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substantially, his protest against it; and as great truths with which the popular teacher such we refer the studious reader to it. Cita- has to do; and which, as he truly says, will tion is not needed. The same reader will stand where and what they are-criticism or give his attention to pages 283-4, in which no criticism; and which the uninstructed he grapples, as in the dark, with some of reader of the English Bible, or of any other the difficulties that attend his notion of the version, if he be honest and devout, will Inspiration of the Scriptures. But whether gather for himself therefrom. If a living clear in his views on this subject or not, his writer, taking up Chalmers' position as to strong good sense, and the healthiness of his inspiration, were to screen himself from the religious sentiments, never failed to bring application of a free and thorough-going from him a vigorous protest against those criticism, by aid of passages such as the one extravagances even of the orthodox," to to which we here refer, nothing would be which logical Theology has given encourage- more easy than to rend from him this illument: we must cite the following-p. 317. sion. Chapter tenth, on Systematic TheThe simple majesty of truth, as propound- ology, is open to much remark; but we will ed in Scripture, has often undergone sad say a word only in directing the reader's desecration at the hands, I will not say of attention to it-which is this-that Chalmerely unphilosophical, but of most unsa- mers' fondness for instituting comparisons voury and untasteful theologians, whose between the methods and principles of speculations on this subject are often abso- Natural Philosophy, and the rules of Scriplutely hideous." Further on, speaking of tural exposition, has here, as elsewhere the perplexities with which ministers of the in his writings, led him, as we think, into Gospel have gratuitously surrounded them- some misapprehension of facts. In Natuselves, he says, "It is thus that clergymen, ral Philosophy (as it is now prosecuted) manacled and wire-bound in the fetters of when we meet with phenomena apparently their wretched orthodoxy, feel themselves suggesting contrary conclusions, or which impeded and restrained in the exercise of seem to overthrow a hitherto accepted their functions as the heralds of mercy to a generalization, we patiently wait until we guilty world." To this strongly-worded pro- get further light; or even if we never test we should only append the remark, that get it, we still rest in the conviction that the "wretched orthodoxy" here referred to Nature is consistent with herself, whether is the proper consequence of an adherence we see it or not, and that the seeming to logical Theology. Nevertheless-logic inconsistency is attributable wholly to our or no logic, Chalmers is always right when own ignorance, or to our inability to carry the practical aspect of a doctrine presents our methods of inquiry far enough. But itself clearly in his view. On this ground in the region of Theology a very different -which was his proper ground that feeling has always prevailed; and it is a of evangelic action-who is it that can feeling which has impelled expositors to take have any controversy with him? Look to a course which is utterly at variance with the Christian wisdom which illumines the the rules of modern science. When texts pages onward from 325; and we must point of one class stand opposed, in their manifest attention also to pages 343, 358, and 377, import, to texts of another class, what has where, in the last place especially, he draws been done (scarcely with an exception) by near to a statement of the principle of a system-makers in Theology, has been to genuine, and therefore a non-logical-or what force them into some sort of agreement, he calls "a complete and harmonious view any way and at the cost of grammar, and of divine truth.' of reason, and of common honesty. It is this practice-the folly and impiety of which we will not designate-which has brought this Theology into disrepute, or we might say into contempt. Why not consent-in the spirit of humility, to leave unadjusted that which, by fair means, cannot be reconciled? This surely were becoming on the part of those who profess to receive the Bible as an inspired volume; and who know that the great economy of the Divine government is not therein spread out to our gaze. But it has been supposed, on all such occasions, that we are called upon, as Chalmers here states it, p. 329, "to make sure of a sustained and unexcepted harmony between

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INSTITUTES OF THEOLOGY.-To the ninth chapter, on Scripture Criticism, we have already alluded. Several passages therein occurring we had marked, as noticeable, but shall refer to one of them only, p. 305, where we find illustration of what we have affirmed, that Chalmers had not brought his own mind into close contact with those branches of biblical scholarship which touch the question of the inspiration of the canonical writings. When, appealing to Campbell's Gospels, and to Bloomfield's Recensio, he anticipates comparatively unimportant results from the further prosecution of such studies, he must be understood as thinking only of those

and support. Regarded in this light, Chalmers' writings stand now, and they will long stand, as a protest against the flimsy and ever-varying schemes of Christianized Philosophy, which are proffered to the acceptance of the younger ministry, as well in Scotland as in England.

