review of this most interesting crisis in the fortunes of France. Alas for the mournful fatality, that in that great nation there should not be one man capable of inspiring nobler thoughts and holier inspirations than the unrealities which now mock the cravings of her sons!

MYERS' CATHOLIC THOUGHTS.

Present Day Papers on Prominent Questions in Theology. Catholic Thoughts on the Church of Christ and the Church of England. By the late Frederick Myers, M.A., Perpetual Curate of St. John's, Keswick. W. Isbister & Co. 1874. THIS Volume forms a portion of a Series of Papers originated and edited by the late Bishop of Argyll and the Isles, Dr. Ewing. Though written as long ago as 1834-1841, and privately printed in the latter of those years, it had not been previously submitted to the public; and it was the opinion of Dr. Ewing that not only had the volume lost none of its interest by the lapse of time, but, further, that at no time since its composition was there greater need for its publication than in the present day.

This opinion is in entire accordance with that of the author of these Papers, who entertained a full conviction that "the principles of the exclusive system" against which he contended were destined to advance, and for a while to spread, rather than to decline into the background.

The general drift of the volume may be gathered, with a tolerable amount of correctness, from the following passage in the postscript, in which the Author represents, as one of the chief objects which he desired to promote by the publication of this volume, the proposition of this leading principle, viz.:

"That Christianity can only be adequately represented as Light, accessible in its essential blessedness to all who, by God's grace, have been brought where it is in its fulness, namely, into the Church of Christ, but to be comprehended in its essence, or its operations, or its limits, by none; and that therefore our first duty and our truest wisdom is to turn off our thoughts from speculations as to its nature to adoration of its Author, and to make the object of our faith and love and zeal, a Person rather than a Creed." (p. 431.)

Few, if any, of our readers will be found who will not heartily wish success to any work calculated to promote the object set forth in the concluding words of this paragraph, whatever doubts they may entertain as to the precise meaning attached by the writer to those which go before. And, further,

we believe there are few amongst our readers who will not heartily endorse very much of what will be found in the pages of the volume before us, a volume which bears unquestionable evidence not only of the piety and amiability, but also of the rare ability, of the writer.

It is, then, on this very account-not that we desire to disin the least degree the high attainments or virtues of the late Mr. Myers, but because we believe that there is so much that is attractive in his book, that there is the greater danger of the errors which we think we have detected in it being overlooked amidst its many excellencies-that we propose to notice the defects rather than the merits of a work which it is impossible to read without a general admiration of its matter and its style, and a still higher admiration of the spirit which pervades it.

To this task we shall now address ourselves with as much hrevity as the nature of the subjects discussed will allow. In the first section of the first chapter of this book, Mr. Myers discusses the true nature of the Church of Christ, of which he justly observes that it is "immeasurable by human language, invisible in its completeness to human eye," that "it is a Spiritual Body, a small portion of which only is on earth, and whose Head is in the heavens." (p. 1.)

At the close of this section we meet with the following passage: "The Church Catholic has no Theoretic Creed; it is no exclusive depository, or authoritative expositor, of Absolute Truth. Its office is to minister to a Person, rather than to be the guardian of a Creed."

Now, so far as we are able to comprehend the import of this somewhat ambiguous language, we are altogether unable to endorse its truth. We believe that the Church Catholic has ever had, and must of necessity ever have, "a Theoretic Creed," otherwise we can attach no meaning whatever to the words, "He that believeth not shall be damned." Again, believing as we do that the Word of God is " Absolute Truth," and that to Christ's Church now, as to the Jewish Church of old, "the oracles of God" are committed, having been "received" and preserved by the fathers in order that they might "give them unto us;" and knowing of no other depository or expositor of this truth, than that Church which was ordained for this very end, that, treading in the footsteps of the Master, its members should "bear witness unto the truth," and in virtue of their Lord's last solemn commission should teach it to all nations, we demur again to the statement that the Church Catholic "is no exclusive depository or authoritative expositor of Absolute Truth."

We have no desire to be captious, but we are really at a loss

to understand the meaning of our Author in the concluding words of the paragraph which we have quoted. We read, indeed, of the ministrations of angels to our Lord whilst He was yet on earth. We read, also, of certain devout women who ministered to Him of their substance; and we read, also, of those ministrations to the temporal and spiritual relief of His members which He now regards as offered to Himself. We are at a loss, however, to understand in what sense the offices of the Church can be rightfully affirmed to consist in "ministering to a Person," whilst, when we remember the solemn charge to keep the good deposit, which was given by St. Paul to Timothy, and the equally solemn injunction of St. Jude "earnestly to contend for the faith once delivered to the saints," we have been accustomed to consider that it is a part of the appointed office of the Church Catholic, and of every sound branch of the same, to seek to discharge its responsible office as the "Guardian of a Creed."

In the 11th section of the first chapter of this work, Mr. Myers argues, from the Divine sanction given to certain changes in the Mosaic Institutions, the probability that similar changes may be "intended or approved under an economy whose scope and aim are so very different and so much more spiritual."

