the rites and ceremonies of the church. The 12th, 29th, 31st and 35th, are altogether omitted. In conformity with the third Article, Tertullian maintained that Christ descended into hell, or to that part of the invisible mansion of departed spirits prepared for the souls of the faithful. He held also, as does the fourth Article, that Christ ascended into heaven with the same body that was crucified and buried. While treating on this subject, our author takes occasion to give a short account of the work De Resurrectione Carnis, written against those heretics who were induced to deny the doctrine chiefly on account of their opinions relating to the evil nature of matter. With the sixth Article, "Tertullian uniformly speaks of the Scriptures as containing the whole rule to which the faith and practice of Christians must be conformed in points necessary to salvation:" and though in his controversies with those who rejected the authority of Scripture, he was compelled to appeal to tradition, it is in such circumstances and with such restrictions as not to afford any sanction to the notions on this subject which have since prevailed in the Roman Catholic church. Tertullian gives no professed catalogue of the canonical books of either the Old or the New Testament, but his quotations include nearly all the books that are now received. He also quotes the book of Enoch and some of the Apocryphal books, and discovers in many of his citations from the canonical Scriptures, the incorrectness which is too generally and too justly chargeable on the ancient Christian Fathers. In the course of the very interesting remarks of the learned and candid Professor in this part of his inquiry, he successfully defends Tertullian on the subject of tradition against the translator of Schleiermacher's Essay on the Gospel of St. Luke, and briefly refutes the theory of the author of a recent work entitled Palæoromaica. Speaking of tradition, he observes,

"If we mistake not the signs of the times, the period is not far distant when the whole controversy between the English and Romish Churches will be revived, and all the points in dispute again brought under review. Of those points none is more important than the question respecting tradition; and it is, therefore, most essential that they who stand forth as the defenders of the Church of England should take a correct and rational view of the subjectthe view, in short, which was taken by our divines at the Reformation. Nothing was more remote from their intention than indiscriminately to condemn all tradition. They knew that as far as external evidence is concerned, the tradition preserved in the Church is the only ground on which the genuineness of the books of Scripture can be established. For though we are not, upon the authority of the Church, bound to receive as Scripture any book which contains internal evidence of its own spuriousness-such as discrepancies, contradictions of other portions of Scripture, idle fables, or precepts at variance with the great principles of morality-yet no internal evidence is sufficient to prove a book to be scripture, of which the reception, by a portion at least of the Church, cannot be traced from the earliest period of its history to the present time. What our Reformers opposed was the notion, that men must, upon the mere authority of tradition, receive, as necessary to salvation, doctrines not contained in Scripture. Against this notion in general, they urged the incredibility of the supposition that the apostles, when unfolding in their writings the principles of the Gospel, should have entirely omitted any doctrines essential to man's salvation. The whole tenor, indeed, of those writings, as well as of our blessed Lord's discourses, runs counter to the supposition that any truths of fundamental importance would be suffered long to rest upon so precarious a foundation as that of oral tradition. With respect to the particular doctrines, in defence of which the Roman Catholics appeal to tradition, our Reformers contended that some were directly at variance with Scripture; and that others, far from being supported by an un

broken chain of tradition from the apostolic age, were of very recent origin, and utterly unknown to the early fathers. Such was the view of this important question taken by our Reformers. In this, as in other instances, they wisely adopted a middle course: they neither bowed submissively to the authority of tradition, nor yet rejected it altogether. We in the present day must tread in their footsteps and imitate their moderation, if we intend to combat our Roman Catholic adversaries with success. We must be careful that, in our anxiety to avoid one extreme, we run not into the other by adopting the extravagant language of those who, not content with ascribing a paramount authority to the Written Word on all points pertaining to eternal salvation, talk as if the Bible-and that too the Bible in our English translation-were, independently of all external aids and evidence, sufficient to prove its own genuineness and inspiration, and to be its own interpreter."

These anticipations will, most probably, be realized, and the defenders of Protestantism, who will have to contend with no weak or unskilful adversaries, will do well to take the Professor's advice. His observations must be allowed to be judicious; even to his concluding remark we give an assent, although it is probable we might differ from him, on a mutual explanation, as to the nature and extent of the external aids which are necessary to the right interpretation of the Bible.

The well-known but much-disputed terms authenticæ literæ, applied by Tertullian to the Apostolic Epistles, are considered by our author as meaning no more than "epistles possessing authority." The interpretation of Berriman, to whom he refers, and of Griesbach, of whose laboured criticism he makes no mention, though he appears to have had it in his mind, who suppose the terms to denote "the genuine unadulterated epistles,"-" genuina et a nullo hæretico depravata exemplaria," is, we apprehend, most correct.

That the two Testaments were not at variance, which is one point in the seventh Article, and the only point noticed by our author, was certainly maintained by Tertullian. The learned Professor, we think, might have bestowed a few remarks upon the sentiments of Tertullian respecting the particular topics included in this article, especially that concerning the pro

mise of a future life to the Jews.

