work, and indeed for work of a much higher description. The editing of the seven volumes of the Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews has afforded an opportunity of calling forth more fully his learning and scholarship. This is, in some respects, the most valuable and important of all Owen's works; but it is also perhaps the one of which a modern edition would most need something in the way of supplement and correction. There is no department of theological literature which has received greater improvements in modern times than exegesis, viewed as including both the settlement of the true text of Scripture, a subject to which many now-a-days restrict the term biblical criticism, and also the exact interpretation of scriptural statements. In saying that this department has received considerable improvements in modern times, we do not of course mean that any great discoveries have been made and established, either as to the text or the interpretation of the Sacred Scriptures. The actual results of any additional information and research that have in modern times been brought to bear upon these subjects, have not produced any change in the doctrines which a right use of Scripture should lead men to adopt. We believe that the whole system of doctrine which Dr Owen so ably defended has not only not been shaken in its scriptural evidence by modern improvements in the department of the criticism and interpretation of Scripture, but has been more firmly established by them. The improvements, consequently, to which we refer are, comparatively speaking, unimportant, though it is not on this account the less obligatory that they should be known and attended to. It is our duty to ascertain as accurately and as certainly as we can even the minutiæ bearing upon the true reading and the exact meaning of every portion of the inspired Word of God. And there can be no doubt that since Dr Owen's time, materials have been provided which throw a good deal of additional light and certainty upon these points. Dr Goold, in notes, brief, indeed, but numerous and useful, has shown his familiarity with these materials, and has applied them to excellent purpose in supplementing and correcting Dr Owen's statements on the details of exegesis. We would only again commend, in the strongest terms, this great work to the attention of all who are interested in theological study, and in the prosperity of the Church of Christ. We would heartily rejoice to see permanent arrangements made for putting every student of theology in possession of a copy of this great treasure; and we have no doubt that the publishers would deal in a liberal spirit with any proposals directed to this object.

THE notice of the German theological and ecclesiastical journals has been unavoidably postponed, as have also several critical notices of works recently published in this country. We intended, but have found it impracticable, to republish, from the Christian Review, the leading organ of the American Baptists, a highly laudatory notice of that remarkable and very promising book, Bayne's "Christian Life," which has been republished in the United States.

BRITISH AND FOREIGN

EVANGELICAL REVIEW.

JULY, 1856.

ART. I.-1. Lectures on Certain Difficulties felt by Anglicans in Submitting to the Catholic Church. By JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, Priest of the Oratory of St Philip Neri. London: 1850. Pp. 325.

2. Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England, Addressed to the Brothers of the Oratory. By JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, D.D., Priest of the Congregation of St Philip Neri. London: 1851. Pp. 388.

3. The Contest with Rome: A Charge to the Clergy of the Archdeaconry of Lewes, delivered at the Ordinary Visitation in 1851, with Notes especially in Answer to Dr Newman's recent Lectures. By JULIUS CHARLES HARE, M.A.

"CAN it indeed be, that such men as Dr Newman and his fellow-apostates from the Church of England, can really, with open eyes, and through the force of honest conviction, have joined the communion of Rome? Is their so-called conversion a reality, or merely some deep and subtle deception of the enemy? Have they been indeed the victims of some strange and wildering infatuation; or have they not rather been, from the first, Jesuits in disguise, and now only thrown off the mask when the plot was ripe, and the fell work of secret treachery had been effectually done? Is it to be believed that at this day, and here in England, there can be bona fide converts, by conviction, to an illiberal and childish superstition, the adherents of which, all the world knows, are the one half conscious deceivers, and the other blind besotted dupes? That these at least some of 21

VOL. V.NO. XVII.

them are not weak men, we know full well; it is very hard, in all the circumstances of the case, and with all the facts before us, to avoid attributing to them a far graver character, and a darker name."--Such are the thoughts which have been working in the minds of many during these few years past, and which have ever and anon been finding utterance more or less in the free intercourse of daily life. They are only the rough expression of a problem which we imagine has been, at the same time, exercising the thoughts of many a deeper and more searching mind. The phenomenon in question forms a difficulty, not only to the superficial mind of the ordinary Protestant world, but to the most profound and earnest thinkers. The very wildness of the suggested explanation,-an explanation which every one who knows any thing of the history of the persons in question knows to be utterly untenable,-only shows the more strikingly the deep mystery that hangs around a question, of which no more tangible and plausible an account can easily be given. That such men,-some of them of high intellectual gifts, earnest spirit, and rich and varied learning, -several of them occupying influential and dignified positions in the church,-men too of very various natural tendency and cast of mind, some theoretic and speculative, some practical, some contemplative,—should, one by one, after long pondering, and through the force, apparently, of a gradual and ever-growing conviction, have been brought, at the sacrifice of all, to quit the pale of the Reformation, and throw themselves into the arms of the mediæval apostasy, is surely, with our current views of Romanism and Protestantism, a phenomenon as startling as it is ominous and grave. Nor does the mere fact of the secessions referred to express the full amount of the difficulty in question. These men have left us, and they have not returned. They have entered the Roman pale, and they remain in it. They have sought rest and satisfaction within her bosom; and that rest they have, or at least dream that they have, found. The reaction so confidently predicted by their quondam associates and friends as likely to result from a personal discovery of the hollowness of the system they have embraced, has not as yet taken place; nor have they betrayed by word or act the faintest sign either of uneasiness or disappointment. The charm which originally bewitched them, whatever it may have been, still retains its power; the fond dream remains unbroken. Of those hundreds who, one by one, have passed before our eyes through the gates of the seven-hilled city, scarce one has as yet returned to tell of the abominations he has seen within; only now and then has one been seen, not flying in horror from the infected ground, but standing aloft on some high tower on the walls, and with bright, triumphant

