justify her assumed supremacy, no pretext assuredly is furnished by the original Church of Britain........Unacquainted through distance with pontifical regulations, they acted only on the knowledge acquired from the prophetic, evangelic, and apostolic writings." (p. 48). Columba died June 6, A.D. 596: Augustin landed in Kent in August of the same year. The court of Ethelbert the Saxon, the able ruler of the most powerful kingdom of the Heptarchy, was the successful field of Augustin's labours; and Christianity, having taken root in Kent, soon became the religion of all the other Saxon kingdoms of Britain. But the type of Christianity introduced by Augustin was essentially Roman, and the differences between it and the faith of Britain appeared in the contentions between Augustin and the monks of Bangor, and on many other occasions. From the time of Augustin, A.D. 600, till the Reformation, that is, for nine hundred years, the Church of England was ostensibly in communion with Rome; but both the Gallican and Anglican branches assumed a greater degree of independence than the other Churches of the west-if that can be called independence which was only less abject submissionand which would be hardly worth noticing, save as being an indication that circumstances might arise which would arouse them so as to cast off entirely the yoke. The preaching of Wickliffe, and the martyrdom of Cobham and many more, affected only individuals; and some more general impulse and some public cause emed wanting to draw out the energies of the nation and give an independent standing :— "Near as was the violent disruption of those bonds which for ages had held England in connection with the Roman see, few events seemed more remote than such a catastrophe when Henry VIII., A.D. 1509, ascended the throne. The papacy was undisturbed by internal dissentions, and unmolested by external opposition: heresy, real or supposed, was almost every where repressed; the glorious structure (St. Peter's), whose magnificence impresses the beholder with astonishment and awe, was rising in unexampled splendour; nor had the scandalous arts employed ostensibly to aid its renovation as yet awakened the tones of indignant protest which startled Europe and made Rome tremble. Powerful, indeed, must have been that force of ancient prestige which neither the detestable crimes of Alexander VI., the martial secularity of Julius II., nor the splendid vices of Leo X., could dispel; and wretchedly low must have been the general standard of morals, when a pontiff enjoyed the reputation of goodness who did not surpass the average wickedness of human nature" (Guicciardini, viii. 354) Vol. ii. 2. It is a vulgar error, sedulously propagated by the Romanizing party, that the Reformation in England is to be ascribed to the rage of Henry at finding himself thwarted by the Pope. It is quite true that the king's impetuosity hurried on and increased the rupture, but it would soon have taken place if Henry had never been born: and it would have come to nothing if it had rested on no more stable foundation than the passions of one man, though a potent sovereign. The Reformation in England rested on principles which had taken deep root in the minds of men, and which required something which Rome refused to allow, because she knew full well that it must be followed by the loss of her favourite and long cherished pretensions as a Church. In proof of this we need only refer to the Reformers' definition of a Church. Becon, Cranmer's chaplain, says: "I will recite, at present, only four tokens, or marks, whereby we may truly and undeceivably know the true Catholic and Apostolic Church--the first is, the sincere, true, and uncorrupt preaching of God's word, without the intermixtion or mingling of man's doctrine; the second is, the true administration of the sacraments, according to the institution and ordinance of Christ; the third is, fervent prayer and the diligent invocation of God in the name of our alone Mediator, Jesus Christ; and the fourth is, ecclesiastical discipline, according to the prescript and appointment of God's word." The catechism of Edward VI. is precisely the same in substance, and the veriest child might perceive that the Church of Rome would stand none of these tests: and the principle of appealing to the word of God alone, as the rule and standard for doctrine and practice, is so fatal to all the false pretensions of the Papacy that they refused such an appeal, and would be bound by no such rules; and, as the most effectual way of stopping, denied the Scriptures to the people, and have continued to withhold them, as far as the utmost of their power extends, to the present day. And when these principles of the Reformation had taken hold of the hearts of the people, the cruelties of Mary in her attempts to eradicate them from the land, by burning for heretics those who inculcated such doctrines, only deepened the more, and more widely propagated the same, in the sympathy which was excited towards the sufferers. These martyrs for the truth, in the words of Latimer, lighted a candle in England which has never gone out; and roused an indignation against Rome which determined the people of England to reject a Church whose deeds were thus antichristian, and the blood of these martyrs became the seed of the Church of England and their history her example. The leading transactions of that ever interesting time are faithfully though concisely given, and the lives of Latimer, Ridley, Cranmer, and their companions, though embalmed in our memories, are again reviewed and revived as it were with ever returning freshness and sweetness. The difficulties with which Elizabeth had to struggle are poimted out; and the history of those various conferences by which the Articles, Canons, and Liturgy were brought to their present state are severally noticed. The Nonjurors and Nonconformists are not omitted, and the rise of the Methodists and similar seccders from the Church is traced down to that most recent and most extraordinary secession which began in the publication of the "Tracts for the Times:" and of which it is to be hoped we have now seen the worst, if not the end. Wesley, and the other leaders in secession, did not begin with the intention to secede; and, as every man thinks his own arguments the best, they all expect