thought, to satisfy a candid inquirer that the genuine writings of Ignatius were now in his hands. But the question was too vital a one in those stormy times, political as well as religious considerations contributing to make it so, to be thus suffered to sleep. Accordingly, Bishop Pearson is at length induced to enter the lists, and the result of his labours, the Vindiciæ Ignatianæ, has always, I imagine, been regarded as one of the most masterly pieces of theological criticism which this country has ever seen; a work which, independently of the leading object it proposes to effect, serves to open the magazines of learning which this ripe scholar had accumulated and organized in his own mind; and which is enriched therefore by incidental discussions appropriate to the matter on hand, rather than absolutely necessary to it, which he scatters as he proceeds in the profusion of his stores. It is divided into external and internal evidence. Under the former head it is proved that the epistles of Ignatius, such as we now possess them, have been quoted or referred to in every century, without excep tion, from the second to the fifteenth, when they were published. Under the latter head it is shown that both in style and sentiment they are stamped with the character of the times of the real Ignatius; that there is nothing in them either relating to recent heresies, or to the manners and institutions of the primitive Christians, or to rites established after the age of Ignatius, or to usages ecclesiastical, which betrays a later origin. I think a dispassionate inquirer after truth would find it very difficult to rise from this treatise unconvinced. I am sure he could not rise from it without feeling indignation at the flippant manner in which the authority of these epistles is dismissed by some persons whose turn they serve not, and whose dogmatism can only be excused by their ignorance of the controversy they pronounce upon. It is, moreover, satisfactory to know, that in two particulars subsequent investigation has served to corroborate Bishop Pearson. The testimony of Irenæus, one of the earliest and most valuable, being that of the second century, the bishop had indeed adduced, pointing out a solitary, but certainly a most remarkable passage, from Ignatius's epistle to the Romans, which that ancient father adopts. It remained for Bishop Bull, the most sagacious of patristical interpreters, to detect a second reference made by the same author to a paragraph in the epistle to Polycarp, overlooked by the other; a discovery which serves to render the appeal to Irenæus twofold, and so, still more decisive. The other fact which has since turned up to confirm the argument of Bishop Pearson, is this: He bad cited Origen, as his witness to Ignatius of the third century; but the passages, which were two, and from two different works of that father, only existed in an early Latin translation. Advantage was taken of this flaw by the adverse party, and it was denied that the Latin was a translation at all, or that Origen had ever written the works; an objection which draws from Bishop Pearson an admirable summary of the peculiarities of Origen's style, and from which he deduces the genuineness of the paragraphs in dispute. Now it has happened that in one at least of the two instances, the original Greek has since been brought to light, and was communicated by Grabe as a fragment, to the Benedictine editor of Origen's works, in which it now appears. So that here again, time, that test of truth, has still further established the argument of this masterly critic-even that in the shorter epistles of Ignatius we have assuredly those which the martyr himself writ.-Pp. 19-27.

Long as our quotations have been, we cannot withhold the following beautiful and almost picturesque description of the precious remains and uses of primitive antiquity :

No doubt a vast deal of the detail of the structure and working of the primitive Church is still wanting; for it must be borne in mind, that the early writings from which I have gathered such particulars as I have laid before you, do not profess to furnish us with any picture of the kind; and it is by mere unconnected incidents casually turning up in the midst of a mass of matter relating quite to other subjects, that we are enabled to detect a few leading features of that

Church. But they are such as will serve for marks of much beside. They bespeak more than the simple facts they assert, as physiologists will of themselves complete the structure of a whole animal, and tell of its habits, if they are but provided with one or two of its bones. The most ancient documents which treat expressly of the details of the Church with all minuteness, are the Apostolical Constitutions, as they are called, and the Canons; the component parts of which are, no doubt, of many dates, some of the highest antiquity. And if we have recourse to these, for the purpose of following out the tendencies of things, as we discover them in the writings of the primitive fathers-if we consider the strata, as it were, of ecclesiastical matters, which we detect in these latter only by glimpses, as breaking out to the day, disclosing themselves without reserve in the constitutions and canons, (and so far perhaps it is thir to use them,) we shall find the impressions I have endeavoured to convey more than confirmed, and I should scarcely do justice to my subject without at least an allusion to this fact. In them will be discovered regulations touching ordination; the power of binding and loosing; distinction of offices; testimonials of strangers; arrangement of congregation; administration of sacraments; with numberless other minute particulars of the early Church; a magazine, indeed, they are of ecclesiastical and religious records, which, amidst much that is spurious, has much too that is sterling. Many of these laws obtain in the churches of this day; and some which are become obsolete in the populous, and what would be termed the more civilized districts, still subsist in our remote and rural parishes; affording a very pleasing example of the apostolical character even of things trivial in themselves, and of the steadfastness with which generation after generation has cleaved to the simple practices of their most distant forefathers.

