one taken in Scotland. Every one knows that the Scotch universities are by no means destitute of able and diligent Professors, and that they daily contribute to the republic of letters their proportion of eminent men one of them in particular, as a school for one faculty, has obtained a superiority over the English universities which it would betray great partiality to pass over in silence-a superiority which has already excited, and will, doubtless, more and more every day, an honourable and successful emulation. Why, then, is not a degree taken in Edinburgh or Glasgow as creditable as one taken in Oxford or Cambridge? Plainly for this reason, because it does not imply a regular education; it does not necessarily indicate that the graduate has resided in his university, had a fair opportunity before him of prosecuting his studies with advantage under her direction and assistance, and given some specimen of his improvement. Thus do academical honours, conferred indiscriminately by diplomas and dispensations, lose all their value in the opinion of the world.'* But the writer was not aware that degrees in Arts in the Scotch universities always implied a regular education, and were never, nor have they ever since been, conferred without residence for at least three years; and although the examination for the degree has varied in strictness from time to time, yet it has always been as severe as that in the English universities; and either from the rigour of these rules as to residence and examinations, or from a certain contempt for forms, perhaps inherent in the Presbyterian character,† the number of those who take their degrees in Arts in Scotland, has always borne a small proportion to the number of those who have received their education there. ‡ * Considerations on the Residence usually Required for Degrees in the University of Oxford. Oxford, 1772, pp. 11, 12, 13. + See M'Crie's Life of Melville, vol. ii., p. 314; and the Doctor's remarks on this passage-1616. His Majesty directed the Dean of Winchester to go to St Andrews, and that those who were found qualified for degrees should preach a sermon before the Lords at Edinburgh, in a hood agreeing to their degree.' What was this hood at St Andrews? In the British Magazine,' vol. 20, p. 322, it is asked, What is the practice in the Scottish Episcopal Church, as to academical distinctions, and the wearing hoods over surplices? From 1787 to 1800 no degree in Arts was taken at Edinburgh, where the examination was most severe. LETTERS AGAINST SECESSION TO ROME. LETTER V. August 23, 1848. MY DEAR-I have this morning received your small packet containing your letter, book, and other documents,-some of which I now return, and with your sanction will only retain for a short time the small volume entitled The Catholic Christian Instructed.' My object in retaining this last-mentioned work is, that I may be enabled to make a brief comment on several of the more important errors which form the doctrine and practice of the Romish Church, which I will transmit to you in a series of letters, each embracing some particular point in dispute between us and the Romish communion, and which will be continued from time to time, with as little delay as the nature of my arrangements for the ensuing few weeks will admit. I intend proceeding to London probably next week, but shall make it my endeavour to save you, by any exertions in my power, from taking the deplorable step on which, to my utter astonishment and regret, you seem to be resolving. Meanwhile, as I am unable to verify from the original works the extracts from translations of some of the Fathers which you have sent me, as I have not copies of the originals by me at present, I return them with a few remarks upon each, which will explain their true meaning in most instances, and my opinions generally relative to the individual sentiments of any Christian writers in whatever period of the Church, which have not become the doctrine of the Church through the medium of her general councils previous to the partition of the Roman Empire, or the subsequent division of the Eastern and Western Branches of the Church. Your reiterated recurrence to detached passages from the writings of the Fathers obliges me once more to repeat what I have several times expressed, and must therefore be excused for doing so again, that there have been two most important, nay fundamental, principles adopted by our Reformers, and which are founded on common reason as well as common respect for the Sacred Volume, as the origin of our faith, and the sole standard by which all doctrines or practices must be tried, by which, whoever be their authors among the Fathers or others, they must be accepted or condemned. The first of these fundamental principles, and consequently rules for our direction, is, that no individual writer's opinion can be received as the sentiments and witness of the whole Church, much less any statement selected at random or designedly from their writings, and severed from its connection with his general argument as correct and acknowledged opinions. Nor, however numerous may be their followers in the adoption of the same sentiments, when they appear to be any particular author's decided opinions; or however generally such opinions may prevail from other causes, they are not to be admitted as the voice of the Church, even though they have not been in all instances authoritatively condemned, unless, as I have before observed, these individual opinions (altering as we find them from time to time, till in latter ages admitted as full blown errors by local Synods after the division of the church) have been authoritatively acknowledged and decreed by the universal Church by a general Council, as doctrines and practices more or less essential to the Christian faith and system. The second of these fundamental principles and rules is, that by which the authority of the Church, thus represented by her general councils (when such general councils could be assembled), is defined and restricted, and which is so well marked and declared in the 20th Article of our Church to be the inspired word of God. 