to bring the Church to adopt those doctrines or practices upon which they have set their hearts. They are disappointed: they offend the Church, and are themselves offended and driven away; yet their exertions, so far as they have any truth for a foundation, are not without effect. All the truth takes effect upon the lovers of truth in the Church and as Wesley was clearly instrumental in raising the tone of spirituality in the Church, and infusing more of vital energy into an age which had become torpid, worldly, and infidel-directing his exertions to individuals with whom the change must begin and enforcing personal holiness-so the Tractarian movement which has respect to the Church as a body, and enforces outward observances, and regard to times and places, may raise the tone of the Church in its ritual and in attention to decency and order-things which are of importance when kept in due subordination, and which may be attended to without introducing either superstition or idolatry. Mr. Baxter is upon the whole rather hopeful of good, though his volumes close mournfully under the present aspect of things, and as if prepared for the worst : "It may be that a different prospect awaits us; that the everlasting gospel is to be proclaimed to all nations, only as a premonitory token that the hour of his judgment is come,' preached as a witness'a witness heard of the vast majority, like him of whom it testifies, only to be rejected. It may be that true religion is the only know ledge destined to retrogression, that iniquity is to abound, and the love of many to wax cold, and faith to wane, and days of affliction such as have not been from the beginning of the world. For these, also, the Church must be prepared; nor can there be a better preparation than a deep and solemn conviction that purification in the furnace of affliction has ever been God's appointed method of dealing with his own.". ..." If such be her appointed path-if the last and most portentous development of Antichrist is to be marked by education receding as instruction advances, State support engaged on the side of a false religion, and progressive intellect exalting itself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped,' yet calmly acquiescing in handing over the vulgar to the depraving influences of Rome's grovelling system-the true Church of God may once more find herself in deserts, and dens, and caves of the earth; but there she shall be cheered by the presence of her Redeemer: there shall she be sustained as were the saints of old by the word and promise of her Lord; and thence shall she come forth as the bride, the Lamb's wife, resplendent in the beauty of holiness, to inhabit the holy city, New Jerusalem, descending from God out of heaven." "Forth from heaven and God descending Glories past expression blending, New Jerusalem her name. Hark! a voice from heaven-' our God Plants with man his blest abode; They his hallowed people; He, "God's own hand from all their eyes Hark! He speaks-the First, the Last. 'See the old creation past! Lo! a new universe begun, Write the changeless truth-'Tis done."" Abstract of Researches on Magnetism, and on certain allied Subjects, including a supposed new Imponderable. By BARON VON REICHENBACH. Translated and Abridged from the German. By W. GREGORY, M.D., &c. London: Taylor and Walton. 1846. OUR readers are probably acquainted with the experiments by which Professor Faraday has demonstrated the connection between magnetism and light, so that rays which have been polarized, so as to cease to illumine an object, may, by being magnetized, be brought into action, so as to render that object visible. It, also, has shown that all substances are either magnetic or diamagnetic- that is, they are acted upon either in the magnetic line north and south, or in a line at right angles with this-that is, east and west; so that bodies which had been hitherto supposed to be non-magnetic were really magnetic-that is to say, were operated upon by very powerful magnets, but in a way precisely crossing that of magnetic bodies the diamagnetic bodies, when in equilibrium, settling down into a place of rest at right angles to the axial line on which ordinary magnetic bodies settled. Dr. Esdaile of Calcutta had been at the same time demonstrating that there exists in the human frame an influence capable of being transferred from one body to another, and of affecting a sensitive person at considerable distances, to which power he attributes all mesmeric phenomena: and Baron Von Reichenbach has brought these phenomena into union by the experiments conducted by him independently, though at the same time; and has shewn that the human body is a powerful magnetic instrument in itself, and is in a very high degree susceptible of magnetic influences. The facts recorded by Von Reichenbach, to which, in agreement with Dr. Gregory, we yield the most entire confidence, show that the human frame is very powerfully affected by magnetic influences, which are imperceptible by persons in robust health, or, if perceived at all by them, would be referred to some other causes. But when the senses are rendered unusually susceptible-as is the case with all those persons who are usually denominated nervous-then the effect becomes so marked and so constant that there can be no doubt of its reality. But until some principle occurred to which these phenomena could be referred and which would suffice for explaining them all, the cases were considered merely as fanciful, or hypochondriac, or a species of monomania, and so were utterly disregarded. These cases are of the highest possible interest to ourselves, from our having personally experienced the same kind of things, though utterly unable to account for them. The rational account is given by Von Reichenbach, on the expe riences which have come under his own notice; and we not only accept his account as true, but are thankful for it as an explanation, and believe that it is the prelude to, r if not the door of entrance of, a new region of unsuspected. and most interesting phenomena, which will throw great light, upon the mysterious connection between the invisible and visible, if not upon the still higher analogies by which we may be led to a contemplation of the operation of spirit upon matter. W. E. Painter, Printer, 342, Strand, London. |