going argument, when duly considered, will be found to have met all that is of weight in these objections; at all events we can plead for our opinion the very highest of all authority; for it is under these circumstances that the whole of the Sacred Volume was written; it is on this foundation alone, that every sacred document rests for its historical credibility. What account have we of our Blessed Lord's life and death, save that which was composed by Christians, the written tradition of that which the Apostles preached? How diligently have heathen writers been searched for any allusion to the marvellous times and events of that period, and yet with how little success! Has not even an argument against the truth of the gospel been raised upon the absence of all mention of such events in contemporary writers? The chosen witnesses' must be trusted, or you will have none. And the same may be extended to the Mosaic history; it stands alone, unsupported by corroborative evidence, beyond certain vague rumours out of the traditions of Arabia; at any rate there is no work pretending to be of the same age, out of which can be extracted anything for or against the truth of the Pentateuch; ours is a traditionary faith, whatever part of Holy Scripture be made the object of it. We received it first from our parents, the best source to receive it from, confirmed, no doubt, by subsequent experience and reflection, but resting ultimately on the credit of those who, 'believed and therefore spoke;' why then should it be made an objection to an ecclesiastical history, that it emanates from a member of the Church, interested for its welfare, and compromised to its doctrines?

Here we anticipate a demand for some explanation on our hypothesis, why there is not a 'summa consensio' amongst all Church Historians-whereas it is notorious that there is most manifest disagreement even amongst the well-disciplined ranks of the Papacy? It surely will not be necessary to say more in reply than that few, very few, who go by the name of Historians of the Church, are entitled to rank as such, on the principles we have been laying down and if we strike off all who, having treated of the Church, may yet be easily convicted of scepticism, or of heresy, of schism or erastianism, all who have failed, for some reason or other, to realize in their own case the divine life, and have continued, in spite of all their professions, sensual and worldly; a small number will suffice to comprehend the whole of those whom we should admit to be Christian Historians. But when we have removed all such, (and we think it must be admitted that such cannot be trustworthy or efficient teachers of a christian community,) there will be found a striking agreement in all material points of History-not indeed a logical

coincidence, the circumstances of the case make that neither possible nor desirable-but an agreement of that kind, which on points of doctrine runs through the writings of the Fathers, and out of which Catena have been to so great an extent traced and formed, proving that they were of 'one mind': or in some degree resembling the harmony which may be formed out of the Four Gospels, or that subsists between the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles. This consistency requires attention to discover, and has exercised the highest abilities to develop, but it is, perhaps, only the more valuable on that account when once established,- only the more convincing from being undesigned such an agreement in kind, though no doubt in degree we cannot promise it, is all that men have any right to ask of contemporary or successive Church Historians--and this we are prepared to maintain is to be observed.

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It is no longer possible to comprise the history of the whole Church in one work, even if there were a central point of unity confessed by every nation, language, and people under the sun,if the Propaganda were all that the Romanists could wish,-the streams of history are far too numerous for this to be done, and any attempt to join them would merely produce an ocean of confusion but every national Church must have its own historian, and candidates for that high honour are never wanting in every age. Our own Church, however, has been singularly unfortunate on the whole with respect to her historians: the evil example of foreign reformers, at a time when every reformer was embraced as a brother engaged in the same cause; the political cast of the Reformation, which imparted even to its theology some of the characteristics of Revolution,-wherein the most noisy is the most eloquent, and the popular passes for the true, these causes converted every attempt at history into controversy or mere rabid declamation, misled the zealous and silenced the wary and judicious. The times and scenes of public excitement are unfavourable for the composition of history, though they are said to give rise to the most fervid eloquence, and to furnish the best materials for subsequent historians. Matter must be at rest that it may crystallizeand so too must the mind that undertakes to arrange the cause and effect, the worth and the estimation of a series of human actions, speeches and literary compositions: it would be unreasonable therefore to express any surprise that the days of the Reformation passed away without seeing one Church historian produced. John Foxe was manifestly not a Church historian: he was lineally descended, in the taste and design of his work, from Matthias Flacius and the Magdeburgh Centurists, and, unhappily for this nation, he was taken for their main authority by

most of the writers of the century succeeding his own: his earnest roughness and plain speaking have been thought to be a pledge of his honesty and sagacity: and, perhaps, the dread of conceding too much to the fierce attacks of Romanist writers, may have inclined our own divines incautiously to throw around the martyrologist the mantle of their protection, such at least seems to be the case with the late Dr. Wordsworth, judging by the preface to his Ecclesiastical Biography. But the reign of Foxe is over: an illiterate and prejudiced writer of one idea and no charity could not always remain the foundation stone of our Church's history: and every lately discovered document, every investigation entered into by competent scholars of the present day, has diminished, and is daily diminishing the prestige of his name: Maitland's Essays now collected out of the British Magazine with large additions, Haweis' Sketches of the Reformation, and Massingberd's English Reformation, present us from original sources with quite enough to check that enthusiastic admiration for the horrible book of bonfires which has so long prevailed. Together with Foxe, however, must sink also all who have trusted him, all who have built upon his sandy foundation: and so far as Fuller and Burnet and Strype are his followers, which they are to a deplorable extent, so far are they also seriously injured in reputation by the recent advances made in this field of literature. In that they collected and preserved original papers, their works are extremely valuable, but by depending upon Foxe for perhaps the most important period of the history that they undertook, and from his reports and tales filling up the body of their narrative, they have of necessity abounded in misrepresentations ;-above all, they have perpetuated that unfair and even malicious picture of the opponents to the Reformation, which had been used as the best argumentum ad populum', and not because of its fidelity and truth.