Whilst freely admitting that some Institutions observed by the Jews, such as the Feast of Dedication, not of Divine origin, received a certain amount of sanction from our blessed Lord; and that other additions to, or modifications of, the Mosaic laws may have been tolerated or approved by Him; we think that Mr. Myers has been somewhat unfortunate in the instances which he has selected of the informality of the Jewish Institutions existing at the beginning of the Christian era, and still more unfortunate in the inferences which he has drawn from our Lord's silence in regard to such informality, in favour of the lawfulness of corresponding changes in the positive institutions of the Gospel.

The changes in those institutions noticed by Mr. Myers, as "amounting almost to a Revolution," have reference to the addition of the Synagogue and the Sanhedrim to the Temple, the venality and uncertainty of the High Priesthood, and the appointment of the twenty-four courses of the four Levitical families which returned from the captivity.

Now it appears to us that the fact that our Lord found no fault with these additions to, deviations from, or corruptions of, Jewish institutions, affords no ground whatever for the inference which Mr. Myers deduces from it. As regards the appointment of the Sanhedrim, after the dissolution of the Monarchy and the total disruption of the existing order of things both in Church and State, as we have no ground for supposing that

it involved a violation of any Divine injunction, so neither have we any reason for expecting that, whether sanctioned or not, at the time of its introduction, it should have become a subject of praise or censure on the part of our Lord. It is surely needless to observe that no silence on the part of our Lord can, by possibility, be fairly regarded as a tacit sanction of the venal appointment and displacement of the High Priest during the period of the Roman supremacy. We are really unable to assign any distinct meaning to Mr. Myers' third instance of the informality of existing Jewish institutions in the time of our Lord. His words are as follows:-"The twenty-four courses of the Four Levitical Families were apparently as acceptable as the fulness of the Mosaic orders."

In what manner the division of the priests, in the days of David, into twenty-four courses, detracted from "the fulness of the Mosaic orders," we are at a loss to understand. We are equally unable to comprehend how a similar division, after the return from the Babylonish Captivity, was productive of the same result. We do not remember the mention of praise or of censure in connection with that appointment on the part of David; and, judging by the whole tenor of the course adopted by our Lord in regard to existing institutions and practices, both in Church and State, we think that it would be an equally unwarrantable assumption were we to infer, from His silence in this particular, that either His approval or disapproval was designed to be expressed by it.

But whatever may have been the extent of the sanction given by our Lord to changes in the institutions of a law which was imposed only until "the times of reformation," which changes, Mr. Myers affirms, were in some cases "ordered," and therefore afford no warrant for changes made without a similar warrant, we are unable to see how his argument can be fairly applied to the ordinances of a dispensation which is confessedly a final dispensation, i.e., one which is to endure "until the restitution of all things."

Mr. Myers' allusion to the two sacraments of the Gospel is couched in language so ambiguous that we must first quote his words before we proceed to comment on them.

"It appears," he writes (p. 56), "that as the Old Dispensation was gradually modified until it might melt into the New-as dawn into day-so also the New took an aspect scarcely its own in the beginning, in order that it might ingraft itself more naturally upon the Old. So much was this the case, that besides the deference confessedly paid in the Apostolic Churches to old laws and observances, which the Gospel was nevertheless expressly declared as intended utterly to abolish, we find the two Rites of our Religion were not new ones, but only adaptations of two existing under the

Jewish economy; and that even these were not wholly divine, but partly of human institution, namely, Baptism and the Wine of the Paschal Supper."

We are really unable to see how the adoption or adaptation of existing rites and institutions can be said to impart to the New Dispensation "an aspect scarcely its own." It will hardly be argued that the law of Moses bore "an aspect scarcely its own," because circumcision was "not of Moses, but of the fathers;" or, again, that the same remark can be applied to the covenant made with Abraham, because the same rite of circumcision which was adopted as the seal of that covenant was in use amongst the Egyptians, and, indeed, as far as we know, amongst other nations also, from the remotest antiquity.

We are unable to do more than conjecture the inference, or inferences, which Mr. Myers intended his readers to draw from the alleged facts, that Baptism and the Wine of the Paschal Supper were of human institution.

If the inference intended was that the two Sacraments of the Gospel are of less binding obligation, because adoptions or adaptations of ordinances not of Divine institution, we appeal again to the parallel institution of circumcision, and to the unquestionable fact that no ordinance of the patriarchal dispensation or of the law of Moses was of a more binding character.

If (as we cannot but fear*) the inference intended was that these two Sacraments were designed, in process of time, to become of less obligation than when first instituted, we appeal in the case of Baptism to the promise of Christ's presence with His Church whilst continuing to make disciples of all nations, "baptising them into the name of the Father, and of the Sou, and of the Holy Ghost" (Matt. xxviii. 19, 20); and in the case of the Lord's Supper, to the solemn and express declaration of that Apostle who received the account of its institution from the Lord Himself. "As often as ye eat this Bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till He come" (1 Cor. xi. 26).

Again, Mr. Myers' view of the authority of the Old Testament appears to us utterly inconsistent with the uniform teaching of our Lord and His Apostles, and, equally so, with that of the English Church. He speaks in language which we fear can scarcely be interpreted as we could wish, of those superstitious notions which are contained in some Rabbinical works, of "the old Judaic error about the Inspiration of the Pentateuch" being "adopted and extended over all the Old Testament Records," and he repudiates as "singularly unintelligent" the idea that the Bible ought to be regarded "as a collection of contemporaneous utterances equally addressed to all men of all time." In this last quoted expression we have again, as * See p. 59.