smile, beckoning to former friends to follow him to the same bright "land of angels, saints, and martyrs." It seems certain, then, in point of fact, that here in England, in the noontide of the nineteenth century, amid all the lights of philosophy and science, and from among the ranks of highly cultured and earnest men, there may be, and there are, converts, by conviction, to the Church of Rome. This is the problem which we are. now compelled to look in the face, and, if possible, to explain.

The question now before us is one, it will be seen, essentially distinct from a kindred topic discussed in these pages some time ago. The problem then in hand might be thus briefly stated:-Given, the Anglo-Catholic system of the Oxford tracts fully developed and grown to seed, to demonstrate the inevitable transition in the case of earnest and thorough-going minds to Romanism proper. The solution of that problem was comparatively an easy matter. Let a man once fairly renounce the Bible as the one final standard of truth, and substitute a vague, indefinite rule, half Scripture and half tradition, in its place; let him renounce private judgment and embrace authority as the divine interpreter and judge in matters of faith; let him barter the moral and spiritual power of the Word and Spirit of God for the magical influence of sacramental grace, and his transition to the full medieval system is not so much a matter of irresistible tendency merely, as of stern and invincible logic. He has already embraced the very essence of a system which has never yet been fully realised on earth, and never can be, save in that communion toward which he is manifestly tending, and on the very threshold of which he even now stands. Our business, however, at present, is with a previous and far more difficult question-Whence the Anglo-Catholic system itself? Given, the previously existing state of the Protestant world, together with its antecedent history since the Reformation, to explain the rise and rapid development in the very heart of it, and at this particular time, of a system identical in spirit and in principle with Rome, and in its consequences inevitably leading to it. To the solution of this problem we can only hope to offer a very small contribution; there are, however, certain circumstances to which we can point our hand, which we cannot but think do shed important light on the matter, and which must enter more or less into any full and adequate explanation of it. These are connected with the general state of Protestantism, with the Church of England in particular, with the prevailing tendencies of theological speculation in our time, and with certain weaknesses and defects in the current evangelical systems. We shall glance at each of these with as much brevity as the subject will admit of.

"Oxford and Rome," &c., vol. ii., p. 894.

I. As to the GENERAL STATE OF PROTESTANTISM, its main ele. ment of weakness, as an effective antagonist to the aggressive efforts of Romanism, it is not difficult to see. That weakness lies in its want of internal coherence and organic unity. It is essentially more or less loosely compacted and fragmentary. It is rather an aggregate of disjointed members, than one indivisible and organic whole. From the nature of the case this must be so. Its very fundamental principle, the right of private judgment, and the supremacy of the free conscience over all the dogmata of authority and prescriptions of human ordinances,―necessarily issues, in the present state of human nature, in a certain amount of denominational diversity, even amid essential unity. Where there is freedom of thought, there will and must be a diversity of judgment, and consequent divergence in action. It may, indeed, be a question, to what extent such difference is unavoidable. In particular, it admits of serious doubt, whether the present actual amount of difference among the various sections of the Reformation Churchthe present medley of contending sects and parties-is to be regarded as its normal state, and inherent in the very conditions of its existence. For ourselves we are disposed to cling to a better hope. We sanguinely anticipate a time when, through the clearer and more commanding realization of great fundamental principles of faith and discipline, and the due subordination of lesser points of detail, the various branches of the great evangelic body shall, to a far greater extent than now, see eye to eye, and gradually coalescing into far fewer and larger masses, present at once to the world a more impressive image of Christian unity, and to the common enemy a more compact and unbroken front. Even at the best, however, a certain and even large amount of difference and division is, in the present state at least, inevitable. The law of the kingdom of God, alike in its reformation state as in its primitive and apostolic, is unity in diversity, not uniformity by the suppres sion of all difference; and such, we believe, will continue to be the condition of its existence more or less to the close of its militant state. Her great strength lies, not in a unity of organization, but in a unity of faith and life. This circumstance, however, while in one respect her strength and glory, infers in another point of view a certain disadvantage in the contest with her ever-watchful and aggressive enemy. It imparts a certain weakness both for aggression and defence. Such a loosely-compacted body at once less easily combines its strength for action, and more easily falls asunder within itself. It has less concentration in assault, and less consolidation in resistance. It It may be likened to the comparatively loose array of an allied army drawn together by the urgency of a great