solely to the two writers specified. For if Dr. W.'s assertion be correct, viz. that he meant to say that Kuinoel and Bloomfield only, held a certain opinion respecting the transition of subject at Matt. xxiv. 43; he will have to explain, why, in his Moorfields Lectures, he roundly asserted that "most Protestant commentators," and "all those whom he had read ;” and finally, "all the most accurate commentators ;" held the opinion which now he maintains is held by only two? And, further, he will have to show what dependence can be placed on the assertions of a writer who seems so careless respecting the accuracy or inaccuracy of what he prints. Putting out of consideration the lamentable absence of moral principle, which all this recklessness of assertion indicates, we believe the best excuse that can be made for Dr. Wiseman is, that the learned writer knows far less of commentators, than he would make himself and others believe. We find him, for example, in the fourth of the Lectures on the Eucharist (p. 118,) adducing the authority of Tittmann, to prove the doctrine of the corporal presence in the sacrament; whilst on the contrary, Dr. Turton shows, as we think, satisfactorily, that a wrong use had been made of Tittmann's writings (Roman Catholic Doctrine, &c. pp. 190 et seq.) On this portion of the Dean of Peterborough's book, Dr. W.'s observations are, we regret to say, more scornful and vituperative than appear to be warranted by the sequel. But let the reader judge.

I quoted, (observes Dr. W.) with reference to Tittmann, the Meletemata Sacra -I suppose the learned Professor was unacquainted with the work; so, like a good controversialist certainly not like a good scholar-he goes to another work of Tittmann's, and from that attempts to confute me. This is his conmentary on St. John. Now in this, Tittmann, being a Protestant, interprets our Lord's discourse Protestantly; and says, 'apud nostros,' that is, among German Protestants, there is no doubt that no reference is here intended to the blessed Sacrament."-Reply, p. 186.

And again ;

The words from the Meletemata Sacra are as clear as those from the commentary; nor will any quotation from the latter obscure or invalidate the former. -Ibid.

There are here, it will have been observed, some expressions used that savour of contempt " for the learned Professor," and of an assumed superiority on the part of Dr. Wiseman; and one should conclude, therefore, that the writer of these sentences had exercised some degree of care to satisfy himself that he could maintain the tone of superiority which is here so confidently assumed. In fact, one begins to speculate as to how the "learned Professor" can possibly rescue himself from the suspicion of hopeless ignorance. Let us hear him.

The Meletemata Sacra and the Commentary on St. John are the same work! And thus Dr. Wiseman-after treating familiarly of "the learned Tittmann "after supposing that the Cambridge Professor was unacquainted with the workDr. Wiseman, I say, after all this, writes himself down either as a person who did not know that the work called Meletemata Sacra, is a commentary-the commentary-Tittmann's Commentary-on St. John-or as one who aimed at inducing people to believe that the Meletemata Sacra and the Commentary are different productions.-Observations, p. 130.

The most charitable construction, therefore, that can be put on this curious, this instructive mistake is, that, in the "haste" in which his Reply was written, Dr. Wiseman had never by any accident read a line of the book with which he imagined himself to be so familiar.

One specimen more of Dr. Wiseman's Reply, and we have done. It will be recollected that the two positions, on the truth of which Dr. W.'s manner of interpreting John vi. depends, are (1,) that the Jews who understood our Lord's expressions respecting the eating of His flesh literally, understood them rightly; and (2) that our Lord offered no explanation of those expressions. To show, however, that these were not the positions usually maintained by Romanists, the Dean of Peterborough quoted, among others, the Rhemish annotators and the opinions of Estius. It would have been too much to expect that such a method of meeting this interpretation of John vi. should prove very palatable to Dr. Wiseman; nevertheless, as Dr. W. had himself quoted Estius as an authority, it might not unreasonably be supposed that he would continue to regard that authority with respect. But no. The object of Dr. W. in his Reply is to lower the reputation of Estius. In an early portion of the Reply (p. 70,) he had stated that, with the exception of a commentary on St. Paul's Epistles, the writings of Estius were "in no sort of repute;" and now, for the benefit of slow believing Protestants, the learned author proceeds toward the conclusion of his Reply, to make some "additional remarks" on the same subject.

First, should not the reader be satisfied with the evidence I gave before, of the very second-rate character attributed by Catholics to Estius's commentary on the difficult passages of Scripture; I beg he will peruse the following judgment of Dupin, who pronounces the highest and merited encomiuns on the Commentary on St. Paul's Epistles: "Les annotations d'Estius sur les lieux difficiles de l'Ecriture. . .... ne sont pas si travaillées que ses commentaires sur les Epîtres de S. Paul; et il semble s'être plus appliqué à rechercher les pensées morales pour servir d'instruction, qu'à expliquer à fond les difficultés de l'Ecriture sainte." Such is the commentator "of great repute," to whom the learned Professor seems to think Catholics are bound to subinit their judgments.

