intellect and the progress of reason have deprived imagination of its powers, and reduced the splendour of its diction and the loftiness of its flights to the humblest creeping, and the most intolerable prose? The proofs of an opposite kind we have adduced repel the idea.

We flatter ourselves that we have made good our case by examples amounting to moral demonstration, and we leave the subject with the impression that it cannot be refuted. We feel convinced that, so long as the human heart exults with rapture, or droops with sorrow-palpitates with hope, or is overwhelmed with despair-melts with love, or rages with jealousy-glows with anger, or is maddened with revenge-is, in short, the subject of those innumerable feelings to which it can find utterance only in the language of the bard-so long will there be materials for poetry of the highest class.

But prospectively a more glorious era awaits us, when the picturings of prophet-bards shall be realized-when man's moral and intellectual nature shall be fully developed-and when the loving spirit of Christianity shall influence all hearts and elevate all minds. Then shall the imagination put forth its utmost capability, and poetry become the handmaid of virtue; while songs of triumph shall proclaim, that Earth is redeemed and

Paradise restored!

ART. IV.-Patrum Apostolicorum Opera. C. J. HEFELE. Ed. alt. Tubinga, 1842.

It is an ancient and familiar practice to honour the first promoters of any truth or art by the respectful title of Fathers, and there is a most innocent sense in which we may accord this honour to the first teachers of the Christian doctrines. Whatever error or practical evil there may be in ascribing to them an amount of knowledge which was beyond their reach, or a degree of authority to which they neither did nor could make any pretensions, we can have but an imperfect notion of the history of the Christian religion, without some knowledge of their character and of their writings. The church writers that come immediately after the apostles, are styled Apostolical Fathers a somewhat ambiguous and illusive designation, inasmuch as it suggests the idea that they possessed a higher degree than those who have come after them, of the truth and the wisdom with which the apostles were endowed. In this view

we regret that we are under the necessity of adopting phraseology so apt to mislead; our only resource is to explain that this is not our meaning; that we speak of the apostolical fathers merely for the sake of conventional perspicuity; and that we hope to shew briefly yet clearly, that the veneration in which these fathers are professedly held, is founded either in historical error, in popular superstition, or in the craft of priests.

The apostolical fathers are Barnabas, Hermas, Clemens Romanus, Ignatius, Polycarp, and the unknown writer of the epistle to Diognetus: of these the most prominent are Clemens, Ignatius, and Polycarp, to whom our present observations will be confined.

We must pass over the literary history and the critical disquisitions relating to these writers; such matters are interesting only to scholars, who will find rich stores of materials in Cotelerius, Cave, Jacobson, and Hefele: the last mentioned author, the title of whose book is given at the head of this article, is ordinary Professor of Catholic Theology in the University of Tübingen.

He has published some other valuable works, an edition and translation of the epistle of Barnabas, and a History of the Introduction of Christianity into South-West Germany, especially Württemberg. The first edition of the work now before us was intended to supply in theological literature the want of a cheap and convenient text-book for lecturers and for students. We are glad to see that in little more than three years that edition was exhausted, and that it has been followed by a second, in clearer type and on better paper, improved by greater accuracy in printing, and enriched with many various readings and notes, from the more expensive collections of Rothe, Thonissen, Jacobson, Arndt, and other recent editors.

The Prolegomena are clear, full, and in the main, satisfactory; there is a good Index Rerum et Personarum, and the whole forms a respectable and cheap octavo volume of 269 pages.

Along with the reading of these ancient compositions, the student of Christian antiquities will do well to make a collation for himself of the few and scanty references to Christians and their affairs, in Tacitus, Suetonius, Dio Cassius, and Pliny. The compilations of Eusebius are of value, notwithstanding the credulity of the good bishop.

To the English reader we should wish to recommend Archbishop Wake's translation of the Apostolical Fathers; but it is in some respects unfair; his prefaces are feeble, confused, wanting in enlightened criticism, and rife in that class of com

fortable prejudices from which few men of his order have the vigour or the honesty to free themselves. For these reasons we would suggest that the reader of the archbishop's translation should become familiar with some comparatively recent examinations of the Apostolical Fathers. The first of these, in the order of publication, is an exposure of the Doctrinal Errors of the Apostolical Fathers, by W. Osborn, jun., a lay-member of the church of England, and we should judge, a man of evangelical principles. Entering on his work with the very natural feeling of tender reverence for these ancient worthies which has been so common in writers on divinity, he discovers, as he advances, the inconvenience of this prejudice, and he thinks that a faithful exposure of the errors actually taught by the early fathers may do good service to the Christian cause.

The Bampton Lecture for 1839, is an Analytical Examination into the character, value, and just application of the Writings of the Christian Fathers during the Ante-Nicene Period, by W. D. Coneybeare, M.A.

