boasted your conformity to the law, and your establishment by the law ! you that were the possessors of all scholarship! that were proprietors of the arts and sciences and of the great endowments given for their support! you that instructed the young and the old, and controlled the consciences of both! you that were the sacred administrators of religion! you that shut and opened heaven and hell! you that were the privy counsellors of the Gods! in the name of amazement what could undermine you, what could annoy you? or if you are not hurt yourselves, why do you oppress others? by this method you do but show your cloven feet. 'Jesus we know, and Paul we know, but who are ye?'"

The third Tract, and the last which can be noticed at present, consists of "Sketches of the characters of Charles I. and II. and Oliver Cromwell, contained in the introductory chapter to the history of the early part of the reign of James the Second, by the late Right Hon. C. J. Fox." The work from which these sketches were taken was the production of one who was for a long period the Whig leader of parliamentary opposition, and with scarcely any exception, indeed we do not recollect one, the able and consistent advocate of liberty and peace. During the short period of his influence as a Minister of the Crown, he showed that in office he was still the friend of man, and almost in his dying moments achieved the abolition of the slave-trade, which his great rival had also advocated, but failed in accomplishing. It was the will of the great Being who directs all things, that he should be removed from this scene at the time when short-sighted mortals thought that he was most wanted, and it was not till more than twenty years after that a decided advance was made in the attainment of civil and religious liberty. His nephew, Lord Holland, adopted his principles, and faithfully adhered to them, and now that he too has closed his mortal career, let it not be forgotten, that he was ever ready to advocate his principles both in his scene of action, the House of Lords, where few have the resolution to support such opinions against overwhelming numbers, and also at public meetings.

Mr. Fox's work was a fragment only of what had been projected, but his nephew and other friends justly thought that it was too valuable to be suppressed, and it was accordingly published. The introductory chapter was devoted to a cursory review of preceding events, especially of the great struggle between Charles the First and the Parliament; the civil war which ensued, with the termination of it in the sway of a military despot; and the restoration and reign of Charles the Second, eldest son of the king, who had been beheaded. The se

lection from it is well made, and those who have not read the work itself, will do well to peruse it, as it will materially assist them in forming a judgment respecting that important portion of English history. We shall only quote the concluding paragraph for the sake of making a few observations in explanation :

"Whoever reviews the interesting period which we have been discussing, upon the principle recommended in the outset of this chapter, will find that from the consideration of the past to prognosticate the future, would, at the moment of Charles's (II.) demise, be no easy task. Between two persons, one of whom should expect that the country would remain sunk in slavery, the other that the cause of freedom would revive and triumph, it would be difficult to decide whose reasons were better supported, whose speculations the more probable. I should guess that he who desponded, had looked more at the state of the public; while he who was sanguine had fixed his eyes more attentively upon the person who was about to mount the throne. Upon reviewing the two great parties of the nation, one observation occurs very forcibly, and that is, that the great strength of the Whigs consisted in their being able to brand their adversaries as favourers of Popery; that of the Tories (as far as their strength depended upon opinion, and not merely upon the power of the Crown) in their finding colour to represent the Whigs as republicans. From this observation we may draw a further inference, that in proportion to the rashness of the Crown in avowing and pressing forward the cause of Popery, and to the moderation and steadiness of the Whigs in adhering to the form of monarchy, would be the chance of the people of England for changing an ignominious despotism for glory, liberty and happiness."

Now if in this description of the parties, we understand by popery the sect of adherents of the Pope, i. e., the Romanists, the parties have so far changed; for the Tories of the present day have a peculiar abhorrence of popery, whilst the modern Whigs are favourable to the Romanists being admitted to the fullest participation of all civil rights and privileges; but if by popery we more correctly understand the spirit of popery, i. e., of slavish submission to human authority in religion, then the Tories and Whigs will hold the same position now which they did at the time of the Revolution; though uneducated or prejudiced men may regard the Whigs as encouragers of Popery, and the Tories as its opponents, so much are we swayed by mere names. The charge of leaning to republicanism is also brought against modern Whigs, and it were to be wished that some of those opposed to Toryism did not give too much cause for it; however, this is a subject foreign to our purpose, which

is to recommend the Tracts to our readers, and induce them, if possible, to promote the circulation of them. We do not recommend them as perfect productions, but as able productions of able men, calculated to promote the best interest of the human race. On a future occasion we may take some notice of the remaining ones, and in the mean time would particularly recommend the eleventh, the only modern one, as peculiarly suited to the present time.

