the loyal disciple not wholly unlike, perhaps, in natural gifts nor the acquirements of human learning, nor always, at first, even in spiritual attainments; yet seen, before long, to be as different as light from darkness in their course of action, their aims and objects; the one appearing to think much of self, of the charms of influence, and possibly of earthly fame; the other, in a spirit of self-abnegation, often resigning much that is dear in the comforts and charities of life, so but he may labour for the glory of God, and the preservation of His truth, and the salvation of immortal souls. And through the toils of study and perhaps the sorrows of confessorship, we seem to trace the keen desire of their spirits, anxious to return to their true home; longing for the day when, not indeed by pantheistic absorption, but by the true union won through the Incarnate Word, they may be joined for ever with the Father of spirits, when no longer through the symbols and shadows of earthly language they may contemplate the Divine essence; but know even as they are known in the full fruition of that Beatific Vision which is promised to the pure in heart.

'L'onda, dal mar divisa,
Bagna la villa e il monte;
Va presssagiera in fiume,
Va prigionera in fonte:
Mormora sempre e geme
Finche non torni al mar;
Al mar dov'ella nacque,
Dove acquistò gli umori,
Dove, da lunghi errori,
Spera di riposar.'1

Will the reader bear with us while we cast a hurried glance upon some four or five who, in their lives and in their writings, have been, so to speak, embodiments of the principles here asserted? If, through ignorance or prejudice (and we know that we are ignorant, and pretend not to be unprejudiced) that selection be unfairly made, let it be remembered that our position is then only vitiated, when it can be shown that an ampler or juster choice would involve a contrary conclusion.

On the dogmatic theologians of England since the Reformation we need not dwell; not that any country can show nobler specimens. That Bishop whose Defensio Fidei Nicænæ' received expressions of gratitude, not from his countrymen alone, but from the assembled Clergy of France, with Bossuet at their head; that brother Prelate of slightly earlier date, whose treatise on the Creed is to this day appreciated on the Continent as fully

1 Metastasio (Artaserse).

as in England; that Elizabethan doctor, whose powers and attainments surprised even the (not favourably biassed) judgment of a Roman Pontiff into exclamations of astonishment and eulogy-these, and others who might be named, it were difficult in the Church's later ages to excel. But the works of Bull, of Pearson, of Hooker, are so well known, and so accessible, that any one may, with little trouble, form an opinion concerning them. Let reference be made, for instance, to what Pearson has said upon God's fatherly love and our consequent duty of resignation; or the drawing upward of our hearts which the thought of Christ's ascension into heaven ought to effect; or the terrors of judgment, or the glory of the Resurrection-when he comments upon the words, Father, ascended, shall come to judge, Resurrection of the body-and the inquirer may decide for himself what weight is due to the notion of 'piety being limited by dogma,' which is so prominent in the work before us. If only the very great and good, such as Pearson, can exhibit the highest combination of zeal for dogmatic truth with deep religion of the heart, let us hope that even the humblest learner from his pages may be able, with the Divine assistance, to imbibe some portion of his spirit.

We look backward to an earlier age, the age of the Schoolmen. If, as we have granted, dogmatism had at that time usurped an undue prominence over other branches of theology, yet who doubts the ardent personal piety of the scholastic teachers; of Albertus Magnus, for instance; or, again, of Aquinas, who has left behind him hymns (which all who know them will admit to be grand and impressive) and prayers of the most fervent devotion? We are writing mainly for English Churchmen. Turn we, then, to our own primatial See. In the year of grace 1348, King Edward promoted to the Primacy' the profound Doctor,' as he was called, Thomas Bradwardine. His very name will suggest to many the notion of what is popularly termed hardheadedness. His chief work, entitled, De causâ Dei contra Pelagium,' is elaborately metaphysical. In mathematics he distanced all contemporaries. When Sir William Hamilton would recal to our minds the logical glories of Oxford in the Middle Ages, he terms it 'the University of Duns Scotus and Bradwardine.' In like manner, the father of English poetry classes him with S. Austin and Boethius, upon the deep and difficult question of predestination:

'in scole is gret altercation

In this matere, and gret disputison,
And hath ben of an hundred thousand men,
But I ne cannot boult it to the bren,
As can the holy doctour Augustin,
Or Boece, or the Bishop Bradwardin,

Whether that Goddes worthy foreweting
Streineth me nedely for to don a thing,
(Nedely clepe I simple necessitee,)
Or elles if free chois be granted me
To do that same thing, or do it nought
Though God forewot it, or that it was wrought;
Or if his weting streineth never a del,

But by necessitee condicionel.' 1

Here, then, we might expect a good example of stiffness and dryness of spirit; of piety limited by dogma.' But how stand the facts? Writers whom no one will accuse of undue partiality for the Middle Ages-we may mention Milner in his Church History, and Mr. Le Bas in his Life of Wiclif-especially select Bradwardine as the representative of all that was best and truest in his age. His habitual rigour of inquiry,' says the latter, never appears to have impaired the humility of his temper, or the warmth of his affections. His heart seems to have been throughout quite as vividly at work as his understanding. Thoroughly furnished, as he was, with all the mental accomplishments of his age, every thought of his was evidently brought into captivity to the wisdom and righteousness of God.' If we had room, the citation of the touching and glowing prayer of his, which these writers quote, might go far in itself to disabuse the minds of many of the notion of piety and love for dogmatism being incompatible.