Mr. Coneybeare deservedly enjoys the esteem of the scientific as a patient geologist. His literary services in theology have been confined, we believe, to a course of Lectures at Bristol College, and these Bampton Lectures. In all that he has published, he gives proof of a healthy mind, philosophic habits, respectable scholarship, great industry, a gente spirit, and a liberal, unaffected piety. With some strength and clearness he distinguishes the authority of the Bible from the Subsidiary aid' in the interpretation of the Bible, though, in our judgment he follows the greater part of the Anglican divines, in unduly estimating both the quality and the value of the subsidiary aid. As Mr. Coneybeare has not adopted the convenient modern usage of supplementary notes, we are tempted to ascribe to him a less degree of critical attention to the writers he has analysed than that which he has employed. We give an instance or two, in passing, of the disadvantage of too hasty a preparation for so laborious a work, or of confining the work within too narrow limits. The first of these, is the uncriticising spirit in which he assumes, as a fact that had never been doubted, that Clemens the writer of the Epistle to the Corinthians, is the Clemens to whom Saint Paul refers in the Epistle to the Philippians. Mr. Coneybeare cannot need to be reminded that the tendency of a later age was to invent as close a connexion as possible between the Fathers and the Apostles, for he has himself corrected an error of this kind in connexion with Hermas. Now what are the facts and the probabilities of the case? In Clemens' own epistle, he describes the Apostles as appointing some of their

converts in each place as the bishops and the deacons of their respective churches. Though Clemens does not style himself the bishop of Rome, nor indeed a bishop at all, it is evident from his name, from some of his allusions, and from the fact of his writing this epistle in the name of the church at Rome, that he was a Roman. The persons to whom Paul sends his salutations at Philippi, were, on the same principles, Philippians. No mention is made of Clemens accompanying Paul to Philippi, or of his being his companion, along with Silas, Timothy, and Luke, either in his journey to Philippi, or in any other journey; and it is remarkable that Irenæus, in a passage intended to give the highest view of the dignity of Clemens, speaks of Linus as mentioned by Paul, while he does not speak thus of Clemens; from which omission it is natural to infer that Irenæus was not of the opinion which has been founded on more recent conjectures.Again, Mr. Coneybeare quietly takes for granted, in a note, that 'there could not have been more than one bishop in the single city of Corinth ;' a slight fault, perhaps, in an Oxford divine, as such, but not in perfect keeping with the inductive reasonings of the same writer as a man of science. Whether there were more bishops than one at the same time in Corinth, is a question of fact; settle it if you can, by appropriate evidence, but do not assume the answer as an à priori certainty. Of the same conjectural character is what is said in explanation of Polycarp's inculcating obedience to presbyters and deacons, without alluding to the bishop; 'he does not specify the bishop, possibly from a fear of appearing to magnify his own office :' it is, however, equally possible, and more probable, that Polycarp's presbyters and deacons,' included the bishops, as Mr. Coneybeare himself understands St. Paul's 'bishops and deacons,' as 'including the order of presbyters.'

The audience addressed in these lectures would respond, we doubt not, with the most unaffected complacency to the pleasing picture of the church of England which closes the fifth lecture, fully believing that she is all that a Father of the second century would have desired. Far from us be the wish to disturb that complacency. We have no rude sweeping attack to make upon the church of England. But do these learned men not perceive what they are doing, when they take the second century, not the first, as their standard, exchanging the inspired teachers of Christianity for those who were not inspired? How is it that they so uniformly confound the episcopal government of each congregation of believers in the days of Ignatius, of Irenæus, and even so late as Cyprian, with the diocesan episcopate of the church of England? How is it that, in their comparison of 'our

church' with the churches of early times, they so constantly forget that the bishop of old was chosen, and that he was aided in his judgments by the congregation in which he presided? Why do they invariably overlook the fact that-on their own showing-the early churches had lost much of their simplicity both in doctrine and in government, before it became possible for them to be blended with the institutions, and moulded by the authority, of the Roman empire? Whence is it that the only points in which our church' differs from thousands of other churches are precisely those in which you cannot plead the examples of the first three centuries, and in which your most learned writers acknowledge that she differs from all the churches in the age of the apostles?

These modern vauntings of patristic lore, and of patristic authority, are curious. They are instructive. They suggest some not very gentle trains of thought. It just occurs to our recollection, that in page 362, Mr. Coneybeare quotes Tertullian's description of the enemies of the truth as strikingly applicable to the conduct of the political dissenters of the present day. Was there any occasion for such a note? Is it in good taste? We will only say, that it cannot but be felt as offensive, because unjust, to men with whom, we believe, Mr. Coneybeare would sympathise as lovers of the truth, and sincerely 'humiles et blandi, et summisi,' much more fully than with the majority of the teachers of the church which he adorns.

Notwithstanding these and many other blemishes, which are partly owing to the lecture's hurried preparation, and partly to the air of Oxford, we are happy in expressing our admiration of these lectures. Though the style is neither terse nor brilliant, we have some pleasant reading. We are led through some of the less frequented haunts of Christian literature with a graceful intelligence. The fruits of large and varied reading are modestly presented. More emphasis, indeed, might have been laid on the mistakes of the early Fathers. To account for the imperfections of good men; to bear with them, to accept their instructions and their services notwithstanding them, is wise and honourable: to palliate the really evil in any man is neither the one nor the other. The best uninspired men are poor guides in religion.

The reasons they give for their belief, rather than the fact that they did believe, will influence the faith of well instructed Christians. To know what the Fathers believed, and why they believed, destroys the charm of the authority which is claimed for them, but which they themselves would have trembled to put forth.