in expressing one's hatred of such carnal and worldly-wise views; which, except for our inveterate prepossessions, must carry with them, one would think, their own condemnation in the eyes of all serious and religious men. Still the 'Evangelical' rule of faith, though far removed from such lamentable rationalism, has its own tendency to ill effects of no ordinary magnitude, and contributes in no slight degree to that habit of self-deification specified in the last paragraph. The belief that individual study of the Bible, with prayer, will lead by Divine promise to Christian truth,-considering the peculiar structure of the Sacred Volume, which is so very far indeed from forcing its true meaning on those who may be unprepared or unwilling to receive it,-this belief seems a certain method of still further obstructing the avenues, by which new religious truths might otherwise find access to the mind. Here, as in the former instance, if such views be admitted, the whole company of believers become, if I may use such a phrase, so many independent centres of truth, when they should be rather distinct atoms tending by the force of gravitation to the One Only Centre. For we find by experience, as might have been safely predicted à priori, that the vast majority of Bible Christians,' day after day, rise from the perusal of their chapter of the Sacred Volume, holding the very same religious sentiments with which they began it; we find them reaping no other doctrinal fruit from its habitual study than this, that opinions which are in untenable intellectually (over and above its moral odiousness) is this last strange and extravagant theory. If any one has preserved up to this period a floating idea, that personal study of the Fathers is capable of becoming an available rule of faith to the private Christian, by which he can test the formularies of his own Church, or criticise those of other Churches, this volume and these notes (Mr. Newman's edition of St. Athanasius's Doctrinal Treatises) must, we imagine, undeceive him. To think of an ordinary person having to examine for himself the question, how far St. Athanasius's doctrine agrees with St. Hilary's and St. Basil's, and how far it is the legitimate development of Ante-Nicene statements, (in many particulars so different); and on what principle the various Eastern councils were not ecumenical and authoritative between the Nicene and the Constantinopolitan, but these were: and how far St. Athanasius's severe language towards the Arians was from the accident of his position and the habit of his time, or how far it claims our deference, &c., &c.' ( On St. Athanasius,' p. 412, note.)

reality the offspring of their education or other preconceived bias, obtain an adventitious sanctity and importance in their minds, as being supposed to flow directly from the Word of God, brought home to their souls by His promised blessing.

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And the probability of this will be still more plainly seen, when we consider what I myself most undoubtedly believe to be the method really appointed by God, for discerning in the Bible the principal doctrines, which, by His Providence, it contains. No single man, (I would most earnestly maintain,) however wise, however intellectually gifted, however religious, can really, even in a tolerable degree, understand the text of Scripture, so far as to obtain from it its very choicest and most valuable treasures; none can 'penetrate, and as it were become diffused throughout the recesses of God's Word, so as to apprehend the whole counsel of God contained in it, unless it be the whole Church, the temple of that Spirit" Who searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God:" nor have ecclesiastical statements and decisions on the subject, weight, or authority, except as the formal expressions and results of this collective contemplation. According to that divine scheme, which we in England through our fathers' sins have for the present forfeited, one and the same doctrine in essentials was to be taught by an external living authority to all members of the Church; and in proportion as an individual Christian should receive and act upon this doctrine, in connection with a generally strict and blameless life, and should study with humble reverence the text of Scripture, he would obtain a conviction of their absolute harmony and agreement, incomparably deeper than could be gathered by any collation of texts, and most utterly beyond the power of external arguments in the opposite direction. Hence it follows, that in our own degraded condition, our best chance of discerning the precious and wonderful truths, stored up within the bosom of Scripture, will be not the isolated and unbiassed study of its pages, but the very contrary to preserve watchfully and realise laboriously

• On Arnold's Sermons,' p. 325.

X

the doctrines we have already learned, to look out with wistful and anxious eyes for an external guide, and to put ourselves, as far as possible, in communion with the thoughts and feelings of holy men throughout the Christian world. It would not be necessary, on any other subject or with any other opponents, to state explicitly that I am not for a moment impugning the great and important doctrine, that the Holy Spirit Alone teaches Christian truth, but only speaking of the means whereby He teaches it. P