Secondly, the reader, availing himself of the few references we have now made, may trace the binding and the narrowing influence of the controversial theologies of a past age, upon a mind so robust, and so honest, and so independent, as was that of Chalmers.

them (antagonist texts) or of there being no such contradiction as might prove fatal, not only to the doctrine in question, but even to the general truth of revelation." Thus it is that so wise and strong-minded a teacher as Chalmers, yielding himself to the guidance of antiquated maxims, first stakes our faith in the Scriptures upon the truth of such an assertion as this, that "Marcus was sister's son to Barnabas," and then stakes it again upon the success or the failure of our ondeavours to reconcile apparently contradictory doctrinal passages!" One unlike phenomenon," p. 335, "does not contradict another. One unlike text may; and a decisive example of such a contradiction would create a painful embarrassment in our minds on the consistency and authority of the reord." Not so to those who, in perusing Holy Scripture, are free from superstitions, and are untrammelled by operose and wordy whether or not the credit of ancient modes articles of Faith.

And, thirdly--and we should, indeed, be pleased if warranted in thinking that we had so far realized our intention--let the student, in perusing anew these volumes catch from them an inspiration which shall animate his endeavours to derive from the inspired books the whole of their import,

of teaching can, at the same time, be sus

While we so speak it would be most ine-tained. quitable not to make a specific reference to And now a word in acquitting ourselves Some of those bright passages, and they are of our task. It may have seemed to some frequent, in which Chalmers, disdainful of of the admirers of this great man-justly trammels, utters his genuine convictions, in entitled as he is to the affectionate and reverhis own manner; as thus-"No two things ential regards of Christian people of all can be imagined of more opposite character Protestant countries--that, on some counts and complexion, than the lessons sometimes of the eulogy due to him, we have done him set forth in the pages of our controversial divinity, on the right side of the question too, (?) and the lessons as read by many a shrewd and intelligent observer, both in the tablet of his own heart, and on the face of general society."-p. 374. We should refer also to p. 467, as containing similar expressions of feeling.

less than justice. Let it be so thought, and we shall willingly stand corrected by any who will come forward in this behalf, armed with reasons, and animated by a well-considered zeal, as his champion. None will so come forward more thoroughly impressed than we are with a sense of his high merits in all those departments within which he was most at home.

More than this-we have a feeling in thinking of Chalmers of which exceedingly few among the illustrious dead could be the objects. We think of him wistfully, as if we believed that, various and large as were his labours, and great as were his actual achievements in behalf of the Church and the world, there was yet a something more which, with faculties so eminent, he might have done for our benefit.

These incidental references have extended only to the end of the first volume of the Institutes; and there are in the second volume, many passages of a still more signifieant kind, which we had proposed to cite; but we refrain from doing so, not merely because this article has already exceeded its limits; but because it would be extremely difficult to bring forward the passages alluded to, and not to get ourselves entangled among questions that are properly theologieal, and which are beyond our province. The purpose we have had in view will have been sufficiently secured, if the reader--we mean the younger studious reader, has been led to renew his acquaintance with Chalmers' theological writings, keeping in view these following specific objects :-namely, First, best, probably, in the employment of the To assure himself of the adherence of so powerful a mind to those characteristic doctrines of the Christian system which result always from a religious perusal of the Scriptures, when we hold them in reverence as "given of God" for our sufficient guidance

Ordinarily, when a writer who has well served his time, and is gone, comes to be thought of as a contributor to the general stock of moral or religious literature, we dismiss him gratefully, accepting at his hand what he has done;-for it was his

talent that had been assigned to his care. But once or twice in a century, or not so often, when a distinguished man passes away from us, we think ourselves to be deprived of a further good, which might have been ours if he had longer lived. So it was

when, in the very midst of his course, historians," they asked themselves, "has ARNOLD was snatched from his place:-the had any real feeling of the importance, the Christian community lost, by his sudden sacredness, of his subject? Any real trust death, the fruit of those mature years which in, or respect for, the characters with whom we had supposed he would have given to its service. Chalmers, indeed, lived out the ordinary term of life, and of active labour; and yet his death, even at so ripe an age, was in this same way felt to be a loss.