I am, of course, aware that in much which has been here said, I have been striking notes not in unison with the times in which we live. It cannot, however, be improper, in any times, temperately to recall the attention of Christians to the usages which prevailed in the Church when Christ, in the flesh, had but recently left it, and the sound of his voice had scarcely died in its ears. And the propriety of so doing is surely not the less manifest, if the appeal (supposing it to be honestly made) should chance to present causes of offence. If the primitive Church offers to our view a system of some restraint, I am not to blame that I cannot make it lax; if, according to the apostle's message, that "the rest he would set in order when he came," he in some sort left that Church bound, for us to contemplate when it had passed out of his hands, it is not for me to let it loose but rather to conclude that as God delights ever in order—as whatever harmony subsists in the physical and moral world comes of order—as no great and goodly work can be brought to a successful issue without order-so was order prescribed under his Providence in the Church upon earth, for this end, and for this end only, that it might hereby the better minister to the salvation of souls and the glory of Almighty God.-Pp. 88-93.

On the doctrine of election Mr. Blunt has the following remarks:

I do not discover, in the writings of the early fathers, the doctrine of election in any Calvinistic sense. The elect, or at least the poeyvwopévol, or foreknown, (which is the word they use,) are according to them Christians generally a body whom God, of his own mere pleasure certainly, has chosen out of the world to be the receptacles of his gospel-the regenerate by baptism. For it does not appear from them, that either the elect or the regenerate were absolutely saved, but that they were simply placed in a state of salvation, a state which they were at liberty either to relinquish or retain.-P. 167.

And again :

There is, indeed, another sense in which the elect are regarded in the writings of the fathers, but which does not, any more than the other, support the Calvinistic acceptation of the term. It supposes God to have fixed in

his own counsels a certain definite number for the souls that are to be saved, and that, when that number is completed, the end will come, and not till then --that the consummation is in fact deferred simply because this number is not attained. They, therefore, are the "elect" who fill up this measure, be they who they may. For, on one occasion, Justin Martyr delivers himself on this wise: "But you will admit, when you hear the words of the prophet David, that God the Father of all things was to take up Christ to heaven, after his resurrection from the dead, and there to keep him, until he should have smitten down the evil spirits that hate him, and till the number of good and virtuous foreknown to him should be accomplished, for whose sakes he hath not yet brought on the conflagration."

Were there any doubt of the meaning of Justin, Irenæus would clear it up→→ "When the number is filled up," says he, "which he has of himself predetermined, all who are put down for life will rise again, having their own bodies, and their own souls, and their own spirits, in which they have pleased God. And they who deserve punishment will depart to a common place, they too having their own souls and bodies, the same in which they revolted from the grace of God. And both parties will cease to beget or to be begotten, to marry or to be given in marriage, in order that the measured number of mankind, according to the predetermination of God being completed, may perfect the harmony of the Father."

The view taken of the question of election in these passages, appears to be that of our own burial service, wherein "we beseech God, that it may please him, of his gracious goodness, shortly to accomplish the number of his elect, and to hasten his kingdom.”—Pp. 174—177.

This last point would require a larger and more accurate inquiry than our space allows us, to determine the degree of weight which belongs to it, or how far it illustrates the Burial Service of our Church; we must, however, express our great satisfaction at the appearance of this book of Mr. Blunt, and most cordially recommend its careful perusal to all, especially to those who have any doubts on the great points of difference which unhappily exist between our own Church and those who dissent from her.

With regard to the second work placed at the head of this review, we do not hesitate to express our opinion that it will be found the most useful of all Mr. Faber's writings. Of this most elaborate work, which, tracing the doctrine of predestination and election from the earliest times down to the present, shows the sense of the early Church to be quite different from that which has been embodied in the several systems of Calvin, of Arminius, and of Locke, it were impossible in a brief space to give the reader any thing like an adequate account; for that purpose we must refer each one to the original work, and we are sure they will rise from the perusal with feelings of the highest respect for the learning, and diligence, and candour of the author. Still we cannot withhold a few quotations explanatory of the sound and orthodox views of the writer. He thus traces up the system, now called after the name of Calvin, to the celebrated Augustine, Bishop of Hippo :

When Augustine fully propounded his own views of election and predestination, he was immediately charged with innovating upon the ancient doctrine of the Church; he was assured by the complainants that they had never before heard of such speculations; he was referred to the current system of the existing

Catholic Church; and he was challenged to produce evidence that his new opinions had ever been advanced as the mind of Scripture by any of his ecclesiastical predecessors.

Nor was the matter thus taken up merely by the Pelagian adversaries of Augustine though, even if it hud, since it purely related to a question of fact, small was the real consequence by whom it was taken up. The charge of unauthorised innovation was respectfully brought by persons, who concurred with Augustine in his opposition to Pelagianism, and whose doctrine in regard to original sin, and human insufficiency, and divine grace, he himself acknowledged to be sound and correct.

Such, then, was the charge: and, as the charge rested upon the allegation of a FACT, it clearly could not be set aside save by the process of showing the allegation of the FACT to be altogether false and unfounded.

