great point of giving men divine knowledge, and introducing holy associations, not indiscriminately, but as men are able to bear it: there can be little doubt that generally speaking the tone of the fourth century is so unlike that of the sixteenth on each and all of these topics, that it is absolutely impossible for the same mind to sympathize with both. You must choose between the two lines: they are not only diverging, but contrary.

For instance, let the passages be considered, which are subjoined to this Preface, touching more or less on many of these important matters, and taken from a work, which, if any, might be considered as the free expression of its author's theological views: written in security and at leisure; with books and learned friends at hand, and at a time when the cause which it advocated was comparatively triumphant.

What would be the natural judgment of a mind, imbued with the sentiments of the Ancient Church, on meeting with such trains of thought, and still more with such a tone of expression, as the extracts here referred to exhibit, in an anonymous work of an unknown date? In what class of divines would he instinctively place the Author, supposed as yet unknown ? and how highly would he rate his reverence for sacred things and his authority on sacred subjects? Could any number of sayings of a contrary sound, producible from the same writer, do away the feeling, that when he wrote this work he was at heart a despiser of the Apostolical Succession, and of the great truths and rules connected with it from the beginning? And if it afterwards appeared that he was the chosen advocate and champion of a certain school in the Church, and that this very treatise was all but accepted by them, as a kind of formulary and official exponent of their views; would not this be a strong fact to justify any dislike or

suspicion which might be felt of that school or party generally? Whatever might be truly said of the provocation they had received; the cruelty, corruption, irreverence of their opponents, their own personal virtues and sufferings, and the good to which they were made instrumental; would it not be rightly done for a Churchman to decline their authority as a theological school, and be careful how he symbolized with them in their use of theological words?

When these questions are answered, an account will have been given of a circumstance which seems to have given much pain to many of those whom one would least wish to annoy; viz. the manner in which the Author speaks of the Defence of the Apology of the Church of England, and of the party which adopted that work as the true type of their views and feelings.

But some say, Whether right or wrong in his views, he ought not to have spoken so rudely of these subjects: and this brings us to the second head of offence, his way of expressing his sentiments on grave matters, generally. Such censurers appear to forget, that his feelings are conveyed to us in familiar letters, and of course, as his other Remains prove, in a different tone and manner from that which he would have adopted, had he been preparing to give the expression of them to the world: not however more unsuited to the occasion, than the epistolary tone and manner of very many imaginative persons, on points concerning which nevertheless they feel the deepest and most serious interest.

This however, it may be thought, is only shifting the blame from him on his Editors. But it will be found that his phrases, however sportive, or even flippant, in their sound, had each their own distinct meaning, embodied his views and the reasons of them often in a wonderfully brief

space, and could not be omitted without much loss of instruction and frequent risk of missing their point and meaning. Like proverbial modes of speech, they were of course not always to be taken literally, though the principle they contained might be true in its fullest extent. Thus he once told a friend, that he was "with the Romanists in Religion and against them in Politics." Again he says, in a letter to a friend, "When I come home, I mean to read and write all sorts of things, for now that one is a Radical, there is no use in being nice." In another, “We will have a vocabularium apostolicum, and I will start it with four words: pampered aristocrats,' 'resident gentlemen,'' smug parsons,' ' pauperes Christi.' I shall use the first on all occasions: it seems to me just to hit the thing. How is it we are so much in advance of our generation1 ?"

Next, the reader is requested to consider, whether a good deal of what has startled him in that way may not be accounted for by the nature of pwvéta: not mere ludicrous irony, according to the popular English sense of that word, but a kind of Socratic reserve, an instinctive dissembling of his own high feelings and notions, partly through fear of deceiving himself and others, partly (though it may sound paradoxical) out of very reverence, giving up at once all notion of doing justice to sacred subjects, and shrinking from nothing so much as the disparagement of them by any kind of affectation. This whole topic admits of forcible illustration from different persons' ways of reading sacred compositions. There is an apparently unconcerned mode of enunciation, which in fact arises from people's realizing, or at least trying to realize, their own utter incompetency to speak such words aright. Again, of all

1 Remains, Part I., Vol. I., pp. 306, 329.

the serious persons in the world, it is probable that no two could be found, who would thoroughly enter into each other's tones and expression. We must have a little faith in our neighbour's earnestness, in order not to think his reading affected. A little consideration will perhaps show, that most of what some might be tempted to call harsh, or coarse, or irreverent in this work, may be accounted for in the manner here indicated; e. g. the Author's playful custom of speaking of his own and his friends' proceedings in the language which an enemy would adopt; calling himself and his friends, "ecclesiastical agitators," their plans for doing good, "a conspiracy," and the effect of them, " poisoning people's minds :" and his use of "cant" schoolboy words, which no doubt has disgusted many, may be referred to the same head.

Often, indeed, he seemed instinctively to put his own or his friends' views and characters in the most objectionable light in which they could be represented as if to show that he was fully aware of the popular view which would be taken of what he approved; or the argument against it, which would seem plausible to the many; and that he was not in the least moved by it. Thus he somewhere utters a wish that "the march of Mind in France might yet prove a bloody one." Elsewhere he regrets "that any thing should be done to avert what seems our only chance-a spoliation on a large scale." Thus he habitually forced his mind to face the worst consequences or the most unfavourable aspect of his own wish or opinion—the most obnoxious associations with which it could be connected: and therefore used terms expressive of those consequences or associations. It was one form of his horror of self-deceit.

Put these things together; add also the fertility of his mind, his humour, his pointed mode of expression, his consciousness of fearless integrity, his hatred of half truths

and cowardly veils, is ence standing him and allowing for na

that they go far towards expang Le Manet. the principle of athering

matter of what he says.

But if after due allowance made or ul tre ung tim should still remain more han ve au asily rele selves to, in the way ather in severny, I i eng of speech; coldness where ve where we looked for sympathy: ber, that the fault. f here be on the Author's side: it may je zyn D sisetu pir wigment, till we have ascertainet vieder des 15 le lỰC in fact due to the Character of Christan LicqUS, VICI he might be unconsciously realizing in gecer un ma his age could yet bear. Does here yet remain someting that troubles us, something that we manuc as Li axman ? We must not forget ( is a feeg ani nyi Lusun, bur not, it is humbly trusted algecher res case) that as all other manifestations of our Leri, so those which He has vouchsafed to make of Himself in His Saints, have ever been more or less mysterious and maccountable. Which of the great Scripture characters is there, whose conduct, even that part of it which the Holy Spirit seems to mention approvingly, is not in some respect or another a riddle and a paradox to us with our modern views? Are there not things recorded of the Ancient Church, which we know not how to enter into, yet must needs venerate, because she gave them her sanction? Nay, and is it not very conceivable that every one of those approved in God's sight would be in like manner, were his history fully disclosed, "a monster" (as the Psalmist phrases it) to every other? that Faith is necessary in a degree for our holding by Christ in any one of His mem