treachery and assassinations that the cause of the throne and of rational liberty is supported. Englishmen have warmly applauded, and splendidly rewarded the important services of Nelson against the enemies of his country, but the generous love of justice, the fairness, the manliness, for which they are distinguished above all nations, will make them see through the unfair statements, and the flimsy arguments by which it is vainly attempted to defend the deplorable and infamous conduct of that admiral; the more they are made acquainted with the circumstances of the case, the more will they feel disgusted with his behaviour, and disavow any attempt to justify or palliate crimes which ought to have been buried in oblivion, out of charity to the memory of the guilty party, who owes it only to the indiscre tion of his friends that they cannot now ever be forgotten or for given.

ART. VII.-An Essay on the Miracles recorded in the Ecclesiastical History of the Early Ages. By JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, B.D., Fellow of Oriel College. Oxford, 1843. 1 vol. 8vo. Lives of the English Saints. London, 1844-45. 14 Nos. 18mo.

We do not envy the feelings with which a sincere and intelligent Roman Catholic enters upon an explanation of the miracles recorded and believed in his Church. Everything human has its weak points; and the Christian beholds with sorrow the strifes and divisions, and other cankering sores, which mar even the fair face of the religion of love. In his contest with external enemies, he naturally seeks to avoid a theme so ungrateful; and he must be weak indeed, or nobly strong, who would set them in the first front of battle. But a harder task awaits the champion of the "Legends of the Saints." It is his, not to palliate, defend, or explain, but to glorify corruptions; to treat them, not as abuses, or excrescences, but as the characteristics of his Church; and to appeal to them in the most solemn manner as direct interpositions of the Almighty hand of God, in proof of His presence and favour. It must be the very gall of bitterness for a noble and devout nature to be driven to such necessity. We need not wonder, therefore, that the more enlightened in the Church of Rome either altogether avoid, or, when that is impossible, hesitate, qualify, and, with some sweeping commendation of faith, turn shrinkingly away from the bare enunciation of her miracles. Even the least scrupulous controversialists appeal to them for the most part generally, and in the gross; and the image bows its head, and the relic works its charm, only to the eyes of the faithful.

In their case there is much to mourn over, and something to pardon. The credulous, the timid, and the ignorant, almost unconsciously acquiesce in practices and opinions familiar to them from infancy, recommended by general consent, hallowed by religion, and enforced and protected by penalties the most severe. The more reflecting "wink hard," or take refuge in infidelity, or make what shift they can with the arrow in their sides. The Essay of Mr. Newman is an attempt to induce Pro testants voluntarily to place themselves in this most painful and unhappy condition; and by way of encouragement, he has put the yoke on his own neck.

There is perhaps nothing in profane antiquity which lays such strong hold on the higher sympathies of our nature, as the story of the Roman wife, who drew the dagger reeking from her own bosom, and gave it to her husband, saying, "It is not painful, Pætus!" Overpowered by the evidence of such surpassing affection, it requires a painful effort to pass judgment on her splendid crime. Yet though it may seem a harder thing for a sincere Protestant minister to believe in the miracles of Benedict of Nursia, or St. Simeon of the Pillar, than to lay down his life for a dear friend, the effect on the world is altogether different: and ere men listen to the assurance, and follow the example of Mr. Newman, he must not be surprized should they look into the matter for themselves, and resolve thereupon to throw the dagger away;-nay, should even tell him, that the only danger lay in using it.

Nor is Mr. Newman so borne away by his own enthusiasm as to be unprepared for such an emergency. The traveller on his way to Rome cannot avoid the supernatural narratives of the early ages; and if he can overcome the difficulties of the fourth and fifth centuries, the rest of his path is comparatively easy, These difficulties, however, are so formidable, that according to Mr. Newman's own showing, it is inconsiderate, and even wanton, to venture amongst them without a guide.