It is therefore undoubtedly true, (a confession to be made with much regret,) that there is no continous and systematic History of the Church of England belonging to the 16th and 17th centuries-that it remained to be composed at a great disadvantage after the Revolution, and the current of faithful history was confined to those morsels of biography furnished by good Isaac Walton and others. Warburton is said to have declared that we have only two historians of our national Church, Collier the Nonjuror, and Fuller the Jester: the claims of the latter we shall leave others to support: of Collier we must be allowed to say that his work approaches nearer than any other, with which we are acquainted, to the standard which we have found supplied to us, by a consideration of the task to be accomplished. We are not blind to the defects of Collier, but we think they

have been always very much exaggerated: he was a conscientious man, who relinquished all worldly consequence and popularity to maintain his honest convictions,-this is never understood nor forgiven by the mass of mankind,—and Burnet, who made his fortune by adhering to the Prince of Orange, and ended with becoming a Bishop and delivering pastoral advice, owes much of his reputation to his success in life: Collier was a Nonjuror, (we are by no means.sure, by the way, that the Nonjurors have not been confounded with the Nonconformists of a former generation, certainly they were regarded with equal abhorrence by many,) whilst acute casuists and easy-going consciences complied with the political transfer of their loyalty, and assisted materially towards bringing about the Revolution. But Collier, writing under the excitement of his conscientious sufferings, and living in such a state of separation as to border very closely upon schism, though his whole heart, we know, yearned for the fruition of a purer Catholicism, was consequently unable to come to that calm and devotional state of mind, which we re-assert to be necessary for the Historian of the Church.

We commenced this article with declaring that the previous reflections which we should make upon Church historians generally, were intended to lead to some notice of the work standing at the head of it: and we hope, now that this sterling work has escaped from the thraldom of an expensive shape and size, and been put into the most marketable and convenient shape, it will speedily be generally known and adopted. This hope we entertain, because we believe it to be the best work of its kind yet produced. In saying so much as this, we beg our readers to observe closely the terms we employ-we say of its kind, because after all, it is but an abbreviated and condensed history, such indeed as the author was restricted to, when he proposed to himself the task of preparing a work suitable for students of divinity in our universities, and at the same time generally readable. Moreover, the historical narrative does not fully commence before the time of Henry VIII., the previous single chapter giving a scanty outline of the English Church before the Reformation: still further, it is carried up only to the Revolution, though it was the intention of the author to carry it so far as his own days, had his life been prolonged. There is, indeed, nothing that we can discover omitted by Mr. Carwithen, material towards understanding the annals of our Church during the period which his plan comprehends: the acts of the Church at large, and the enactments of the legislature respecting the Church, are recorded by him with more of care and of skill than we have ever seen displayed in such works: there is more matter, and it is more lucidly

measure.

arranged than in any similar composition: the author's powers of condensing without giving a confused account of the most intricate and protracted negotiations have, we really believe, never been exceeded. But it would be unjust to expect everything that illustrates the Church's history, everything that bears upon the fame of her greatest characters, to find a place in two small volumes; nevertheless, we suspect it will be found, that the 580 pages in each volume contain much information, and certainly suggestions for further inquiry, that many well-read men in other literature are entirely without, or possess in scanty We have reason to believe, that a large majority of our legislators, including the very judges themselves, the magistrates of the country, not forgetting the clerical members of the bench, and another class, not perhaps less influential upon the affairs of society than the foregoing,-we mean religious ladies,-may derive from this succint and impartial history that information, for want of which they often make themselves ridiculous. The author's talent for compressing the more bulky matter of other writers into a small compass is quite remarkable, and it is curious to see how the loquacity of Burnet, and the tediousness of Strype can be 'packed small' without any detriment. And there is, at the present day, a new and additional reason for desiring every member of the Church to be tolerably well instructed in her previous fortunes. Subjects of the last importance to the Christian, questions which affect the position of a Churchman in this country, are being opened up afresh, and submitted to the decision of public opinion,-such things were referred of old to the Bishops and Synods of the Church, or later to Convocation; now they are brought before public opinion, and woe is us! that Presbyterian, Baptist, Wesleyan, Calvinist, and Latitudinarian, have a voice in swelling the loud roar of public opinion: newspapers, whose staff of contributors may be most ungodly men, without one fixed principle beyond writing what the many-headed monster will read, are allowed to join the cry, and as they pass a life of masquerade, can personify a member of the Church as well as anything else. Hence, we believe the Church of England to be at this time in a great strait: and we urge and intreat every son and daughter of our beloved mother to acquaint themselves with the misfortunes she has gone through, her constancy in trouble, her purity of doctrine, and her providential protection up to this day; that they may be enabled with knowledge, and on conviction, to withstand their adversaries, and having done all to stand.' One great excellence of Mr. Carwithen's history is his forcible and polished style; and style is a tolerably certain indication of the vigour and power of mind with which an