VII. Another observation naturally follows in this place, which may be expressed in words I have used in the British Critic. So long as [the Lutheran] system had undivided sway in the religious world, so long as those who aimed at something higher than the mere careless performance of outward and social duties, who thirsted for a life of more extended prayer and more spiritual contemplation, so long as these, speaking generally, acquiesced almost as a matter of course in this scheme of religion, doctrinal discussion was of little importance. . [The disciples of this system] fix their spiritual gaze not on him who is without them, but on the supposed marks of His presence within them: on those supposed proofs of a renewed heart, which satisfied them both of the soundness of their creed and the sufficient rectitude of their conduct.' Hence not only is their apprehension so vague, fluctuating, and unstable of other doctrines, whether belonging to natural or to the Christian religion, but even (a greater matter of surprise) so comparatively little of attachment to the person of our Lord, or to the thought of His sufferings, is generally found in their writings; though from their professions, indeed, one might suppose that they engrossed all such feelings to themselves, and that Catholics have no heart, save for outward ceremonies or the worship of Saints. But let us consider how certain a fact it is in

For a fuller account of the mode in which, as appears to me, Holy Scripture may be expected under our present circumstances to lead forward rightly disposed Christians towards a reception of the full truth, I may be allowed to refer to the article, 'On Whately's Essays.' p. 286, and On Goode,' pp. 54— 58.

'On St. Athanasius,' p. 391.

human nature, that love for an individual displays itself in an anxious and eager earnestness of curiosity about all his ways and actions; we love to hear and dwell upon the thought of his words, his deeds, his very gestures; we have a relative and subordinate love to all which has come closely into contact with him. He then, who really loves his Lord, will be expected to make the Four Gospels his principal study and delight; to have engraven on his heart even the little peculiarities (if it be right so to speak) and the minute subordinate circumstances, but much more the general tone and bearing, of His manner of life on earth. Now it forcibly illustrates the substantial truth of the accusation so often brought against the Evangelicals,' that it is not Christ whom they love and worship, but the supposed signs of love for Him which they try to recognise within them, when we observe how little is the picture [I] just now drew a true image of their habit of mind. It is not where Christ is mentioned in Scripture, but where faith is mentioned, that they are active and awake and dwell with interest on the inspired page; it is not He whom they profess to love, but the (supposed) absence of self-righteousness, which would appear (as far as outward signs can shew) to engross their regard and affection.' To what single work can they point, written by one of their number, which exhibits, within any assignable degree of approximation, such loving and reverent contemplation of the details of our Lord's life and passion, as is seen in multitudes of Catholic Works, like Father Thomas's 'Sufferings of Christ,' St. Alphonsus's 'L'Amour des Ames,' St. Bonaventure's 'Life of Christ,' St. Ignatius's Spiritual Exercises,' &c., &c.? True love forgets self in the thought of the object; they forget the Object in the thought of self. And as to the other mark of which [I] spoke, the love, from thought of Him, of all which has come near Him, so far are they from even professing a tender reverence for her, in whose bosom He lay, to whom He approached with such ineffable proximity, that they even (O shocking thought!) denounce such reverence as Antichristian.

'Think too, as a further instance of this lack of sensitiveness for his honour, that the writer who by common consent is accounted the most orthodox of living Dissenters, and who certainly at one time enjoyed a very high reputation within the English Church, has been found to sanction and praise the [language] of Mr. Abbott, who in speaking of him, says that "the spectacle of this deserted and defenceless sufferer, far exceeds that of Napoleon, or even that of Regulus," and that from "delicacy he refrained from speaking of (His death) to those who were to reap its fruits." And a divine enjoying no less degree of respect and confidence in the "orthodox Protestant" world than Dr. Chalmers (as indeed who can speak of him without true respect?) has been founds ... to realize so little who it was that lived on earth and died on the Cross for us men, as to call it a proud thing for the religion He died to found, that it was embraced by Sir Isaac Newton.'

In these passages, I have spoken as though this exceeding blindness to religious truths were altogether the immediate result of their habit of unhealthy self-inspection: whereas it partly results from an intermediate result of the same habit; I mean from their great deficiency, to which I have so often adverted, in moral and religious discipline. For it is a truth of natural religion, that only in proportion to our attainments in holy obedience, can we receive into our minds any just and accurate representation of spiritual realities; and hence those who are not really zealous and careful in aiming, by all practicable means, at this obedience, live in the dim twilight caused by a most inadequate refraction of Gospel rays, when they might otherwise enjoy the full effulgence of their blaze.

It may be as well here to allude to another instance, which

I have omitted here a harsh expression; nor can I mention Mr. Abbott's works at all in terms of reprobation, without alluding to that interesting letter, sent by Mr. Newman to the English Churchman,' on the subject of his visit to Littlemore. I trust he would not be pained by the tone of my remarks as they now stand.

* See British Critic for July, 1839, p. 244.

On Goode,' pp. 79, 80.