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upon the moral energy of the present. Faith realizes present hidden powers as a ground of action, and a strength in action, not as an excuse for waiting still, nor as any reason for thinking that the destinies of the future are taken out of our own hands.

Most blessed and encouraging it is to have grasped spiritual truth, and to know the fellowship of divine power to which we are called by the gift of Pentecost. We would affectionately again entreat those who have caught a glimpse of this amidst the exist ing novelties of the Irvingite system, to come and seek for the faith of divine power in the gifts of the HOLY GHOST, which, however neglected of men, have from age to age been handed down in the Church by the laying on of hands.

Most precarious is it to base an ecclesiastical system upon so slight a foundation as the texts which are quoted for the fourfold ministry. Most precarious indeed, when the Church of the very subapostolic age itself knew nothing of such a system. As it is precarious in doctrine to make such an assumption, so is it most perilous in practice to accept a system as realizing such a law of divine life, without clear proof that that system is really the exponent of such a law. Men may call themselves in a season of excitement by all the names of the fourfold ministry. We implore of all persons to ask their inner hearts, not in moments of excited sympathy, but in tranquil solemnity, why they believe in the existence of a fourfold ministry, unknown through all past ages to those who are now saints on high, and why they believe particularly in the resuscitation of this fourfold ministry by the sect now under review. We are specially warned against giving heed to any who announce CHRIST's coming in ways distinct from the Church Universal. May we not reverse the saying of the Jews? "When Elias comes will he not do greater works than these which this sect has done?" The call of preparation when it is given to the world, will be unmistakeably given. It certainly will not call men away from the Church of GOD to any other system as better or richer in grace, but it will call men to acknowledge their responsibilities, because of the gifts of divine life so long vouchsafed to them in the Sacraments of CHRIST'S Body, and so long despised, neglected, and forgotten.

ARCHBISHOP LAUD'S LETTERS.

Laud's Works, Vol. VII.-Letters. Anglo-Catholic Library. Oxford: J. H. Parker. 1860.

THIS Volume contains the remaining portion of the correspondence of the Archbishop to the number of 251 letters, many of which have never seen the light before. Thanks, however, to the pains and labour of Mr. Bliss, we are now in possession of those belonging to Earl Fitzwilliam, to S. John's College, at Oxford, and those in the State Paper Office, while some in the possession of private individuals are added. We have now, we may fairly assume, all the correspondence of the great Archbishop which can throw any light upon the history of the period in which he lived, and which still has so much interest for all historical students. With his Letters, his Diary, and his Private Devotions, we can be no longer at a loss to discover what manner of man he was, and to have before our mind's eye a complete portrait of the statesman-the Archbishop -the private Christian. And indeed the part which he played was so important, and the character in which he appears on the page of history so varied, that we need all sources of information about him in order to form a just estimate of him. We are told sometimes he was only a narrow-minded priest, careful for the advantages of his order, and willing to sacrifice the highest interests of state for the advancement of the priesthood. Sometimes we are told he was a worldly-minded statesman, only anxious to exalt the King's prerogative-the foe of liberty and enemy of parliaments, the true type of a class which Henry VII. brought into prominence, and to whom he entrusted too much power-the ecclesiastical politician whose low birth rendered him obsequious to the King, and his ready instrument in carrying out his schemes against the liberties of the nation. And from single passages of his Diary, or from isolated acts, each statement may have a colouring of truth about it. But he was really much more than a mere priest or statesman. When judged fairly and honestly by a judgment founded upon all we know of him, we cannot but admire the wonderful ease with which he threw himself into each position he was called to fill, the industry with which he worked to master its details, the honesty with which he discharged it, and the courage with which he met difficulties. These letters serve materially to strengthen this conviction they show us the busy politician, full of cabinet secrets, taking counsel with his chosen friend-not venturing to commit his thoughts to paper save under the protection of cypher, and bring this side of his character into bold relief. And it is especially after perusing them we feel the value of his Diary and Devotions.

For thus we see the man who, judged by these letters alone, would seem to be merely a hard-headed, worldly, astute politician, to whom affairs of this world were all; a contrite, humble, broken-hearted sinner; they enable us to see the serge beneath the robe of statesmanship.

These letters also will do good service, although, as we said, not conveying a perfect impression of Laud's character, in dissipating the foolish notions which some entertain of him as a mere oldwomanish driveller or slave of an imbecile superstition. Then, again, their relation to the Diary is important. Passages of the Diary doubtless do give the impression that Laud was superstitious; and a hasty judgment jumps to the conclusion that superstition is inconsistent with any breadth of thought or any vigorous handling of affairs of importance. Such hasty judgment is best dissipated by facts like those brought out in these letters. The man who noted his dreams or falling of his portrait was capable of acting at the same time as Prime Minister of England, Foreign Secretary, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Chancellor of two Universities both in disorder. And what is more, he not only did all this, but did it well. It is true he did not carry on the affairs of State by aid of a Parliament; and we willingly admit that he disliked and mistrusted Parliaments. But his administrations brought about a very prosperous state of things, and the condition of England, during the period Charles ruled by virtue of his prerogative alone, was such a period of prosperity as served to recall the days of good Queen Bess. We appeal to unexceptionable authority in quoting Mr. Hallam as witness in this case :—

