s.seth all understanding;' a Peace which the world cannot give,--no, nor take away. There are abundant traces that in all that has happened to the Church of CHRIST, from first to last, there has been a purpose and a plan!... No one knows this better than Mr. Pattison. No man in Oxford could have drawn out what I have been saying into a convincing reality, better than he, had he yielded to the instincts of a good heart, and directed his fine abilities to their lawful scope.

The character of the last dismal century, Mr. Pattison has drawn with sufficient vividness: but that century armed the Church, (as we shall be presently reminded,) on the side of the "Evidences of Religion;" and if it taught her the insufficiency of such a method, the eighteenth century did its work. Above all, _it produced Bishop Butler_.--The previous century, (the seventeenth,) witnessed the supremacy of fanaticism. It saw the monarchy laid prostrate, and the Church trampled under foot, and the use of the Liturgy prohibited by Act of Parliament.

The "Sufferings of the Clergy" fill a folio volume. But this was the century which produced our great Caroline Divines! From Bp. Andrewes to Bp. Pearson,--_what_ a galaxy of names! Moreover, on the side of the Romish controversy, the seventeenth century supplied the Church's armoury for ever,--Stillingfleet, who died in the year 1699, in a manner closing the strife.--The sixteenth century witnessed the Reformation of Religion, with all its inevitably attendant evils; an unsettled faith,--gross public and private injustice,--an illiterate parochial clergy:--yet how goodly a body of sound Divinity did the controversies of that age call forth! The same century witnessed the rise of Puritanism; but then, it produced Richard Hooker!--What was the character of the century which immediately preceded the Reformation,--the fifteenth?... A tangled web of good and evil has been the Church's history from the very first. The counterpart of what we read of in Eusebius and Socrates is to be witnessed among ourselves at the present day, and will doubtless be witnessed to the end! But then, in days of deepest discouragement, faithful men have never been found wanting to the English Church, (no, nor G.o.d helping her, ever _will_!) who, like the late Hugh James Rose, "when hearts were failing, bade us stir up the gift that was in us, and betake ourselves to our true Mother." Mean wilee, such names as George Herbert and Nicholas Farrar, Ken and Nelson, Leighton and Bishop Wilson, shine through the gloom like a constellation of quiet stars; to which the pilgrim lifts his weary eye, and _feels_ that he is looking up to Heaven!