४

In the reign of the abandoned William Rufus, the same see was occupied by S. Anselm. The inventor of that à priori argument for the existence of the Deity, since adopted by Descartes and Clarke (and which, whether solid or not, is certainly ingenious, and an index to the possession of no ordinary powers of mind): the framer of a theory concerning the satisfaction made by Christ, which is replete with deep and subtle ratiocination: is Anselm, too, a mere systematizer with the head, devoid alike of living faith and love? He is somewhat in fashion among theologians just now, and we will own to a peculiar fondness for him. It was with great pleasure that we read the just and worthy eulogium lately passed on him by a Lecturer at Oxford.2 Yet not to merely partial judges, such as Möhler in Germany, or de Remusat in France, would we appeal; nor even to the

1 Chaucer, Canterbury Tales: The Nonnes Preestes Tale.

Perhaps no writer, in the whole history of the Church, has brought to the study of the philosophy of religion a keener intellect chastened by a faith more humble. "I do not seek, O Lord," says he, "to penetrate thy depths; I by no means think my intellect equal to them but I long to understand in some degree thy truth, which my heart believes and loves. For I do not seek to understand, that I may believe; but I believe, that I may understand."-Thomsen's Bampton Lectures, p. 161.

distinguished scholar who has republished his contributions to this Review. We would be content that the student should again refer to Milner; or, better still, to a little book by Anselm himself, namely, his Meditations, which may be obtained in the original Latin cheaply and easily. There is hardly a sentence which can be objected to by members of a Reformed Church; one objection, indeed, may be felt on its perusal: one question may be suggested- Am I fit to take into my own mouth confessions so fervid and sincere?'

Among the recent Oxford translations of the Fathers there is one which has, we believe, enjoyed what may be termed a popular (as distinguished from a merely clerical and literary) circulation: we mean the Confessions of Saint Augustine. Its attraction must mainly arise from the warmth of pious feeling, and the knowledge of the human heart, which it displays. These are characteristics of its author: and to trace the workings of such a mind, and be able to sympathize with its struggles, lends, no doubt, an additional charm to the particular work referred

But this same master of practical theology is likewise the triumphant antagonist of the Donatists, the asserter of Divine grace against Pelagius, the refuter of the heathen calumnies against Christianity. Moreover, he has left us a great dogmatic work, the fifteen books de Trinitate. If his 'piety was not limited by dogma,' shall we learn to look at the dogmatism as an amiable weakness, a concession to the taste of his day? Most certainly he did not thus regard it, and perhaps his gifts were not less eminent than those of our modern anti-dogmatists.

We might speak, not very dissimilarly, of S. Basil and S. Gregory Nazianzen. But if we must fall back upon some one name, as the very type of all that is grand and exalted in connexion with the defence of dogma, that name shall be S. Athanasius. Yet who are we to follow in the wake of his eulogists, from S. Augustine to Erasmus? Who are we to praise that intimate knowledge of Scripture, that largeness of mind in judging others, that keen insight into the subtleties of heresy, that kingly and commanding, though still humble, temper, which extorts even from Gibbon (amongst other praises) the admission that he displayed a superiority of character and abilities, which "would have qualified him, far better than the degenerate sons of Constantine, for the government of a great monarchy.' If Christianity was saved from lapsing from Trinitarianism into Arianism, from Arianism into Socinianism, from Socinianism into Pantheism and Atheism, it is owing, under God, to the first noble stand which was made by the saintly hero of the fourth century, 'whom '-(we gladly borrow the words of Hooker)—

The Rev. R. W. Church.

whom, by the space of forty-six years, from the time of his consecration to succeed Alexander Archbishop in the church of Alexandria, till the last hour of his life in this world, they [the Arians] never suffered to enjoy the comfort of a peaceable day. The heart of Constantine stolen from him. Constantius, Constantine's successor, his scourge and torment by all the ways that malice, armed with sovereign authority, could devise and use. Under Julian no rest given him. And in the days of Valentinian as little. Crimes there were laid to his charge many, the least whereof being just, had bereaved him of estimation and credit with men while the world standeth. His judges evermore the self-same men by whom his accusers were suborned. Yet the issue always on their part, shame; on his, triumph. Those bishops and prelates who should have accounted his cause theirs, and could not, many of them, but with bleeding hearts and with watered cheeks behold a person of so great place and worth constrained to endure so foul indignities, were sure, by bewraying their affection towards him, to bring upon themselves those molestations whereby, if they would not be drawn to seem his adversaries, yet others should be taught how unsafe it was to continue his friends.'1

Of other champions of the faith in that time of fearful trial some wanted acuteness, and made unwary admissions; some gave way from fear, or poverty, or under the influence of flattery; some, who remained honest and sound in faith, became embittered and well-nigh disloyal subjects.

'Only in Athanasius there was nothing observed throughout the course of that long tragedy, other than such as very well became a wise man to do and a righteous to suffer. So that this was the plain condition of those times: the whole world against Athanasius, and Athanasius against it; half a hundred of years spent in doubtful trial which of the two, in the end, would prevail, the side which had all, or else the part which had no friend but God and death, the one a defender of his innocency, the other a finisher of all his troubles.'

Those days are past: the history of those times is to be re-written. The Archbishop of Alexandria is to be represented, we presume, henceforth as a foolish and turbulent man, who fought only with shadows and obscured the face of truth. Shall indeed? Far from us, then, be alliance with those who toil for such an end. O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united!' Whether, with well-meant, but mistaken piety, they seek for unity at the expense of truth; or, whether, with insidious craft, they attack the outworks of Christianity in the hope of ultimately throwing down the walls, may we equally ever stand aloof. Dr. Bushnell, with all his faults, harbours intentions the most excellent; but his arguments upon the subject are being already transferred from dogmas to revelation itself; and on his principles, we see not how it is possible to resist that application. If language be so wholly inadequate for the expression of immaterial things, how can it be made (for, even in inspired lips, it is still human language) to convey an intelligible revelation of

1 Eccl. Pol. book v. chap. 13. § 2.