"We may acknowledge, without hesitation, that the kingdom had grown during this period into remarkable prosperity and affluence. The rents of land were very considerably increased, and large tracts reduced into cultivation. The manufacturing towns, the seaports, became more flourishing and populous. The Metropolis increased in size with a rapidity that repeated proclamations against new buildings could not restrain. The country houses of the superior gentry throughout England were built on a scale which their descendants, even in the days of more redundant affluence, have seldom ventured to emulate. The kingdom was indebted for this prosperity to the spirit and industry of the people, to the laws which secure the Commons from oppression, and which, as between man and man, were still fairly administered, to the opening of fresh channels of trade in the eastern and western worlds (rivulets indeed as they seem to us, who float in the full tide of modern commerce, yet at that time no slight contributions to the stream of public wealth), but above all to the long tranquillity of the kingdom ignorant of the sufferings of domestic, and seldom much affected by the privations of foreign war. It was the natural course of things that wealth should be progressive in such a land.”1

1 Hallam's Constitutional History, Chap. viii. Vol. i. p. 540.

To return to the letters contained in this Volume. Many of them are addressed to Wentworth during his Irish Administration; and if Laud did at times seem to make too much of the priestly calling, and place clergy in posts better filled by laymen, this correspondence shows that he was not disposed to wink at irregularities or connive at abuses even on the part of his brethren of the Episcopal Order. It is well known how in England he procured a Royal Injunction prohibiting the Bishops from felling timber on their Episcopal estates on pain of forfeiting all hopes of translation a species of argument which he judged most likely to tell with the parties concerned. The "Strafford Letters" in this Volume are full of instructions to him to proceed against the Irish Bishops for the plunder of which they had been guilty. The Archbishop of Cashel seems to have been particularly obnoxious to Laud. My confidence in that man is not infinite." And his opinion of the Irish Bishops, as a body, was poor. "I should be

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very glad," he writes to Strafford, while deprecating a particular charge which he did not think proved against the Bishop of Clogher, "some Bishops thus should be able to defend themselves and save their reputation." Among his own suffragans he seems early to have seen through Goodman of Gloucester, and to have hindered his further preferment.

"S. in Christo.

"MAY IT PLEASE YOUR LORDSHIP,

"I have received two letters from you, both tending to the same thing, though differing in some particulars. I have acquainted his Majesty with the contents of both of them, and the answer which he gave is to this effect: that yourself was the only cause that you had not Hereford; that you must not look he can be well pleased with your carriage in that business; that your way to regain him is not to talk thus unadvisedly of a coadjutor, but to do the duty of your place. To this end his Majesty hath commanded me to signify his express pleasure to you, which is, that notwithstanding your leave taken there, you do repair to Gloucester, and settle yourself to live there, and look to your diocese, of which I will look for an account, according to his royal instructions. And surely, my LORD, I cannot give you any other counsel, than to obey these his Majesty's instructions, lest you would move him to further displeasure. I would not that you should trouble your thoughts with me, for, thank GOD, I have no particular spleen. I do but the duty of my place, and if you shall set yourself to do yours, I shall be as ready as yourself can wish, to do that which is fit to be asked at my hands. Thus not doubting but you will apply yourself to give his Majesty satisfaction, I leave you to the grace of GOD, and rest "Your Lordship's loving Friend and Brother.

"Endorsed:

"Febr. 6, 1633.

"A Copye of my Lrs to my Ld. Bp. of

"Glocest. about a Coadjutor, &c.'"

Thus at a later time, when his suspicions had some justification, Goodman's episcopal character saved him not from citation into the High Commission Court, nor from suspension in 1640. These are not the acts of one who would sacrifice everything to save his order, as we are told Laud was.

As might be expected, these letters to Strafford, or more properly the Lord Wentworth, contain constant reference to the great work which Strafford accomplished in bringing about unity of doctrine between the Churches of England and Ireland. We here meet with Laud's anxiety to procure the passing of the English XVIIIth Canon, and his approbation of the XIXth of the Irish code respecting confession.

"Since the English Canons are received in substance, I care not much for the form. And one passing good thing we have got by it, besides the placing of the altar at the east end, and that is a passing good canon about confession."—P. 132.

"For the Irish Canons, you have my judgment. And the name of JESUS is little beholden to their stiffness. But what if the Name do not only represent, but stand for the Person, shall He have no honour neither?"-P. 156.

We cannot but be struck in reading these letters to Wentworth by the pertinacity with which Laud adheres to a point once taken up. He will admit no compromise when he is determined upon a course of action. The constant recurrence to Lord Cork's tomb is a case in point. This nobleman had erected a tomb in S. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, in the place where the altar had stood, and Laud was determined it should come down. Great interest was made for its continuance, for the Earl of Cork was a great man, and two of the Irish Archbishops, one of them the Primate, saw no objection to its remaining where it was. But Laud's settled determination to restore the altar was not to be shaken. Lord Cork's tomb is a subject continually recurring in these letters, and he keeps Strafford informed of the progress he makes and obstacle Lady Nina (impersonated in the Treasurer Weston) is to his wishes being carried out. Great is his satisfaction when he can report to his friend the long desired Commission is issued, and great his joy when he hears the tomb is pulled down. He saw this lay at the foundation of all real reformation, that if noble lords were to be allowed to build tombs where altars ought to be, it would be in vain to expect improvement. His language is strong, but not too strong:

"For the matter itself, the consequences will be extreme naught if the tomb stand, so you write and so it is. And over and above the rest, few will dare to show themselves in the other great business, if they see his money, cunning, or friends can carry him out, where he hath thrust GOD out of His most proper place on earth, next to the

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