"It will naturally suggest itself to him to form some judgment upon them, and a perplexity, perhaps a painful perplexity, may ensue from the difficulty of doing so. This being the case, it is inconsiderate and almost wanton to bring such subjects before him, without making at least the attempt to assist him in disposing of them." -P. 12.

The attempt is accordingly made in his Essay on Miracles, prefixed to the first volume of Fleury's Ecclesiastical History, where such supernatural narratives abound;-in many cases judiciously improved, and ingeniously altered from their original and authentic form, yet still perplexing enough to the modern reader. It is a grave question whether the power of working miracles extended beyond the Apostolic age; or rather whether the evi

dence for any miracle, not recorded in Scripture, has sufficient weight to enforce from the Christian a complete and reasonable belief. All that is most precious to him-his consolations in time, his hopes for eternity, depend for their existence on the Scripture miracles. "If," says the Apostle, "Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain."-1 Cor. xv. 14. The evidence for their truth, therefore, must needs be powerful: and, as derived from the origin, increase, and reception of Christianity, and the lives, deaths, characters, and writings of the first disciples and their followers, it is most certainly powerful and overwhelming. It is needless to state that there is no such evidence for the miracles which are said to have followed them, and which Mr. Newman happily terms "the Ecclesiastical Miracles." There is indeed a heaven-wide distinction between the two, in their nature, in their objects, and in the evidence by which they are respectively supported; and this is so admirably illustrated by Mr. Newman, that we shall quote his account of it at length.

"The miracles wrought in times subsequent to the Apostles are of a very different character, viewed as a whole, from those of Scripture viewed as a whole; so much so, that some writers have not scrupled to say, that if they really took place, they must be considered as forming another dispensation;* and, at least, they are in some sense supplementary to the Apostolic. This will be evident both on a survey of some of them, and by referring to the language used by the Fathers of the Church concerning them.

"The Scripture miracles are for the most part evidence of a Divine revelation, and that for the sake of those who have not yet been instructed in it, and in order to the instruction of multitudes: but the miracles which follow have sometimes no discoverable or direct object, or but a slight object; they happen for the sake of individuals, and of those who are already Christians, or for purposes already effected, as far as we can judge, by the miracles of Scripture. The Scripture miracles are wrought by persons consciously exercising under Divine guidance a power committed to them for definite ends, professing to be immediate messengers from heaven, and to be evidencing their mission by their miracles: whereas Ecclesiastical miracles are not so much wrought as displayed, being effected by Divine power without any visible media of operation at all, or by inanimate or material media, as relics and shrines, or by instruments who did not know at the time what they were effecting, or, if they were hoping and praying for such supernatural blessing, at least did not know when they were to be used as instruments, when not. We find the gift often committed, in the words of Middleton, not to the successors of the Apostles, to the Bishops, the Martyrs, or the principal champions of the Christian cause, but to boys, to women, and above all, to private and obscure laymen, not only of an inferior, but sometimes also of a

* Vid, MIDDLETON's Inquiry, p. 24. et al. CAMPBELL on Miracles,p. 121,

bad character." The miracles of Scripture are, as a whole, grave, simple, and majestic: those of Ecclesiastical history often partake of what may not unfitly be called a romantic character, and of that wildness and inequality which enters into the notion of romance. The miracles of Scripture are undeniably of a supernatural character: those of Ecclesiastical history are often scarcely more than extraordinary accidents or coincidences, or events which seem to betray exaggerations or errors in the statement. The miracles of Scripture are definite and whole transactions, drawn out and carried through from first to last, with beginning and ending, clear, complete, and compact in the narrative, separated from extraneous matter, and consigned to authentic statements: whereas the Ecclesiastical for the most part are not contained in any authoritative form or original document; at best they need to be extracted from merely historical works, and often are only floating rumours, popular traditions, vague, various, inconsistent in detail, tales which only happen to have survived, or which in the course of years obtained a permanent place in local usages or in particular rites or in certain spots, recorded at a distance from the time and country when and where they profess to have occurred, and brought into shape only by the juxtaposition of distinct informants. Moreover, in Ecclesiastical history true and false miracles are mixed: whereas in Scripture, inspiration has selected the true to the exclusion of all others."-Pp. 24, 25.