'The Church,' says that Article, hath power to decree rites or ceremonies, and authority in controversies of faith: and yet it is not lawful for the Church to ordain anything that is contrary to God's Word written, neither may it so expound one place of Scripture that it be repugnant to another. Wherefore, although the Church be a witness and keeper of Holy Writ, yet as it ought not to decree anything against the same, so besides the same ought it not to enforce anything to be believed for necessity of salvation.' And the limitation of the authority of general councils is equally distinctly defined in the 21st Article: General Councils may not be gathered together without the commandment and will of princes. And when they be gathered together (forasmuch as they be an assembly of men, whereof all are not governed with the Spirit and Word of God), they may err, and sometimes have erred, even in things pertaining unto God; wherefore, things ordained by them as necessary to salvation, have neither strength nor authority, unless it may be declared that they be taken out of Holy Scripture.' These two fundamental rules will be more clearly demonstrated to be both reasonable and founded in truth, when I come to consider the subject of the infallibility of the Church in the series of letters which I pur pose to write on the more prominent errors of the Romish communion. : I am led, however, before closing this note, to dispose somewhat summarily of the very meagre pamphlet or tract of the Roman Catholic Institute, which you have sent and requested me to examine, entitled, "The Catholic Scripturist; or, The Plea of the Roman Catholics showing the Scriptures to hold the Roman Faith in above Forty of the Chief Controversies now under Debate.' This pamphlet professes to discuss three of these points of controversy, viz., the infallibility of the Church—the claim of the Pope to be the chief pastor of the Church, as the successor of St Peter-and the denial of a very general opinion in favour of the Pope's being Antichrist. But as I shall have hereafter occasion to consider in its own proper place, the two first of these particulars when commenting on Dr Challoner's little work, to which I have referred, I will only at present make a few remarks on the last of these points, to which no reference is made in the Catholic Christian Instructed,' and dismiss the two former, whose defence does not seem to have been very judiciously confided to the writer of the pamphlet in question. If Dr Challoner's defence of these errors be not more satisfactory, I have only to add, that there can be little difficulty in supporting the most monstrous or absurd proposition that ever was propounded, by arguments or passages of Scripture the most strained or irrelevant, to the subject under discussion. As regards the prevailing notion, that the Papal system (not any individual Pope or individual) is the Antichrist of Scripture, I must again refer you to the very learned commentary on the Apocalypse which I mentioned to you in my last letter.* In that elaborate work you will obtain a satisfactory reply to all the objections which have been offered in this tract of the Catholic Institute;' and on the delusive explanations which the writer of that pamphlet ad * I was of opinion till lately, or rather inclined to the belief, that the Antichrist of Scripture was to be the head of a new form of rationalistic infidelity, now rapidly revealing itself in the world. But a perusal of Mr Elliott's work, entitled 'Hora Apocalypticæ,' has very much shaken this view, and inclined me most reluctantly to the opinion, that though rationalistic infidelity is revealing itself every hour fearfully, both at home and abroad, still, that the predictions of the Apocalypse and Daniel refer to a long, lasting, and dominant corruption of Christianity, whose duration is to be measured by years rather than days. The question is, however, an open one, but one of much interest and moment in the present day. vances, I very much fear that, if he is a writer of the present age, he will find himself not very prudent in relying, any more than he discovers much knowledge of emblematic interpretation. He will find, if he gives Mr Elliott's treatise an impartial and thoughtful examination, that the awful predictions of Scripture in reference to Antichrist, were neither designed to refer to one solitary individual, however distinguished for infidelity or practical wickedness, nor have been, nor can be, fulfilled by a short period of duration, however signally blasphemous and atrocious. He will find that the number of his name,' agreeably, too, to the explanation of most of the Fathers, has reference to a dynasty or power (supposed by them to import the Latin or Imperial dynasty of the Roman Empire), and not the name of an individual, whose number, in Latin or Greek numerals, had no reference, as he thinks, to an epoch or period of time in the Christian dispensation. He will find that his superficial acquaintance with scriptural and prophetical phraseology has deceived him respecting the period or time of the end,' i.e., progressive advancement of the final dispensation, when the Antichrist of Scripture was designed to be revealed. He will receive from the treatise in question a more true and satisfactory solution of the duration of the Antichristian reign (as also the real signification of the name Antichrist, as a substitute or vicegerent, in the first instance, of the Saviour, as well as the opponent of our Lord), and will be initiated into the mysterious meaning of the expression, 'a time, and times, and half a time,' employed by the prophet Daniel and in the Apocalypse, as having a reference to a lengthened period of years, rather than of a shorter one of as many days. He will be made to understand what the Spirit of God designed by his two witnesses which were to prophesy in sackcloth for the prolonged period predicted by the angel to St John. The true locality of the chief seat of Antichrist, as also the nature of the miracles which he was to perform,— the tyrannical restrictions which he was to impose on his opponents, -and finally his appropriation of the attributes of Deity, will, on a careful examination, be found fully explained in the 'Horæ Apocalyptica' of Mr Elliott, as it also does describe the sudden and entire destruction which will shortly befall the Romish Church, as, under the mask and garb of Christianity, an apostate for ages from the Christian faith. Such, I lament to say, is my own impression of the downfall of Romish superstition; and I admit this melancholy view with the |