Of this, Augustine was conscious: and, being driven to a reply, out of the whole mass of ecclesiastical writers he ventured only even to attempt to produce three. These were Cyprian, and Gregory-Nazianzen, and Ambrose: all far too modern, even if they had been to his purpose; but all either useless, or worse than useless to him, in the way of evidence, even comparatively modern as they were. As for Clement of Rome and Ignatius of Antioch (adduced, as they have recently been by Mr. Milner, in the capacity of witnesses), he does not appear so much as for a moment to have imagined, that they could in any wise be made useful to him in the way of testimony. Most important as they doubtless would have been in the character of witnesses, could they have been cogently and availably brought forward: Augustine passes them over in total, though perfectly intelligible, silence.

The charge, therefore, we may pronounce to be fully established.

In point of FACT, the System, now denominated Calvinism, was unheard of, until, at the beginning of the fifth century, it was first promulgated and defended by Augustine. Preface, p. xiii.-xvi.

Mr. Faber shows that there is less difference than is usually supposed between the sentiments of the Calvinists and Arminians, (each held the same notions of election, and only differed as to its moving cause,) and that the latter were in reality those of the schoolmen before the Reformation. Mr. Locke struck out a third path for himself, that, namely, of the election of whole nations to the privileges of the church of God. In opposition to all these theories, the writer clearly proves that election (as propounded in the New Testament) is not that of nations, but of individuals, not national, but ecclesiastical.

The early Christians supposed not the Greeks collectively to be an elected nation, as contradistinguished from other nations which were not elected; but they viewed, as the elect among the Greeks, those individuals, who, obeying the gospel call, had become members of the Church of Christ, whether seated at Corinth, or at Ephesus, or at Colossæ, or at Philippi, or at Thessalonica.

Hence they esteemed the Catholic Church at large to be the Church of the Election, as comprehending the whole body or people of the elect, gathered individually out of every nation upon the face of the earth.-P. 227.

Space prevents us entering into his elaborate and historical view of the seventeenth Article of our Church, in which he shows that not the doctrine of Calvin, but of Melancthon, was chiefly followed by Cranmer and our early divines.

On the words of the article, "as they (the promises of God) are generally set forth to us in Holy Scripture," he makes these pertinent remarks:

The import of the word GENERALLY is, I suspect, very often and very widely misapprehended by the readers of the seventeenth article, as it occurs in the English form. The term is thought to be equivalent to usually or for the most part and thence the clause is supposed to teach; that, in the matter of election, God's promises must be received as they are most usually set forth in Scripture, so that, in the interpretation of holy writ, we must not set one text in opposition to another text.

But this is, in no wise, either the meaning of the term, or the drift of the clause.

From its ambiguity, the word GENERALLY has, no doubt, been infelicitously selected; but a moment's inspection of the article in its Latin form will shew us the true import of the term. Its sense is not generally as opposed to unusually, but generally as opposed to particularly. Had the word GENERICALLY been used in the English form of the article, instead of the word GENERALLY, all ambiguity would have been avoided; and thus the real drift of the clause would have stood out plain and distinct.

The latter part of the article is an explanation of its former part. We must embrace the doctrine of predestination to life; but then, as that predestination, through the MEDIUM of election into the Church Catholic, is, so far as respects PARTICULARS OF INDIVIDUALS, only according to God's everlasting moral purpose and intention; the promises of God, in regard to predestination and election, must be received GENERICALLY, not SPECIFICALLY. That is to say, the promises of God must be received GENERICALLY, with a reference to the whole collective Church of the election; which Christ has founded upon a rock, and which (agreeably to his express prophecy) can never be finally overturned: not received SPECIFICALLY, with a reference to a certain number of individuals of that Church, whose particular predestination to life might thence be erroneously pronounced absolute and irreversible. —Pp. 379, 380.

With one more extract from this work we leave it to our readers, with an earnest recommendation to study it most carefully. This extract points out the unwarrantability of praying for intellectual illumination, as if the legitimate prayer for the aid of the Holy Spirit was designed to settle controversies of litigated opinions, and not exclusively confined to moral dispositions, to fit us for the practice of those obligations which result from a pure and orthodox faith.

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To pray for intellectual illumination, after the mode recommended by Augustine and Mr. Milner; to pray, that is to say, that God would reveal to us the certainty of a particular scheme of exposition, which, with some varieties, they pronounce to set forth the undoubted mind of Scripture; thus to pray neither more nor less than to pray for the lofty prerogative of personal infallibility. For, if God, in answer to prayer, ordinarily teaches the true meaning of a litigated passage in Scripture, the interpretation, thus by the Holy Spirit conveyed to the mind of the petitioner, must needs be infallibly accurate: and it were alike impious and presumptuous to question any further the soundness of the interpretation thus authoritatively propounded. Under such an aspect of the matter, which inevitably results from the plan before us, we might as reasonably question the message of an inspired prophet or apostle, as impugn the Calvinistic or Semi-Calvinistic exposition of the doctrine of predestination when a pious man shall declare that he has made it a subject of prayer, and that he has risen from his knees internally convinced by the Spirit of the undoubted correctness of this system or of that system.-P. 5, 7.

• In the Latin form of the Seventeenth Article, the word employed is generaliter, not plerumque.