In connexion with this statement, he adds, (p. 62.)—

"Should any one urge, as was stated in a former place, that the Ecclesiastical miracles virtually form a new dispensation, we need not deny it in the sense in which the Prophetical miracles are distinct from the Mosaic."

And, to make the matter perfectly clear, he goes on to assert that the Ecclesiastical miracles "seem but parallel, as they are contemporaneous, to the development, additions, and changes in dogmatic statements, which have occurred between the apostolic and the present age." Now, there is in these two statements a very material apparent discrepancy between the nature of these miracles, and the agency assigned to them; but there is something far more remarkable than any discrepancy, in the deliberate assertion, that a new dispensation, with a change of dogmatic statements, has been introduced by Ecclesiastical miracles since the apostolic age. Can Mr. Newman have forgotten the solemn and emphatic language of St. Paul? "But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other Gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed." If there be those who have really committed this sin,-if there be any Church, which has brought in, or received the "new dispensation," assuredly such is the sentence recorded against her in the archives of heaven.

*Page 25, Edit, 1749.

Proceeding to examine the internal character of the Ecclesiastical miracles, we find the whole of them, as a class, inferior to the Scripture miracles: some dissimilar in object; some directly contrary; and some having no assignable object whatever (p. 46.) Such a state of things is no doubt "painfully perplexing;" and, so far as we are aware, Mr. Newman is the first who has endeavoured to fling a bridge over this chaos-that is, to promulgate a theory which shall bring the whole into harmony and order. He is a grave man, and writes on grave subjects, and we cannot suspect him of any leaning towards the burlesque; nevertheless, his theory of Ecclesiastical miracles is nothing other than a caricature of the argument from analogy. It is Bishop Butler travestied. We present the substance of it to our readers in his own words:

"To take for instance, the case of animal nature, let us consider the effect produced upon the mind on seeing, for the first time, the many tribes of the animal world, as we find them brought together for the purposes of science, or exhibition in our own country. We are accustomed, indeed, to see wild beasts more or less, from our youth, or at least to read of them; but even with this partial preparation, many persons will be moved in a very singular way on going for the first time, or after some interval, to a menagerie."-P. 47.

"First, the endless number of wild animals, their independence of man, and uselessness to him; then their exhaustless variety; then their strangeness in shape, colour, size, motions, and countenance; not to enlarge on the still more mysterious phenomena of their natural propensities and passions; all these things throng upon us, and are in danger of overpowering us, tempting us to view the Physical Cause of all as disconnected from the Moral, and that, from the impression borne in upon us, that nothing we see in this vast assemblage is religious, in our sense of the word religious. We see full evidence there of an Author-of power, wisdom, goodness; but not of a Principle or Agent correlative to our idea of religion. But without pushing this remark to an extreme point, or dwelling on it further than our present purpose requires, let two qualities of the works of nature be observed before leaving the subject, which (whatever explanation is to be given of them, and certainly some explanation is not beyond even our limited powers) are at first sight very perplexing. One is that principle of deformity, whether hideousness or mere homeliness, which exists in the animal world; and the other (if the word may be used with due soberness) is the ludicrous;-that is, judging of things, as we are here judging of them, by their impression upon our minds. "It is obvious to apply what has been said to the case of the miracles of the Church, as compared with those in Scripture. Scrip ture is to us a garden of Eden, and its creations are beautiful as well as very good; but when we pass from the Apostolic to the following ages, it is as if we left the choicest valleys of the earth, the quietest and most harmonious scenery, and the most cultivated soil, for the luxuriant wildernesses of Africa or Asia, the natural home or kingdom

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