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The eighth Article is entitled, "Of the Three Creeds." The Professor acknowledges that the Apostles' Creed in its present form was not known to Tertullian as a summary of faith; but from a comparison of different passages scattered through his writings, he infers "that the various clauses of which it is composed were generally received as articles of faith by orthodox Christians." They are, indeed, found to agree very nearly with the regula fidei," as exhibited both by Tertullian and Irenæus. There is, however, cause for doubt as to the clauses relating to "the holy Catholic Church," and "the communion of saints." Something like the former may be found in the writings of Tertullian; but they contain no traces of the latter, at least as it is explained by Pearson. How far the doctrines of the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds were known in the second century is considered in the last chapter of this work.

On the subjects of the ninth and several following Articles, relating chiefly to the doctrines of original sin, free-will, grace, justification and predestination, the writings of Tertullian are either silent, or they are chargeable with inconsistencies and contradictions, or they are at variance, certainly not in clear and manifest accordance, with the true exposition of these articles. The learned and ingenious Prelate has endeavoured, indeed, to vindicate the orthodoxy of the Presbyter of Carthage, but, as it appears to us, by no means successfully. He allows that Tertullian did not admit the

total corruption of human nature, which is decidedly the doctrine of the ninth Article, and the ground-work of those that immediately follow; that he speaks of" infancy as the age of innocence," an expression utterly inconsistent with the language of modern orthodoxy; that his later opinions were directly opposed to the doctrine of the Church in its sixteenth Article, on the possibility of falling from grace; that no trace of the doctrine of predestination is to be found in his writings, as the term is defined in the seventeenth Article; and that the question involved in the eighteenth concerning the salvation of virtuous heathens, never presented itself to his mind. To this portion of his inquiries, which certainly does not yield in importance to any other branch of them, the learned Professor has devoted only a very few pages. He has cited a few passages from the writings of Tertullian on the fall of Adam, on the nature and condition of the soul, and on the freedom of the will, the language of which, he thinks, differs little from that of the Articles, and he draws from other parts of his writings inferences favourable, as he imagines, to the object he has in view: yet we suspect he is not completely satisfied with the result. Certainly we are not. He has recourse to the expedient adopted by preceding writers, alleging that "no controversy on these subjects existed in Tertullian's time," and that "we must not expect him to speak with the same precision of language that was used by those who wrote after the Pelagian controversy had arisen." With such an apology we cannot be contented. They only, we are inclined to think, take the right view of this matter, who own that these doctrines, as they are expressed in those summaries of faith which have been drawn up since the Reformation, were unknown to the ancient Fathers, both of the Greek and Latin Church, prior to the time of Augustin. Flacius Illyricus, as quoted by Dr. Lardner, (see Lardner's Works, Vol. IV. p. 61,) complains that "the Christian writers who lived soon after Christ and his Apostles, discoursed like philosophers of the law and its moral precepts, and of the nature of virtue and vice, but were totally ignorant of man's natural corruption, the mysteries of the gospel, and Christ's benefit." Similar acknowledgments and complaints have been made by Basnage and others of later times. The attempt to account for the absolute silence or the inconsistent or indefinite language of the early Christian Fathers, in relation to these subjects, on the ground that no controversy had arisen respecting them, appears to us exceedingly futile, and utterly repugnant to the representations so commonly made of their supreme and vital importance. These doctrines are extolled not merely as the doctrines of the Reformation, but as the essential doctrines of the Gospel; as embracing truths of infinite concern to the whole human race; those truths which it was the great object of Jesus and his apostles to teach. If such be their character, (and in this light they must be regarded by those who receive the Articles of the Established Church,) the ministers of the orthodox church could in no age be ignorant of them; if such be their importance, and such it must be if they be true, they could not fail to be openly professed and fully developed from the very commencement of the Christian era; and if extensive and correct views, distinct and precise language respecting them might be expected to distinguish one period more than another, that must surely have been the period nearest to the times of the apostles. If these doctrines now constitute the most valuable portion of the Christian system, if they are absolutely essential to salvation, they must have been so esteemed from the first, and must have formed the principal topics of public instruction in the days of Tertullian, as they do in our own.

And if we consider the nature of these doctrines, the passages in the sacred writings on which they are founded, the topics of dispute between the orthodox and the heretics of the three first centuries, and the constitution of the human mind, we must feel assured that had these doctrines been professed by the earliest Fathers, they could not have failed to give occasion for controversy before the time of Augustin and Pelagius. They have been subjects of debate and contention ever since that period, and had they been previously taught, it would not have been reserved for the British monk to excite attention to them, or to lead those who maintained them to greater precision of language than they had hitherto employed. The truth we apprehend to be, that these doctrines owe not only the precision of language in which they are supposed now to be expressed, but even their origin, to the successive controversies that have been agitated since the days of the Bishop of Hippo; and that the unsuccessful attempts of the learned Professor and of all who have preceded him, to discover those doctrines in the writings of the early Christian Fathers, are the natural result of seeking after what did not then exist.

The nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first Articles relate to the government of the church, already considered by the Professor in the fourth chapter. As to the subjects of the twenty-second Article, Tertullian is claimed both by the Church of Rome and the Church of England. He maintains something like the doctrine of purgatory, alludes more than once to the practice of praying and offering for the dead, and of making oblations in honour of martyrs, but gives no countenance to the doctrine of pardons, or of the invocations of saints. In agreement with the twenty-third Article, he considered no one at liberty to preach the word of God without a regular commission, but allowed laymen to administer baptism in cases of necessity. That the service of the church was not performed in a tongue not understood by the people, the subject to which the twenty-fourth Article relates, is indisputable. He admits strictly only two sacraments, according to the twenty-fifth Article. The subject of the twenty-sixth Article is not any where noticed by him. The five following Articles are deferred or omitted. That the clergy were not obliged to live in celibacy, which is agreeable to the doctrine of the thirty-second Article, must, the Professor observes, be admitted by every person who has perused the writings of Tertullian. Excommunication, the subject of the next Article, in the age of Tertullian, implied only an exclusion from religious exercises. The lawfulness of war, in the case of Christians, the only point in the thirty-seventh Article to which any passage in the writings of Tertullian could be expected to apply, is denied by him. He has nothing concerning a community of goods among Christians, against which the thirty-eighth Article is directed:"but with respect to oaths," the subject of the thirty-ninth, "he appears to have understood our Saviour's injunction, Swear not at all,' literally, and to have thought that an oath was not under any circumstances allowable."—P. 366.

6

Having thus gone through the Articles of the Established Church, and laid before the reader such passages of Tertullian's works as appeared to throw any light upon them, the author briefly compares the result of his inquiries with the account given by Mosheim of the doctrines of the church in the second century. This affords him an opportunity of confirming the major part of the statements of the historian, of correcting some particular inac curacies, and of vindicating the character of Tertullian from some charges

brought against him both by Mosheim and by Barbeyrac, to whose contro→ versy with Cellier on the merits of the early Fathers as moral writers, the historian alludes. Our limits forbid us to notice this part of the learned Professor's labours any further than to say, that it is conducted with the learning, judgment and impartiality which characterize almost every page of the work. (To be continued.)

ART. IV. Observations on the History and Doctrine of Christianity, &c. By William Mitford, Esq.

[Continued from page 217.]

THE author begins the Second Part of his Observations in Sect. I. with some remarks upon the "State of the World when Christ was born," designed to shew that the period of his birth was the fittest that could have been chosen for the purposes of his mission. We think it likely that Mr. Mitford was unacquainted with another historian's essay in the form of a sermon upon this subject. His mode both of thinking and of writing appears to great disadvantage, when the subject compels us to compare him with so judicious a reasoner and so elegant a writer as Dr. Robertson.

In Sect. II., entitled "Of the Evangelists," Mr. Mitford suggests some unborrowed thoughts on the inspiration of the sacred writers, which, though containing nothing that is not familiar to theologians, deserve to be extracted as an exposition of the ingenuous mind of the learned writer:

"That the whole of the Old Testament, and of the New, has been written under authority or control of the Holy Ghost, appears to have been so generally held by Christian writers and teachers, that, with my small reading, I have not learnt whether it has been controverted by any. That it is derived from very early times of the church I doubt not; but, so it has been assumed as undeniable, by authors whose works have fallen in my way, that on what it is founded remains to me unknown. Habituated from instruction in earliest years, and from observation, ever since, of the reception of the opinion by writers and teachers whom I most respected, I have been struck, not till I set myself to methodize and note in writing my thoughts on the subject, with observing that not only none of the evangelists claim such authority, but, on the contrary, two of them seem virtually to disclaim it; Luke declaring that he received his information from those who had attended Christ from the beginning of his ministry, and John twice asserting, as authority for what he wrote, that he bore record of what he saw, and that he knew his record to be true.*

"I the less scruple so far to express myself on this interesting but difficult subject, (difficult all the ablest ecclesiastics who have written with any view to controvert objections shew they have felt it,) as it appears to me that the tes timony which the Gospels themselves, as they have been transmitted to us, afford, combined with what the Old Testament offers, is sufficient for esta blishing their title to be the ground of the Christian religion; hardly wanting support from our assurance of the acceptance they obtained on their first publication, and the extent of respect ever continued to them, though the support these afford is powerful. Inspiration, frequently mentioned in Scripture, is so little explained that it remains a mystery. Nevertheless, though not knowing what it is, it seems to me quite consonant to human reason to

"Luke i.; John xix, 35, and xxi. 25.”