And again :

But why is the latter [Estius] such a peculiar favourite of Dr. Turton? I can find no reason, except that he appears to lend him an argument on this matter. Certainly he is not indebted, for this preference to his [Estius's] reputation among us.-Reply, pp. 198, 200.

We must here let Dr. Turton answer for himself.

Any reader, taking the preceding extract for his guide, would suppose that Estius afforded a solitary instance of a Roman Catholic divine maintaining the opinions there objected to; whereas, such opinions appear to have been for ages the prevailing opinions of the Latin Church. But that is not all. Any readers of the extract would conclude that I had quoted Estius's Commentary on the difficult passages of Scripture, with regard to the interpretation of John vi. ; which I have not done. He would infer that there is no other work of Estius, which I have quoted on the subject; which there is. He would feel assured that Dupin had not given a character-at least [not] a high character-of any such work; which yet he has given. In short, with respect to John vi., I quoted Estius On the Sentences; and of that work, Dupin, in the very place referred to by Dr. Wiseman, has given the following account; which I copy from the English translation of Dupin, now accidentally before me.

His commentary upon The Master of the Sentences, is one of the best theological books we have, &c.-Observations, pp. 161, 162.

This opinion of Dupin, Dr. Turton gives at length; and the purport of it shows that Dupin considered the work of Estius, from which the Dean of Peterborough had quoted, to be a work of great and deserved authority. Every right minded person, therefore must, on a review of these discreditable circumstances, enter fully into the feelings that prompted Dr. T. to remark—

There is something, in Dr. Wiseman's proceedings with regard to Estius, from which the mind turns away with inexpressible uneasiness. Not to mention other particulars, only think of Dr. Wiseman's giving Dupin's character of that work of Estius, which I had not quoted on John vi.; and suppressing Dupin's character and such a character too-of the work-the only work-which I had quoted on that subject. However unsatisfactorily may be the case of Titt mann, it does not offer such extreme violence to our moral feelings, as we experience in that of Estius.-Observations, pp. 162, 163.

But here we must take our leave of Dr. Wiseman; yet not without sincere regret, that we are obliged to part company with him under the influence of impressions so little in his favour. It has indeed been a painful task to examine writings in which christian integrity of pur pose is but faintly to be traced amidst so much that seems intended to bewilder and mislead. Yet let us not press too hardly on Dr. W. as an individual. His is the unenviable lot to be pledged to a system which, if circumstances require it, never fails to exact from its upholders the postponement of moral feelings and principles to the success of the Papacy. And thus it happens that we are made familiar with the sorrowful spectacle of men, eminent for talents and learning, employing their abilities for no other purpose than to propagate error, or pervert the truth.

ART. III.-The Cloud of Witnesses: a Series of Discourses on the Eleventh and part of the Twelfth Chapters of the Epistle to the Hebrews. By the Rev. JAMES S. M. ANDERSON, M. A., Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen, Chaplain to the Queen Dowager, and Perpetual Curate of St. George's Chapel, Brighton. London: Rivington. Oxford: Parker. 1839. Pp. 384.

WE have no other insulated portion of holy Scripture, which so compendiously presents us with the practical and doctrinal theology of the Old Testament, as this one of the 11th and 12th chapters of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Not even in the summaries of St. Peter and St. Stephen, as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, have we an outline which with equal felicity comprehends as a whole, and groups into particular masses, those truths moral, and truths speculative, which were embodied in the conduct, or systematized in the creed of the Church, from Adam unto Moses, and from Moses unto Christ. Nor, indeed, has it an equal, for accuracy when it defines; for appropriateness when it illustrates; for warmth and truth of colouring when it depicts; or for sublimity, when, in a perfect climax, it ascends from the first believers unto Jesus "the finisher of faith."

We wonder not, then, that Mr. Anderson, in selecting a series of topics around which to arrange the results of his varied reading and manly thought, should prefer this one; and we must say, that whether he is discussing the abstract question of faith, as "the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen," or the share which divine revelation may claim, in affording us the knowledge we possess respecting the creation, and the origin of sacrifices, and the deluge, or the relation of faith to our justification as explained by the history of Abraham,—he is always master of his subject, fearless in grappling with its difficulties, and invariably open and candid in his treatment of

them.

