ment Romewards, was the attempt to oppose German rationalism by the voice of antiquity. It was felt by Rose and Pusey, and such like, that no Episcopal system could be supported from the word of God; and, therefore, they had recourse to the patristic ages, till, becoming enamoured of the fathers more than of the apostles, and of Ecclesiastical antiquarianism more than of the truth in its primitive simplicity, they began to frame a system for themselves, or rebuild the system of Laudism with the old materials, which had been scattered hither and thither, and blackened by a nation's scorn, and by the lapse of ages. The result we need not give to our readers. The fabric of Puseyism arose, into which so many repaired, till it speedily became a halting-place to Rome, and daily there are those whose footsteps are being directed thither. They enter it High Churchmen, and leave it Papists. Here they remain-some for a longer, some for a shorter period-till, their courage coming up to the confessing point, they boldly declare themselves "reconciled." Dr. Lee makes some very pertinent remarks on the constitution and state of the Church of England. We have no hesitation in saying that, with a creed essentially Protestant, she contains within her ritual the elements of Popery, which, since the Reformation downwards, have been ever and anon breaking forth, and which will continue, and must, in the very nature of things, continue to do so, until she is thoroughly reformed, which, we are sorry to say, she never was. As a Church, she needs remodelling, and would be all the better of copying our Presbyterian simplicity on this side the Tweed. The Church of Scotland, which she looks down upon with so much hauteur, is, after all, the model which she must copy after, if she desires a Scriptural constitution, and if she expects to stand, or to be pure, or to be useful. We are glad to find that the author does not cherish the same sentiments on the subject of Episcopacy as his namesake, the Very Rev. Principal of Edinburgh University. The Rev. Dr. seems to be peculiarly sensitive on the subject. Let but Episcopacy in England, or in Scotland, or anywhere, be mentioned in the Assembly, and he bristles up in an instant. Is he aware that the Body which calls itself the Episcopal Church in Scotland teaches, and glories in teaching, baptismal regeneration, transubstantiation, apostolical succession, prayers for the dead, an intermediate state of existence, exclusive salvation? Is he aware that she scorns, in her pitiful pride, theChurch of which he is a member, and declares her no Church at all, but an arrant imposition? Is he aware that she is compassing, in the most insidious manner, her destruction throughout the land; that she is seeking in every way to sap her foundations, and to accomplish her overthrow? Is he aware that her people are forbidden, on pain of Episcopal censure, to enter the parish church; and that schools are established, here and there, and everywhere, for the purpose of stealthily drawing away her children? Is he aware that she declares herself to be-not, as before, the Episcopal Church in Scotland, but the Episcopal Church of Scotland-nay, the very Church of Scotland; and that the men they call Bishops, with veritable shovel-hat and apron, are now addressed " my Lord," nay, take to themselves territorial titles, and territorial jurisdiction, as we," William of Aberdeen, and "we," 66 Alexander of Brechin? Does the very venerable Principal really know all this, or has he been enjoying a nap, whilst all this has been taking place around him? We would charitably hope that this has been the case, and cannot bring ourselves to believe that he has been really awake! We trust, however, that the recent ebullition of his Scotch Episcopal sympathy will be the last; and, whilst on this subject, we cannot but give expression to our high approbation of the admirable sentiments of many of the speakers on the Popish question in last Assembly, when they took occasion very faithfully to refer to Scotch and English Puseyism; and more particularly do we express our high admiration of the speech of Dr. Muir in the Presbytery of Edinburgh, in introducing his overture on the subject of Popery. The measures, which he calls upon the Church to adopt, are such as the times demand; and, were every minister of the Church of Scotland as earnestly alive to the errors and inroads of Popery, and as desirous and determined to resist them, we need have no fear. Dr. Muir, in the stand which he has taken on this, as on former occasions, merits the warmest gratitude of the entire Church, and every lover of his country. That stand is worthy of his own attachment to the truth of the gospel, his fidelity as a minister of the Church of Scotland, and his past resistance of priestly tyranny in another form. His