It does not appear what homage more emphatic than this can be rendered to the memory of a great man, when it is said that the high estimate which the world had come to form of his powers and qualitiesmoral and intellectual-has outstepped the measure of his actual performances, so as that when at length he falls, although full of days, and worn with years of self-denying labour, we yet think that he is gone too soon, and has left a work unfinished which he only could well have done. It is thus that we think of THOMAS CHALMERS.

ART. II-A History of England from the
Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth.
By J. A. FROUDE, M.A., late Fellow of
Exeter College, Oxford. London, J. W.
Parker and Son, West Strand. 2 vols.
1856.

he dealt? Has not the belief of each and all of them been the same-that on the whole, the many always have been fools and knaves; foolish and knavish enough, at least, to become the puppets of a few fools and knaves who held the reins of power? Have they not held that, on the whole, the problems of human nature, and human history, have been sufficiently solved by Gibbon and Voltaire, Gil Blas, and Figaro? That our forefathers were silly barbarians,—that this glorious nineteenth century is the one region of light, and that all before was outer darkness, peopled by "foreign devils," Englishmen, no doubt, according to the flesh, but in spirit, in knowledge, in creed, in customs, so utterly different from ourselves, that we shall merely shew our sentimentalism by doing aught but laughing at them?

On what other principle have our English histories as yet been constructed, even down to the children's books, which taught us in chidhood that the history of this country was nothing but a string of foolish wars, carried on by wicked kings, for reasons hitherto unexplained, save on that great historic law of Goldsmith's, by which Sir Archibald Alison would still explain the French Revolution,

THERE appeared, a few years since, a "The dog, to serve his private ends, "comic history of England," duly caricaturWent mad, and bit the man ?" ing and falsifying all our great national events, and representing the English people, It will be answered by some, and perhaps for many centuries back, as a mob of fools rather angrily, that these strictures are too and knaves, led by the nose in each genera- sweeping; that there is arising, in a certain tion by a few arch-fools and arch-knaves. quarter, a school of history-books for young Some thoughtful persons regarded the book people of a far more reverent tone, which with utter contempt and indignation; it tries to do full honour to the Church, and seemed to them a crime to have written it; her work in the world. Those books of a proof of "banausia," as Aristotle would this school which we have seen, we must rehave called it, only to be outdone by the ply, seem just as much wanting in real revwriting a "Comic Bible." After a while, erence for the past, as the school of Gibbon however, their indignation began to subside; and Voltaire. It is not the past which they their second thoughts, as usual, were more reverence, but a few characters or facts charitable than their first; they were not eclectically picked out of the past, and for surprised to hear that the author was an the most part, made to look beautiful by honest, just, and able magistrate; they saw ignoring all the features which will not suit that the publication of such a book involved their preconceived pseudo-ideal. There is no moral turpitude; that it was merely in these books a scarcely concealed dissatismeant as a jest on a subject on which jesting faction with the whole course of the British was permissible, and as a money speculation mind since the Reformation, and (though in a field of which men had a right to make they are not inclined to confess the fact) money; while all which seemed offensive in with its whole course before the Reformait, was merely the outcome, and as it were tion, because that course was one of steady apotheosis, of that method of writing English struggle against the Papacy and its antihistory which has been popular for nearly a national pretensions. They are the outcome hundred years. "Which of our modern of an utterly un-English tone of thought;

