respect to these, it is obvious that the case is altogether different. On these subjects there are no literal words to stand for the ideas to be conveyed to us. Whatever language is employed for this purpose, must be deflected very far from its original meaning. It must be used as Mr. B. White happily expresses it,-hieroglyphically. Sensible objects must be made use of as emblems of objects beyond our senses; and this, through resemblances and analogies, often exceedingly remote and indistinct; like that somewhere said to subsist, between scarlet and the sound of a trumpet, which, though sufficient, perhaps, to bring before a blind man an idea nearer the true one than any other he is capable of receiving, is nevertheless wholly inadequate for the conveyance of any real knowledge. Thus we have the undefinable relation subsisting between the Creator and His creatures, imaged to us under the figure, or as Mr. Blanco White would call it, hieroglyphic, of Father and Children; that subsisting between Jesus Christ and His Church, under the figure of the vine and its branches, or again the head and the body, or the corner-stone and the building held together by it; while the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity (to denote His universal yet invisible influence, John iii. 3.) is represented to us by the same word, which in the original language of the New Testament signifies wind. So, too, in like manner, the Elements in the Eucharist, admitting of description in no literal and definite expressions, were figured, when our Lord would

explain their nature to His disciples, under such sensible images as would suggest the nearest approximation to the truth, being called with this intent His Body and Blood.

Now with respect to this class of subjects, since the language, in which alone they can be set before us, is necessarily so vague and imperfect, it is quite obvious that the best ideas which can be conveyed to us through it, must be vague and imperfect likewise. Ideas expressed in literal words are, if expressed skilfully, much more full and complete than a first inspection of the words would indicate; they admit of minute examination, and may be looked at on a different side; but ideas which we arrive at only through the use of metaphors and analogy, are necessarily one-sided,-examine them as we will, we can never get beyond the one simple impression, that in some unknown respect or other, a resemblance subsists between the sign and the thing signified. And hence, according to Mr. Blanco White, the folly, as well as presumption, of attempting to make such ideas clearer by any deviations from, or additions to, the strict Scripture expressions of them. All we know of them, he argues, is, that they are signified in Scripture under certain metaphors or hieroglyphics, and from this scanty knowledge, to proceed to fill up the picture by the introduction of other hieroglyphics, is, at best, to encumber the simplicity of the Divine Word, and in all probability, to distort and violate it. On these subjects, then, he sets up his face, not merely against

creeds and articles, which he thinks intolerable on any subject, but against all attempts at human interpretation whatever. "Metaphors, explanatory of metaphors," he would altogether eschew; and "would leave the original, i. e. the Scriptural figure, to cast what shadow of itself it might, on each individual mind."

The argument which it has just been attempted to draw out, will not be found in a continuous form in either of the volumes under our consideration, but has been brought together from scattered sources, and disengaged from much irrelevant matter, with which the author has mixed it up. The selection of one or two extracts, however, may in some degree enable the reader to judge whether it has been fairly stated.

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'Words, when they express objects or actions with which we are experimentally acquainted, have their meaning proved by the objects expressed. If there is any doubt of the meaning, we point to the object, we describe the action, we refer to some feeling which we make definite by means of external marks. But when words attempt to express things with which no man is acquainted except in his own mind, there is no possibility of ascertaining the exact meaning in which any one individual uses them. You cannot be sure of the meaning of a word, unless you are experimentally acquainted with the thing the word stands for. If the word represent a conception of another man's mind, no other man can be sure that he knew the exact

meaning, unless he could be experimentally acquainted with the conception itself."-Second Travels of an Irish Gent., vol. ii. p. 48.

"The sense of words expressing objects which are known by the senses, of actions which are known by experience, of feelings and affections of which we are conscious-all this may be made the subject of verbal communication, with a great degree of certainty. Observe, I pray, that my enumeration embraces not only the objects of moral legislation, but also all internal desires and tendencies, as well as principles and motives. All these subjects are indeed capable of being expressed in language conveying a degree of certainty, adequate to every purpose connected with the regulation of the moral or accountable part of our being. But words which attempt to explain the meaning of other words, without a final reference to some of these objects of experience......reveal nothing."Irish Gent., vol. ii. p. 63.

"Every metaphor is a material figure. Every metaphor is a hieroglyphic which might be painted to the eye. The Scriptures, as they employ human language, necessarily use these verbal hieroglyphics ......These material figures are addressed of course to the human mind. It is there that they must be spiritualized by an individual and incommunicable process of the mind itself. But what have Divines done?......fearing that (the original material figure) would not convey a proper similitude of things invisible, they have added several other material

figures by way of spiritualization......when out of these strange materials, each individual has made up a picture, such as he may be disposed to contrive, then, and not before, is the divine satisfied that he has conveyed to others the conception which his own mind had formed from the Scriptural metaphor."-Irish Gent., vol. ii. p. 51.

"The original, i. e. the Scriptural figure, should be left to produce whatever shadow of itself it might cast upon each individual mind. He who knew what was in man, must have intended it so, else he would have provided means for a different state of things. Surely he cannot have designed that, by using our own explanatory figures, and casting their shadows upon the shadow produced by the original metaphor, we should attempt to throw light into our own or other men's minds."Irish Gent., ii. 53.

With these extracts we conclude our review of Mr. Blanco White's preliminary argument, respecting creeds and confessions, which, unless it can be made out that they rest on infallible authority, he conceives himself to have proved destitute in all cases, of all obligation on the consciences of those to whom they are proposed, and in most cases, i. e. wherever a mystery is involved, to have a necessary tendency to mislead.

And now we come to his next point, viz. the consequent extreme difficulty, or, as he would say, practical impossibility of arriving at the true mean