gestions which the legally constituted guardians of the Church had made,— in vain had they expressed their readiness to accept the already over-loaded Bill, even with the addition of further restrictions to any extent which did not render it impracticable as a measure of relief. Bigotry again successfully gnashed her teeth, and by a majority of four proxies the Bill was rejected in the Upper House without going into a detailed examination of its provisions. Such is the history of this measure, and we are much mistaken if every man of common candour will not readily admit the absence of indirect views in the course which Unitarians have pursued on this subject, and that they have kept their eye steadily fixed on their grievance, evincing a sincere desire to obtain its redress with the least possible sacrifice of the general system of law. That the frequent discussions of the subject must have opened the eyes of many to the impolicy of blending functions purely civil with the religious duties of the Clergy of the Establishment, we can readily believe; and we sincerely hope that Nonconformists in general will, ere long, be completely emancipated from any necessity of coming into contact with a body, too many of whose members express contempt for every thing relating to Dissenters, save their money. We must not omit to notice the remedy suggested by the Presbyter in the place of the measures hitherto proposed. "It is this: that we should acknowledge the validity of marriage contracts, entered into before a civil magistrate, according to certain forms prescribed by Act of Parliament." With respect to the plan itself, if there be any thing remarkable, it is not its novelty in the abstract, but that it is founded upon a distinction which, however evident, so many politicians in and out of the Church contrive to overlook. That the marriage contract stands high in the scale of religious as well as moral obligations, we are most forward to admit; but from this admission, to argue the duty of the State, as such, to prescribe a religious ceremonial, is as absurd as it would be to contend for the interposition of a religious rite in every important contract between man and man, because its violation would be an offence against religious principle. With the desultory and not very perspicuous historical discussion into which our author enters, and his distinctions between the sufficiency of a contract in foro civili and one in foro conscientiæ, (from which an uncharitable critic might infer, that a Churchman's conscience is not to be bound by the former,) and between "the extreme of Popery, which improperly has made matrimony a sacrament," and the more accurate and well-defined notion of our Protestant Church, which only considers it "as a holy estate entered into by a religious ordinance," we have no concern farther than to observe, that the Presbyter perpetually confounds the very distinguishable ideas of "religious ordinance" and "religious obligation," like a Churchman of ancient breed. We feel obliged to him for introducing to more extended notice the act of the Protectorate, alias the Grand Rebellion, for regulating the solemnization of marriage and the registration of marriages, Lirths, and burials, which we concur with him in hoping may be found useful in supplying hints." That it would better comport with the dignity of the Establishment to permit its ministers to act as mere registrars of the acts of a lay-magistrate, (as the Presbyter suggests,) than that they should be the functionaries for receiving as well as recording the vows of the married parties, (as Lord Liverpool recommended,) we are utterly at a loss to understand; but we are not much in the dark as to the motive for wishing the banns to be proclaimed in the market-place, and higher fces to be imposed upon licences in London 66 and large towns. Yet our author exceedingly disdains the idea of persecuting error indirectly, and appears to lament that "our different acts of toleration have been too often granted, not upon any broad principle, but from mere motives of expediency." (P. 27.) We understand that the Committee of Civil Rights has determined to revert, in a great degree, to the simplicity of the original proposition, and to present a Bill authorizing the parties to appear before the parish minister in the church or vestry, at his option, and after contracting marriage in the solemn and expressive form prescribed by the act of the Commonwealth, so as to avoid the most distant pretence of interfering with the Liturgy, to have the marriage registered upon payment of the usual fees. Banns and licences to continue upon the footing of the general law. That the Bill so altered will please all parties in the Church, past experience forbids us to hope; but recent events justify the expectation that Unitarians, with an admitted grievance, will not be again thrust out of parliament upon a series of inconsistent and ill-disguised pretences, that their Bill is too comprehensive, or too partial-that it provides too little or too much for religious celebration-that it asks the established priest to mutilate his forms, or that it sets up a rival body of religious officers-or, to crown the whole, that the petitioners are, by the common law, aliens from civil as well as religious privilege, and, therefore, ought to be compelled to bend the knee to the God of Trinitarians. CRITICAL NOTICES. ART. V.—Les Jésuites Modernes, &c. Modern Jesuits. By the Abbé Martial Marcet de la Roche-Arnaud. 8vo. pp. 200. Paris, 1826. THE revival of the order of the Jesuits in France under the restored dynasty of the Bourbons, has produced a very powerful sensation in the public mind. Their insidious and arbitrary proceed ings, countenanced as they are understood to be by the court and the ministry, have been viewed with serious alarm by a large portion of the enlightened population, and the press has teemed with publications which were intended to weaken or subvert their influence by exposing their principles, and holding out their practices to general contempt and abhorrence. Among the works of this class the "Modern Jesuits" of the Abbé de la Roche-Arnaud has attained pre-eminent celebrity. The author is a young ecclesiastic, who may be considered in some respects as a spy in the enemy's camp. He had mixed much with the society, but whether with a view of becoming a member does not appear; and he avails himself of the knowledge he had acquired to reveal secrets, which would have been sought in vain from a faithful adherent to the Company of Jesus. His book has obtained a most rapid and extensive circulation; and it forms one, if