VOL. III. No. 11.-New Series.

H

Δ.

ART. VII. ON THE CHRISTIAN RULE OF FAITH.*

BETWEEN all human speculations on the evils of our moral condition, and the doctrines of revelation on the same subject, there is a most essential and remarkable difference. Philosophy has at all times taken two opposite courses. As if it were possible to deceive individual consciousness, attempts have been made to establish the abstract perfection of man. On the other hand, it has been tried to reconcile him to his present state by forcing upon the mind the folly and hopelessness of contending with the irresistible power of fatality. The course pursued by Revelation avoids these extremes. It acknowledges the evils of our nature without disguise or reserve: it describes them in their appalling magnitude; and while it offers effectual means for a complete triumph over those evils, it teaches us that the efficacy of the remedy may at all times be defeated by the

freedom of the human will.

This fact, however, has been frequently seized as the ground of an insidious objection against revealed religion. "Revelation," it is said, "boasts of disclosures relating to the invisible world, and our eternal concerns in it;" we are told that our salvation greatly depends upon our acquaintance with the Scriptures; yet no department of knowledge is so full of doubt and obscurity as that whose exclusive object is the study of Revelation itself. Christians, from the beginning of their preaching, became as divided as the philosophical sects of antiquity; and after the lapse of eighteen centuries continue equally hostile to each other. This objection was directed with particular keenness against the Reformers, in the sixteenth century, and is still urged in disparagement of the churches which sprung from their preaching. Now, it were vain to deny the fact that the wildness of speculation, and consequent divisions which appeared as the immediate results of the separation from Rome, not only shocked the feelings of many eminent and highly religious men who were inclined to a reform, but staggered the faith of even those whom Providence had raised to achieve its noblest work in these latter ages.

Yet a cool and dispassionate study of the Bible must produce the conviction that, though the reasons of the Divine mind for

* A Sermon preached before the University of Oxford on Palm-Sunday, April 4th, 1830, by Rev. J. Blanco White, A.M. of Oriel College. "For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you."-1 Cor. xi. 19.

allowing these unquestionable evils, remain nearly as much a mystery as if there had never existed any communication between heaven and man, the fact of their existence forms a conspicuous part of the view which the Bible gives of the future state of things between the period of the establishment and that of the final triumph of the Gospel. If, therefore, the direct and positive proofs of Revelation cannot be invalidated, it is as unphilosophical as it is unfair to assail it with the charge of not accomplishing that which it never engaged to do; and the more so, because, as if to anticipate the objection, it has with superhuman knowledge given us a distinct and positive warning against indulging our expectations of immediate benefits from religion, beyond the express promises of God.

Far from raising these expectations to an enthusiastic height, as the founders of all false religions have done, the Son of God has declared in the most emphatic words, that the extinction of doubt and contention was not intended as one of the immediate benefits of his ministry. Such, indeed, were the vain hopes of the superficial, or yet uninformed persons who attended him on earth. But observe the boldness of the declaration by which he exposes the futility of those hopes. "Think not (he says) that I am come to send peace on earth: I come not to send peace but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man's foes shall be they of his own household."*

And here I cannot help remarking the extraordinary lesson which experience affords us on this very point, that we may learn to distrust our theoretical ideas of perfection when we are tempted to apply them to the plans of Divine Providence. It is a fact that the greatest corruption of Christianity had for its foundation a human attempt to remove and prevent all divisions among Christians, and that in proportion as that scheme succeeded, so did the moral efficiency of Christianity decline. The assumption of infallible authority by the Church of Rome, it must be confessed, was a most plausible theory to fill up a seeming deficiency in the Gospel. Here, indeed, was a Divine Oracle for the guidance of Christians; but as it was couched in human language, it could not but be affected with respect to us, by the inseparable imperfection of all verbal signs. The sense of Revelation could not be plainer than that of the words in which it was conveyed. Here the blind pride of man was ready to suggest that this could not be consistent with the wisdom of God, because it did not satisfy our own wisdom. Arguing therefore

* Matt. x. 34-36.