It is obvious that, in classifying the higher order of Discourses, (among which these are most unquestionably to be ranked,) we may generalize most of them into the analytical and synthetical. We prefer these terms, although somewhat technical, to those of argumentative and dogmatic ;-they are more discriminative of the minuter features, and, moreover, are free from the moral association which we are in the habit of connecting with the latter. Each of these methods of pulpit instruction has its merits and advantages, but we think it will not be difficult to determine which is the superior. It may, sometimes, be of eminent service to the Church, when a christian preacher, in accordance with his own habits of mind, accustoms his congregation to analytical inquiry. Granted, that they are of such a class as to fit them for this method of acquiring religious truth; and we are sure it would be the better one. The conclusions, when once received, would feel at home within their minds. Believers in them would cherish them as their own offspring, not as "coming from afar." But seeing that so few of even cultivated men are adequate to the effort,-and especially upon theological subjects, and further, seeing that the "poor have the Gospel preached to them," we should hesitate to recommend it for imitation.

Mr. Anderson, however, has cultivated and eminently succeeded in synthetical, or, in the best sense of the word, dogmatic statement. His sermons bear the impress of previous dispassionate reading and thought, without betraying the trains of either. He seems to feel that he is a teacher sent from God; that under heavenly guidance he has arrived at certain principles of truth; and that therefore he may, without the spirit of authoritative dictation, regard his hearers as learners, not as casuists, as listeners to an ambassador, not as captious students of a system. It would seem that he has held the truth, if not the words, before him for his guidance,-that ministerial" instruction should be in the form of a testimony;" that "with respect to the mode of exhibiting it, though not to the spirit of the preacher, it should be dogmatic." It might become a Socrates, who was left to the light of nature, to express himself with diffidence, and to affirm that he had spared no pains in acting up to the character of a philosopher, in other words, a diligent inquirer after truth; but whether he had philosophized aright, or attained the object of his inquiries, he knew not, but left it to be ascertained in that world on which he was entering. In him such indications of modest distrust were graceful and affecting, but would little become the disciple of revelation, or the christian minister, who is entitled to

say with St. John, "we know that the whole world lieth in wickedness, and that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding to know him that is true; and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ."

It is very rarely that we find, in a volume so multifarious in its opinions, so little to except against. That in this day of prurient originality there is nothing to startle by its novelty and paradox, at the same time that there is no deficiency of independent thought, is its very great merit. The third and fourth sermons may fail of producing conviction on some minds, as to the truth of a particular theory upon faith being the channel through which we have received the doctrine of a creation as an ultimate fact in theology; and the seventh, in which the bearings of geology upon revelation are examined, may arouse some demurrers. Upon the text, "through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear," he observes,

The broad and simple truth then, which faith, in the present instance, receives, is, that the word of God framed the heavens and earth, and all things that are therein. The medium, through which faith receives it, is revelation. Were it a matter capable of being deduced by reason alone, or were it so invariably deduced, then it would no longer be of faith; but only one, amid the vast train of discoveries which human wisdom and research have been enabled to make, and to which the daily development of human appliances and means is ever making fresh additions. Is it not then to be ranked among these? some one may ask. Has not the reasoning man power to search out this first and elementary principle of all belief? Has he not proved that he possessed this power, in the days of old; and does he not continue to exert it, in the present day? Are not the speculations of Greek and Roman philosophy pregnant instances of the success with which the human mind has been enabled to ascend, 'through nature's works, up to nature's God?' And are not they, who traverse the vast field of Natural Theology, in our own time, who bring with them the light of science, and wield each mighty instrument with which the world's enterprise so richly furnishes them, able to gather up fresh evidences of truth, eternal and unchangeable as God himself? Nay, do not the Scriptures themselves acknowledge this to be the legitimate exercise of man's faculties, and this the necessary result of their proper application? Does not St. Paul declare to the people of Lystra, that God "left not himself without witness?" and to the Athenians," that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him and find Him, though He be not far from every one of us: for in Him we live, and move, and have our being." And does he not say, yet more distinctly, in the Epistle to the Romans, that "that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath showed it unto them. For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and godhead?" And does he not, yet further, upon the strength of this assertion, make it a charge against the Gentiles, that "they are without excuse; because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful?" Why, then,the disputer may urge,-if this be so, why predicate of man, that he is unable to discover, by the light of his own wisdom, the truth "that the worlds were framed by the word of God?" Why say that such knowledge depends upon some supernatural communication, which it has pleased the Almighty Creator to reveal, when the senses and reason of the creature have already sought it out? Why call in the aid of miraculous agency, (for all revelation is confessedly the result of miraculous agency,) where none is needed?