and the so-called "ages of faith" are pleasant There is, indeed, no intrinsic cause why and useful to them, principally because they the ecclesiastical, or pseudo-Catholic, view are distant and unknown enough to enable of history should, in any wise, conduce to a them to conceal from their readers that in just appreciation of our forefathers. For the ages on which they look back as ideally not only did our forefathers rebel against perfect, a Bernard and a Francis of Assisi that conception again and again, till they were crying all day long,-"O that my finally trampled it under their feet, and so head were a fountain of tears, that I might appear, prima facie, as offenders to be weep for the sins of my people!" Dante judged at its bar; but the conception itself was cursing popes and prelates in the name is one which takes the very same view of the God of Righteousness; Chaucer and of nature as that cynic conception of which Boccacio were lifting the veil from priestly we spoke above. Man, with the Romish abominations of which we now are ashamed divines, is, ipso facto, the same being as the even to read, and Wolsey, seeing the rotten- man of Voltaire, Le Sage, or Beaumarchais; ness of the whole system, spent his mighty-he is an insane and degraded being, who talents, and at last poured out his soul unto is to be kept in order, and, as far as may death, in one long useless effort to make the be, cured and set to work by an ecclesiasticrooked straight, and number that which cal system; and the only threads of light in had been weighed in the balances of God, the dark web of his history are clerical and and found for ever wanting. To ignore theurgic, not lay and human. Voltaire is wilfully facts like these, which were patent the very experimentum crucis of this ugly all along to the British nation, facts on fact. European history looks to him what which the British laity acted, till they finally it would have looked to his Jesuit preceptors, conquered at the Reformation, and on which had the sacerdotal element in it been wantthey are acting still, and will, probably, act ing; what heathen history actually did look for ever, is not to have any real reverence to them. He eliminates the sacerdotal elefor the opinions or virtues of our fore- ment, and nothing remains but the chaos of fathers; and we are not astonished to find apes and wolves, which the Jesuits had taught repeated, in such books, the old stock calum- him to believe was the original substratum nies against our lay and Protestant worthies, of society. The humanity of his history— taken at second-hand from the pages of even of his " Pucelle d'Orléans"-is simply Lingard. In copying from Lingard, how- the humanity of Sanchez, and the rest of ever, this party has done no more than those vingt-quatre Pères, who hang gibbeted those writers have who would repudiate for ever in the pages of Pascal. He is any party-almost any Christian-purpose. superior to his teachers, certainly, in this, Lingard is known to have been a learned that he has hope for humanity on earth; man, and to have examined many manu- dreams of a new and nobler life for society, scripts which few else had taken the trouble by means of a true and scientific knowledge to look at; so his word is to be taken, no of the laws of the moral and material unione thinking it worth while to ask whether verse; in a word, he has, in the midst of all he has either honestly read, or honestly his filth and his atheism, a faith in a righteous quoted, the documents. It suited the senti- and truth-revealing God, which the priests mental and lazy liberality of the last genera- who brought him up had not. Let the tion to make a show of fairness, by letting truth be spoken, even though in favour of the Popish historian tell his side of the such a destroying Azrael as Voltaire. And story, and to sneer at the illiberal old what if his primary conception of humanity notion, that gentlemen of his class were be utterly base? Is that of our modern given to be rather careless about historic historians so much higher? Do Christian truth when they had a purpose to serve men seem to them, on the whole, in all ages, thereby; and Lingard is now actually to have had the Spirit of God with them, recommended, as a standard authority for leading them into truth, however imperfectthe young, by educated Protestants who ly and confusedly they may have learnt his seem utterly unable to see, that, whether lessons? Have they ever heard with their the man be honest or not, his whole view of the course of British events, since Becket first quarrelled with his king, must be antipodal to their own; and that his account of all which has passed for three hundred years since the fall of Wolsey, is most likely to be (and, indeed, may be proved to be) one huge libel on the whole nation, and the destiny which God has marked out for it.