efforts in behalf of the Church of Scotland, by which, it is not too much to affirm, she was saved from shipwreck, and his earnest and unyielding maintenance of the truth in all its evangelical simplicity and fulness, demand, and, we doubt not, will receive, the grateful veneration of posterity. We would suggest to the author that he should popularize his style a little more. From several parts of the pamphlet now before us, we see that he has perfectly the power of doing so. We suggest this, from the desire of seeing such works as these more extensively read-read by the people at large; and as we hope, from the hint thrown out in the preface, that he will favour us with something additional on the same subject soon, we trust our suggestion will not be lost. There is a class of men- the Professors in our Universities-from whom, somehow or other, we expect great things in their contributions to literature, and those of them, whose professional duties lie in that direction, to theological literature, but we are doomed, and the public is doomed, to disappointment. Many-the majority-publish nothing at all, and are never heard of save in the Senatus and the Edinburgh Almanac; some write poorly; whilst a few are worthy of the place they occupy. Dr. Lee is of the last description, and we expect to hear of him soon again. The following is admirably succinct and true: "The first thing that strikes us, in looking at the recent defections to Popery, is, that they are all, or almost all, on the part of members of the Church of England. There is no general movement towards Rome among Protestants, either in Great Britain or the Continent of Europe, or in America. This is a striking fact, and worthy of particular attention. It is obvious that the Anglican Church has much in common with the Roman, in which the other reformed Churches differ from both. Not to mention the Calendar, the use of the Apocrypha, absolution, and the like, its hierarchy and liturgy retain almost the very forms which they had before Henry VIII. rebelled against the Pope; so that Lord Chatham did not exaggerate beyond the allowable bounds of rhetoric, when he said, the Church of England had a Popish ritual."" "Still the form of the worship, the hierarchy, the spirit of the liturgy, the cathedral system, evidently to a degree which cannot be predicated of the other reformed Churches, connected the Church of England with the Latin, or, as some affect to call it, the Catholic Church. This sympathy between the two Churches, no protest, however distinct, in the articles of religion, or in the homilies, could either destroy or conceal; and it has been exemplified by a succession of eminent Anglican writers, from the Reformation to the present day. During the reigns of the last Stuarts, the constant alarm regarding Popery, associated as this was in the minds of the people, as, in fact, with arbitrary power, excited strongly the Protestant element in the English Church; and, accordingly, her most eminent literary champions of that period are truer representatives of Protestantism than of Anglicanism. These two elements remained within the Church, conscious of each other's existence, and generally declaring themselves quite intelligibly, both in literary productions and in other ways, till the early part of the present century, when events, both at Rome and abroad, strongly excited the hierarchical and traditionary, that is, the Romanizing tendencies of the English Church. During the course of the last century, and particularly the latter half of it, a remarkable revolution of theological opinion had taken place in Germany, where the thought, which, in England and France, was absorbed by politics, commerce, and, other secular interests, had been well-nigh concentrated on theology, and those philological, critical, and historical studies, which minister to it. The consequences were, a prodigious progress in all these departments of knowledge, and alarming innovations in the views propounded respecting the character and authority of the Holy Scriptures. These opinions, styled, in their earlier stages, Rationalism, and in their more mature development, Antisupernaturalism, though very various in their detail, yet generally agreed in distinguishing the doctrines of Scripture from that frame-work of miraculous facts with which they are connected in the sacred volume; and, whatever regard they might pay to the former, they were unanimous in considering the latter unhistorical, i. e. in plain words, fabulous. "These startling novelties excited little attention in England, till the cessation of the war had afforded free access to the continent, and leisure to observe what was going on there. The public attention in this country seems first to have been generally called to the subject, by the publication, in 1825, of the