not the principal, of those works which led to the late famous project for restraining the liberty of the press in France, which its sage authors have lately been compelled to abandon. In an address to the reader the Abbé gives a short view of the present constitution of the Society of Jesuits, specifying the principal officers, and describing their functions. The Chief is called the General, who is deemed amenable only to Jesus Christ or to the Pope. The next in rank are his assistants, who have the charge of provinces, and divide among them all the countries of the earth. Next follows the Provincial, who is the chief of a province, and, like the General, has his council, consisting of his Secretary-General, Procurator General, &c. Every college has its Rector, who is sometimes styled the Master-Father, having also his council of assistants under different denominations. Every house has besides its Prefect in spiritual things, to whom alone the members of the society are to make confession, gestions which the legally constituted guardians of the Church had made,— in vain had they expressed their readiness to accept the already over-loaded Bill, even with the addition of further restrictions to any extent which did not render it impracticable as a measure of relief. Bigotry again successfully gnashed her teeth, and by a majority of four proxies the Bill was rejected in the Upper House without going into a detailed examination of its provisions. Such is the history of this measure, and we are much mistaken if every man of common candour will not readily admit the absence of indirect views in the course which Unitarians have pursued on this subject, and that they have kept their eye steadily fixed on their grievance, evincing a sincere desire to obtain its redress with the least possible sacrifice of the general system of law. That the frequent discussions of the subject must have opened the eyes of many to the impolicy of blending functions purely civil with the religious duties of the Clergy of the Establishment, we can readily believe; and we sincerely hope that Nonconformists in general will, ere long, be completely emancipated from any necessity of coming into contact with a body, too many of whose members express contempt for every thing relating to Dissenters, save their money. We must not omit to notice the remedy suggested by the Presbyter in the place of the measures hitherto proposed. "It is this: that we should acknowledge the validity of marriage contracts, entered into before a civil magistrate, according to certain forms prescribed by Act of Parliament." With respect to the plan itself, if there be any thing remarkable, it is not its novelty in the abstract, but that it is founded upon a distinction which, however evident, so many politicians in and out of the Church contrive to overlook. That the marriage contract stands high in the scale of religious as well as moral obligations, we are most forward to admit; but from this admission, to argue the duty of the State, as such, to prescribe a religious ceremonial, is as absurd as it would be to contend for the interposition of a religious rite in every important contract between man and man, because its violation would be an offence against religious principle. With the desultory and not very perspicuous historical discussion into which our author enters, and his distinctions between the sufficiency of a contract in foro civili and one in foro conscientiæ, (from which an uncharitable critic might infer, that a Churchman's conscience is not to be bound by the former,) and between "the extreme of Popery, which improperly has made matrimony a sacrament," and the more accurate and well-defined notion of our Protestant Church, which only considers it "as a holy estate entered into by a religious ordinance," we have no concern farther than to observe, that the Presbyter perpetually confounds the very distinguishable ideas of "religious ordinance" and " religious obligation," like a Churchman of ancient breed. We feel obliged to him for introducing to more extended notice the act of the Protectorate, alias the Grand Rebellion, for regulating the solemnization of marriage and the registration of marriages, births, and burials, which we concur with him in hoping "may be found useful in supplying hints." That it would better comport with the dignity of the Establishment to permit its ministers to act as mere registrars of the acts of a lay-magistrate, (as the Presbyter suggests,) than that they should be the functionaries for receiving as well as recording the vows of the married parties, (as Lord Liverpool recommended,) we are utterly at a loss to understand; but we are not much in the dark as to the motive for wishing the banns to be proclaimed in the market-place, and higher fees to be imposed upon licences in London and large towns. Yet our author exceedingly disdains the idea of persecuting error indirectly, and appears to lament that "our different acts of toleration have been too often granted, not upon any broad principle, but from mere motives of expediency." (P. 27.) We understand that the Committee of Civil Rights has determined to revert, in a great degree, to the simplicity of the original proposition, and to present a Bill authorizing the parties to appear before the parish minister in the church or vestry, at his option, and after contracting marriage in the solemn and expressive form prescribed by the act of the Commonwealth, so as to avoid the most distant pretence of interfering with the Liturgy, to have the marriage registered upon payment of the usual fees. Banns and licences to continue upon the footing of the general law. That the Bill so altered will please all parties in the Church, past experience forbids us to hope; but recent events justify the expectation that Unitarians, with an admitted grievance, will not be again thrust out of parliament upon a series of inconsistent and ill-disguised pretences, that their Bill is too comprehensive, or too partial-that it provides too little or too much for religious celebration-that it asks the established priest to mutilate his forms, or that it sets up a rival body of religious officers-or, to crown the whole, that the petitioners are, by the common law, aliens from civil as well as religious privilege, and, therefore, ought to be compelled to bend the knee to the God of Trinitarians. CRITICAL NOTICES. ART. V.-Les Jésuites Modernes, &c. Modern Jesuits. By the Abbé Martial Marcet de la Roche-Arnaud. 