ears, or listened when their fathers have declared unto them the noble works which God did in their days, and in the old time before them? Do they believe that the path of Christendom has been, on the whole, the path of life, and the right way, and that the living God is leading her therein? Are they proud of the old British worthies? Are they jealous and tender of the reputation

erence on the great men of old time,-on Archimedes and Ptolemy, Aristotle and Pliny, and many another honourable [man who, walking in great darkness, sought a ray of light, and did not seek in vain, as integral parts of that golden chain of which he is but one link more; as scientific forefathers, without whose aid his science could not have had a being.

of their ancestors? Do they believe that | structed of them is wiser than Erigena or there were any worthies at all in England Roger Bacon. Let them be. They have before the steam-engine and political econo- their reward. And so also has the patient my were discovered? Do their conceptions and humble man of science, who, the more of past society, and the past generations, he knows, confesses the more how little he retain anything of that great thought which knows, and looks back with affectionate revis common to all the Arya races-that is, to all races who have left aught behind them better than mere mounds of earthto Hindoo and Persian, Greek and Roman, Teuton and Scandinavian, that men are the sons of the heroes, who were the sons of God? Or do they believe, that for civilized people of the nineteenth century, it is as well to say as little as possible about ancestors who possessed our vices without our amenities, our ignorance without our science; who were bred, no matter how, like flies by summer heat, out of that everlasting dunghill which men call the world, to buzz and sting their foolish day, and leave behind them a fresh race which knows them not, and could win no honour by owning them, and which owes them no more than if it had been produced, as dunghill-flies were said to be of old, by some spontaneous generation?

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Meanwhile, this general tone of irreverence for our forefathers is no hopeful sign. It is unwise to inquire why the former times were better than these;" to hang lazily and weakly over some eclectic dream of a past golden age; for to do so is to deny that God is working in this age as well as in past ages, that His light is as near us now as it was to the worthies of old time. But it is more than unwise to boast and rejoice that the former times were worse than these; and to teach young people to say in their It is not likely that any writer in this re- hearts, "What clever fellows we are, comview will be likely to undervalue political pared to our stupid old fogies of fathers!" economy, or the steam-engine, or any other More than unwise; for possibly it may be solid and practical good, which God has un- false in fact. To look at the political and veiled to this generation. All that we de- moral state of Europe at this moment, mand (for we have a right to demand it) is, Christendom can hardly afford to look down that rational men should believe that our on any preceding century, and seems to be forefathers were at least as good as we are; in want of something which neither science that whatsoever their measure of light was, nor constitutional government seem able to they acted up to what they knew, as faith-supply. Whether our forefathers also lacked fully as we do; and that, on the whole, it was not their fault if they did not know more. Even now, the real discoveries of the age are made, as of old, by a very few men; and, when made, have to struggle, as of old, against all manner of superstitions, lazinesses, scepticisms. Is the history of the Minié rifle one so very complimentary to our age's At home, too But on the question quickness of perception, that we can afford whether we are so very much better off than to throw many stones at the prejudices of our forefathers, Mr. Froude, not we, must. our ancestors? The truth is that, as of old, speak; for he has deliberately, in his new "many men talk of Robin Hood, who never history, set himself to the solution of this shot in his bow;" and many talk of Bacon, question, and we will not anticipate what he who never discovered a law by induction has to say; what we would rather insist on since they were born. As far as our expe- now are the moral ill effects produced on rience goes, those who are loudest in their our young people by books which teach jubilations over the wonderful progress of the age, are those who have never helped that progress forward one inch, but find it a great deal easier and more profitable to use the results which humbler men have pain- There is an ancient Hebrew book, which fully worked out, as second-hand capital for contains a singular story, concerning a grandhustings-speeches and railway books, and son who was cursed, because his father flatter a mechanic's institute of self-satisfied laughed at the frailty of the grandfather. youths, by telling them that the least in- Whether the reader shall regard that story,

that something, we will not inquire just now; but if they did, their want of scientific and political knowledge was evidently not the cause of the defect; or why is not Spain now infinitely better, instead of being infinitely worse off, than she was three hundred years ago?

them to look with contempt on all generations but their own, and with suspicion on all public characters save a few contemporaries of their own especial party.

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