Rev. H. G. Rose's work, on The State of Protestantism in Germany," and by the controversy with Dr. Pusey, to which it led. And it was with these parties, that the late unhappy movements towards Romanism originated. It was not wonderful that sincere Christians should feel greatly alarmed by a scepticism, which aimed at the very heart of the Christian revelation, or that fear, which is naturally short-sighted, should have tempted earnest and zealous men to adopt those means, which promised immediate assistance in so sacred a cause, without waiting to inquire whether these might not eventually entail equal mischiefs of an opposite kind. Instead of maintaining that Rationalism was an abuse of reason, and acknowledging that reason herself alone was competent to repudiate this, her illegitimate offspring, the English Churchmen were led to appeal to authority, and to invoke tradition, as affording a more speedy, if not a more effectual, reply to the speculations of German Scepticism. The English Church had indeed, always leant on that support, in her conflict with her enemies, so that, as King James remarked to the Bishops, they used the Puritan argument against the Papists, and the Popish argument against the Puritans.' It was difficult for her to make out from the New Testament, a very striking argument in favour of the hierarchy, and therefore, she instinctively retreated upon the age of Cyprian and of Tertullian, not to speak of later fathers, where she could fight her battle under cover of institutions and ideas, which, by that time existed generally, if not universally, in the Church. A certain weight was plausibly attached by her adherents, to the opinions and practices of the first centuries. The sense of the Scriptures,' says one of them, 'is better opened by the practice, which followed immediately upon this publication, than by any modern comments. The fathers of the first centuries might insist very properly upon the advantage of these traditions, which flowed at the time down to them in a pure and easy channel, where any foreign mixture would have been presently discovered. The settlement of the Christian Church is not so clearly to be found in the writings of the sacred canon, as when that canon is explained by the practice of succeeding ages. Foundations are laid in the former, but the superstructure and the finishing are reared by the latter.' Gradually therefore, the argument derived from tradition-catholic consent,-in other words, from the opinion and authority of the Patristic Church, was more and more relied on by Anglicans, as a reply to the German heresies. . . . . The fathers held those notions, out of which Popery, in all its grossness, sprung in the course of time. And those persons in .... the English Church, who, to counteract themselves and others in danger of German rationalism, adopted the same remedy which the fathers used against the heresies of their time, have landed, as might have been foreseen, in the same result. The principle of authority, tradition, or Catholic consent, which conducted the Latin Church in the course of several centuries to the consummation of full-blown Popery, has led those individuals to the same bourne, in the course of a few years." Original Poetry. DAVID'S LAMENTATION ON THE DEATH OF SAUL AND JONATHAN. SLAIN on the hills lie Israel's pride and boast, The flower, the glory of a valiant host; How are the mighty fallen! Around my grief, Seclusion, hang thy veil; Oh! cursed be ye, Gilboa's hateful hills, With weeds of sackcloth, and with tear-dimm'd eyes, How are the mighty fallen! Cold on the hill lies Jonathan the fair! Let Judah's maids their slaughtered heroes mourn, For thee, my brother, thee, I weep alone, ECCLESIASTICAL INTELLIGENCE. University of St. Andrews.-The Rev. Dr. William Brown was formally inducted on Saturday last, into the Chair of Biblical Criticism and Theology in this University, vacant by the removal of Dr. T. T. Jackson, to the Chair of Church History in the University of Glasgow. Dr. Buist, Pro-Rector for the present year, presided on the occasion. Parish of Bonhill.-The Rev. F. L. Robertson has received the Presentation to the Parish of Bonhill, from John Campbell, Esq. of Stonefield, the Patron of that living. Parish of South Ronaldshay and Burray. The Presbytery of Kirkwall met at South Ronaldshay on the 12th curt., for moderating in a call in favour of Mr. P. H. Gilruth, presented to that charge. The call was sustained, accepted by the presentee, and left in the hands of the Schoolmaster for the signature of concurrents. This promises to be a harmonious settlement. Mr. Gilruth's induction is fixed for the 2d of July. Died at Seaton Lodge, near Tranent, the Rev. Robert Stewart, Minister of the Parish. END OF ELEVENTH VOLUME. H. AND J. PILLANS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH. |