8vo. pp. 200. Paris, 1826. THE revival of the order of the Jesuits in France under the restored dynasty of the Bourbons, has produced a very powerful sensation in the public mind. Their insidious and arbitrary proceed ings, countenanced as they are understood to be by the court and the ministry, have been viewed with serious alarm by a large portion of the enlightened population, and the press has teemed with publications which were intended to weaken or subvert their influence by exposing their principles, and holding out their practices to general contempt and abhorrence. Among the works of this class the "Modern Jesuits" of the Abbé de la Roche-Arnaud has attained pre-eminent celebrity. The author is a young ecclesiastic, who may be considered in some respects as a spy in the enemy's camp. He had mixed much with the society, but whether with a view of becoming a member does not appear; and he avails himself of the knowledge he had acquired to reveal secrets, which would have been sought in vain from a faithful adherent to the Company of Jesus. His book has obtained a most rapid and extensive circulation; and it forms one, if not the principal, of those works which led to the late famous project for restraining the liberty of the press in France, which its sage authors have lately been compelled to abandon. In an address to the reader the Abbé gives a short view of the present constitution of the Society of Jesuits, specifying the principal officers, and describing their functions. The Chief is called the General, who is deemed amenable only to Jesus Christ or to the Pope. The next in rank are his assistants, who have the charge of provinces, and divide among them all the countries of the earth. Next follows the Provincial, who is the chief of a province, and, like the General, has his council, consisting of his Secretary-General, Procurator General, &c. Every college has its Rector, who is sometimes styled the Master-Father, having also his council of assistants under different denominations. Every house has besides its Prefect in spiritual things, to whom alone the members of the society are to make confession, touches that way were found in the notebook which by chance escaped the fire. I have heard him speak much of the importance of that controversy; and he was so far a prophet as to declare he thought that heresy would soon break out and insult Christianity itself. I do not remember he discovered any disposition to attack the Papists or sectaries, though he had considered them well; but he might think there were labourers enough at that oar." "And he had a dread lest this little note book, of which I have given an account, might happen to stray and fall into unknown persons' hands, who possibly might misconstrue his meaning. In contemplation of which contingent, he wrote upon it this pleasant imprecation: I beshrew his heart, that gathers my opinion from any thing he finds wrote here." ART. VII.-An Historical View of the Plea of Tradition as maintained by the Church of Rome. By George Miller, D. D. 8vo. London. THIS tract arises out of that controversy between the Catholic and Protestant Churches into which the discussion of the political questions between them has, as we think, most unfortunately and injuriously deviated. Dr. Miller's design of investigating the plea of tradition in favour of doctrines and practices, as a question of history, is one which at any other time would be felt by all to be useful and interesting. At present, it is too obviously directed towards increasing the current of popular odium against a class of persons labouring under proscription for opinions' sake; and, little disposed as we must be to view with any sort of favour the doctrines or discipline of the Roman Church, we cannot say that, considering the temporal injustice dealt out to its adherents, we are inclined to view controversial attacks as likely to do much good either to friends or enemies. Dr. Miller's book, however, will have its value, and we extract his summary of the history of the argument drawn from tradition, which we believe to be in the main correct: "Such appears to have been the history of that tradition which is now maintained by Roman Catholics in Ireland, as indispensably necessary to the just interpretation of the sacred writings. Apparently unknown to the apostolic fathers, who might naturally be supposed to have been inclined to announce their possession of a deposit so important to the church and so creditable to themselves, it is discovered first among the Gnostic heretics, who in the affectation of a superior knowledge of divine things had corrupted the simplicity of the gospel with many inventions, which required some other sanction than the authority of the Scriptures. It was then adopted from them by two Fathers of the Church, (Irenæus and Tertullian,) but only to repel the arguments of those who had first pleaded against the Scriptures a spurious tradition, and had then so falsified the records of Christianity as to embarrass any inference from their genuine communications. When this use had been made of the argumeut, it seems to have been felt that such an appeal was incongruous and unnecessary, for it was immediately abandoned by the church; in the great controversy of Arianism by nor does it appear to have been resumed either party for the support of their tenets. After an interruption of almost two centuries and a half among the western Christians, and in Greece of the much longer period of more than five centuries and a half, we again find tradition pleaded as an authority; but in each case for a practice, not for a doctrine; each practice also plainly condemued by the written word. The argument was then abandoned, and each plea disowned by one of the two churches, until the very crisis of the Reformation, when it was once more brought forward to oppose the appeal which the Reformers had made to the Scriptures; and as these reformers had objected to doctrines, not less than to practices, the tradition of the church was then, for the first time, pleaded in favour of doctrines. Even then, however, in the very agony of the papal power, it was not pleaded that the Scripture was not intelligible without the aid of tradition, the latter being represented only as entitled to equal reverence, and not as a superior and controlling authority for divine truth. This last step was taken about the close of the sixteenth century, by Cardinal Bellarmine, who in his too candid defence of the Church of Rome, did not hesitate to maintain that the gospel without unwritten tradition is an empty name, or words without sense. The Roman Catholics of Ireland, imitating the boldness of the Cardiual, have declared that the Scriptures are not intelligible without the aid of tradition." |