The length to which this article has extended compels us unwillingly to omit many topics of great interest in both the works under notice. Though there is nothing very remarkable -nothing, in short, removed from superficiality-in Captain Marryat's remaining essays, the topics themselves are of very great interest. Many of the subjects, however, are too large, so to speak, to be properly discussed in an article essentially miscellaneous. The question of slavery, for instance, is, perhaps, one of the most momentous in the whole book; but it is much more languidly handled than befits the subject. Slavery can never be properly understood, unless it is considered in reference to the abundance of waste land, and the consequent difficulty of getting free labour. Captain Marryat, unhappily for the soundness of his views on this and many other NewCountry subjects, is not acquainted with the lights which have been thrown on the science of colonization and the distribution of wealth in new countries, by the author of England and America. To Mr. Edward Gibbon Wakefield unquestionably belongs the honour of reducing the successful colonization of new countries to a certainty. South Australia is the first colony that has ever succeeded at once, and without disaster; and no one, who has investigated the principles on which that colony has been settled, feels a shadow of doubt as to the immediate success of the first colony of New Zealand. The community, now on its way thither, was complete in all its parts before it left the shores of the mother country. Whilst arranging their plans in the Rooms of the Company, the colonists formed a complete imperium in imperio.

Not, however, with reference to the immediate subject of colonization, but rather as exhibiting the effects of an abundance of rich land, on the various American questions which Captain Marryat will have to handle in his promised second part, we earnestly recommend to his especial and careful perusal the admirable work entitled England and America.

From Mr. Murray's delightful volumes we would fain have gleaned much more. His Summer's Residence among the Pawnee Nation of Indians, is full of scenes of the most intense interest, some of which we regret to be unable to transfer to our pages. With both our authors and with the reader we now take a friendly leave.

ART. VI.-1. A Library of the Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church, anterior to the division of the East and West, translated by Members of the English Church. Vol. I. Confessions of St. Augustine. Oxford, 1838.

2. Tradition Unveiled. By the Rev. Baden Powell, M.A., F.R.S. &c. of Oriel College, Savilian Professor of Geometry, Oxford. London and Oxford, 1839.

3. Not Tradition, but Scripture. By Philip N. Shuttleworth, Warden of New College, Oxford. London, 1839.

4. Episcopacy, Tradition, and the Sacraments considered with reference to the Oxford Tracts. By the Rev. William Fitzgerald, B.A. Dublin, 1839.

N resuming our notice of the Oxford Translations from the Fathers, we deem it right to call our readers' attention to the very animated controversy excited in the English Church by the publication of the Library, and the principles which its editors have avowed. In a former paper we took the liberty of suggesting, that the "especial charity" for members of our communion, in which, as a "chief ground," the project originated, was somewhat mistaken or misplaced-that it spent itself in the unnecessary labour of "calling our minds" to a study which, among us preeminently, has ever been zealously pursued; and of providing us with materials for the study, of a very second-rate description, while the industry and learning of three centuries have prepared, ready to our hand, all necessary appliances infinitely superior. We, it would seem, do not stand alone in what may be considered indifference or ingratitude for the intended benefit. There is a large and influential section of their own body in whose regard the attempt is likely, we fear, to prove misjudged and thankless: there appears as little probability of its weaning Ultra-Protestants from "their modern and private interpretations of Scripture," as of its securing "Romanists from the danger of lapsing into secret infidelity."

The preface of the first volume of the Library--The Confessions of St. Augustine-contains a general explanation of the editors' views upon the subject of tradition. Although, in our former notice of the work, we had passed the Confessions over, being of a spiritual and ascetic, rather than doctrinal, character; and selected in preference the Lectures of St. Cyril, as more interesting to the modern controversialist; yet we have been induced to return to it, as explaining the peculiar views of the new school, and devote a special paper to its examination.

But, before proceeding to consider the translation of the Confessions, we deem it right to bestow a few pages on a general review of the recent traditionist controversy, and the principles which it has been instrumental in developing.

There is not one of the doctrines of the Oxford divines which has excited so much or so varied speculation. It has introduced a new era in the history of polemics, completely reversing the old and received system of controversial tactics. But, although all are agreed in crying out against what they call the innovation; though there is no lack of willingness to condemn it as savouring of heterodoxy, yet there is considerable diversity of opinion among the assailants as to the category of heresy in which it is to be placed. "Popery," however, has been the common rallying term of reproach. To one the opinion savours "rank Papistry;" to another, more moderate, it is, at least, "fraught with those seeds of corruption, which appear full blown in the Romish system."+ In vain the indignant disclaimers of the accused-in vain their appeal to their own words. Their censors know far better. "We may bawl No Popery!' by the way," said a writer in the Hampden Controversy, "but we must put up at the Old Lady of Babylon's at last!"

It is difficult not to feel for the sensitive orthodoxy of Oxford writhing under such a charge. But, alas! there is worse in store. A new light has broken upon the author of Tradition Unveiled. He declares the charge of Popery "unfounded," "arising plainly out of ignorance of the question,"§ and proclaims, with all the emphasis which type can communicate, "THE REAL question"-the capitals are his own-" is not one of the REVIVAL OF POPERY, but of THE PRESERVATION OF THE VERY FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH." To an uninterested spectator all this is sufficiently amusing; and, were the matter less serious, we would willingly enjoy it. We might sit down quietly at our reading-desk, and, with folded arms, calmly await the result-secure, in any event, from the acknowledgment of the combatants, of the ultimate triumph of our own principles. Should the Anti-Oxonian party succeed, "they are plainly," say the Tracts,¶ "preparing the way for Popery in the land." Should the principles of Oxford triumph, "there**would be a very easy transition from High-Churchism to Popery; and, when once men are brought to a practical acquiescence in Church authority, and the sentence of tradi

*See Church of England Quarterly for March. Mr. Fitzgerald, p. 15. + "Trad. Unveiled," p. 7. § Ibid. p. 8. || Ibid. p. 68. ** Mr. Fitzgerald, p. 15.

Tracts, vol. i. No. 20, p. 4.

tion as inculcated by the sages of the British Critic, they will be in a fair way to swallow the stronger dose of universal infallibility as administered by the more daring practitioners of the Dublin Review !”

But we must confess we are disposed to regard the discussion with far other feelings. We look upon it with deep-with increasing, interest. In the collision of opposite opinions, even though both should be erroneous, it seldom happens that some small spark of truth is not elicited. Every day furnishes additional evidence that we are not over sanguine in regarding the present controversy, more perhaps than any other of the day, as fraught with the most important consequences to that sacred cause with which our best and holiest hopes are identified.

The question, however, is not new, nor has it, in the present discussion, assumed any new character, except that which it derives from the persons of the disputants. It is as ancient as error itself-it has accommodated itself to all the countless varieties of error which the Christian Church has ever seen. The semi-Christian sects of the first ages, no less than the reformers of our own time, rejected the authority of Catholic tradition. The heretics, against whom the well-known appeal of St. Irenæus is directed; those who, in the days of St. Basil, "sought to shake the foundations of faith, by levelling apostolic tradition to the ground;"† the Pelagian in St. Augustine's controversy; Eutyches in the council of Chalcedon§

all hold the same views, and express them in language almost identical with that which we hear echoed around us in the present controversy. "Centuries have passed away," says the lamented Möhler," and with them the sects of old. New times and new secessions followed in their stead. In all the formal principle was the same--all asserting, that the Holy Scripture, independent of the Church and of tradition, was the only source of truth-the sole standard of its interpretation for each individual. This formal principle, common to all who are separated from the Church-the same in the mouth of the Gnostics of the second, and of the Cathari or Vaudois in the twelfth, century—the same with the Sabellian of the third

-Εκ του την

* Adv. Hæres, lib. iii. cap. 4. + De Spir. Sancto, cap. x.-) Αποστολικήν παραδοσιν εδαφισθεισαν αφανισθηναι. De Nat. et Grat. c. 39, tom. x. p. 98, Ben. Ed. In Hardouin's Collection, vol. ii. p. 186. "What I have always conceived to be the great leading principle of Protestautism, namely, the entire sufficiency of Scripture, independently of tradition, as a rule of faith and doctrine."-Not Trad. but Scripture, p. 19.

the Arian of the fourth-the Nestorian of the fifth-this common principle has led to the most diametrically opposite results. What can be so much opposed as Gnosticism and Pelagianism? as the Arian and Sabellian heresies?*

It would be idle, then,-it would betray a very superficial acquaintance with the principles of the early seceders from the unity of the Church, and those of the several schools into which their followers have divided,-to expect that the attempt to revive a doctrine so opposed to the first principles of Protestantism, as the authority of tradition, could have been received with silent acquiescence in the English Church. It is impossible to forget Luther's bold declaration, in the controversy with Erasmus, that the "ancient fathers had all mistaken the meaning of St. Paul,"+-his revolting suggestion, that, "as God had allowed the nations to fall away, so he might have permitted the ancient Churches to depart after their ways;"his impious, even though it were hypothetical, indifference, whether a thousand Augustines and a thousand Cyprians were against him!" It is hard to close our eyes to the effects produced by the example of the half-pitying, half-excusing tone in which Calvin expresses his disregard of the fathers; of Melancthon's avowal that he could find no trace in their writings of his favourite doctrine of imputative justice;§ of Zuingli's unqualified and unhesitating confession, that "it was long since he had troubled himself to read them.”||

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"It is allowed," says Mr. Powell, "without denying that there are many distinguished exceptions, that the great mass of Protestant divines have been deficient in this branch of theological learning. Nay, according to views very prevalent among them, it has been regarded as altogether of little moment; and, with a considerable party, all this kind of learning has even been held in absolute dislike and contempt."-Tradition Unveiled, p. 11.

"Tal frutto nasce di cotal radice,"

Is it necessary to give examples of this hereditary tendency? The names of Beausobre and Brucker may recall some idea of the estimation in which the fathers have been held in the Lutheran schools, whether of theology, history, or philosophy. Among the Calvinists, the learned ingenuity of Daille, the sarcastic wit of Le Clerc, the prosing minuteness of Barbeyrac, have been tasked, each in its turn, to depreciate their authority. The last-named writer looks upon the fathers of the first six centuries, as "bad masters and contemptible guides

* Möhler's Symbolik, p. 370. + De servo Arbit. op. tom. ii. p. 480. Cited by Bossuet. Hist of Var. 1. v. c. 29. § lb. 1. iv. c. 83. || Ib. I. ii. c. 23.