two most worthy to be named Representative Theologians of this party. Mr. Ryle has collected his sermons, treatises, and tracts, that treat of Christian doctrine, and has given them homogeneity in two volumes, and they may be taken as the latest exposition of Low Church theology. There is every thing to be said in favour of Mr. Ryle's manly outspokenness, and vigorous Saxon. But his volumes are written in distinct avowal and maintenance of a thorough and often vulgar Calvinism, and a literal sense of scripture prophecy; in utter disbelief of the conversion of the world by any existing agency; a confident belief in the speedy coming of our Lord to terminate the present dispensation. Then shall the earth be renewed," says Mr. Ryle," the devil shall be bound, the godly rewarded, the wicked punished; and that before he comes, there shall be neither resurrection, judgment, nor millenium; and that not till after he comes, shall the earth be filled with the glory of God. Then shall the Jews be gathered as a separate people to their own land." We are to hold ourselves ready for tremendous convulsions and changes of all things now established, and look for the greatest good, not from Christianity, but from Christ's personal coming. Views similar to these are held by Dr. McNeile, but enunciated with greater eloquence, and greater force of mind. The Dean's numerous works, with a wide circulation, contain powerful defences of Christian truth, but they are vitiated with millenarianism and rabid anti-papal alarmist views. Indeed, alarmist opinions in reference to Popery, broad Calvinism, and pronounced Millenarianism, are the unvarying characteristics of the party.

From the bottom we rise to the top. From Low Church we ascend to High Church. Here we have several degrees, ranging from the very moderate High Churchism of Dean Mansel and Bishop Ellicott, to the extreme High Churchism of Mr. Mackonochie and Dr. Littledale. In Dean Mansell we have a representative of the selectest type and the smallest constituency. His celebrated Bampton Lectures caused a great sensation, when delivered from the pulpit of St. Mary's, Oxford, and a greater when published, going through several editions in a short time. In Mansel we have combined pre-eminent scholarly culture, thorough acquaintance with philosophic speculation, a severely classic style, and great dialectic keenness. It requires some courage to read through the Limits of Religious Thought, but to criticise it evinces no little hardihood on the part of an ordinary person. The words used in this paper respecting that remarkable book will be few, and it is hoped, becoming. The very Rev. the Dean of St. Paul's says: "The Absolute and the Infinite are like the Inconceivable and Imperceptible, not objects of thought or consciousness, but the absence of the conditions under which consciousness is possible." Thus God is beyond the reach of man's arguments, but only as the

infinite is beyond the grasp of his feelings and volitions. Against this, it is said that the familiar words, "God is a spirit, infinite, eternal, unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, truth," do convey to the mind ideas, thoughts, and objects of possible thought. To the question: "Are Cause, the Infinite, the Absolute, apprehensible or knowable by man, so as to be in any degree, or manner, objects of his thought?" Dean Mansel says, No. On the contrary, Professor Calderwood, Dr. McCosh, and Dr. J. Young, say out, Yes. They say, of course, this knowledge is partial, for the finite cannot grasp the infinite, but so far as it goes it is true knowledge and reliable. We know nothing fully from the dew drop to the ocean, from the mote in the sunbeam to the stellar worlds, from our own bodies and souls and their mysterious union, to the infinite God. Bishop Ellicott's principal works are critical and grammatical commentaries on the Epistles, and are in the best sense exegetical. Into the sacred writings he institutes a masterly and fearless philological examination, combined and chastened with a spirit of profound reverence. They are among the few English critical and theological works that have extorted admiration from German scholars.

Ascending to higher churchmen, we come to Mr. Liddon, and Dr. Pusey. Mr. Liddon is the spokesman of the penultimate phase of Oxford thought. Liddon and Pusey do not contend for high-flown ritualistic ceremonies and practices, though they may not object to them, nay, may even sympathize with them, yet their great contention is for the recognition and establishment of the doctrines of Catholic Theology. Of these two Theologians, Pusey is perhaps the more learned, but Liddon is more acute, observant, refined and eloquent, and has more force in his intellectual composition; his intellect is almost "Italian in it brightness and quickness." His works are masterly apologies; his Bampton Lectures, for 1866, caused a greater sensation when delivered than any previous ones, except those of Mansel; the theme was one of transcendant concern, the Deity of our Lord Jesus Christ. As an argument in favour of that foundation doctrine they are incomparable, as they also are for glow and eloquence; his sermons too have an apologetical character, and deal with the most recent phases of theological speculation. But his writing is tarnished with Sacramentarianism; and worse than this, he "shifts the centre of gravity," from the cross to the manger; from the atonement to the incarnation; regarding it as a work metaphysically and mysteriously continued, "not only in the traditions of an inner life, but in the outward reality of a supernaturally endowed and apostolically organized community," to wit, his own church. He holds that Christ's human nature is the "impersonal head and root of regenerated humanity," and by partaking of the sacraments of

the "supernaturally endowed" church, we become partakers of Christ.*

Of Dr. Pusey's Christian simplicity, earnestness and purity, there can be no manner of doubt. Yet in his creed he is not far from being a Romanist, as witness this declaration: "I believe the Council of Trent, whatever its look might be, and our Articles, whatever their look may be, could be so explained as to reconcile the one with the other." In a long conversation with an eminent Romanist Theologian, that learned person said, in parting, "I salute you as a brother;" showing that he had satisfied the Roman Dr. that their views were coincident, if not identical. Though an Anglican he holds that his church formularies do not condemn transubstantiation, mass, the seven sacraments, invocation of the saints, and the church's dependence upon the priesthood. The only points upon which he hesitates, are-Mariolatry, and the Pope's Infallibility. Notwithstanding this, upon all questions at issue between orthodoxy and any form of unbelief, he is staunchly orthodox; his elaborate defence of the Book of Daniel is a noble contribution to exegetical Theology. When the Essays and Reviews were let loose upon the young and uninstructed, he selected the Book of Daniel, because the sceptical critics considered their attacks upon it as one of their greatest triumphs. Dr. Pusey brought to bear upon it a "perfect encyclopædia of learning; and it is by far the most exhaustive work on the subject that has appeared; it is a monument of learning and masterly reasoning, reminding us rather of ancient folios than modern octavos." And even unfriendly critics have granted that he has shown, better than any one who has made the attempt, that the Book of Daniel is not of late origin, but belongs to the period assigned it by the consensus of Christian critics and scholars. Dr. Pusey was the first English divine who pointed out, in an elaborate work, the tendencies of German Theologians to refine away the grand peculiarities of Christianity.

There has been for some years growing in numbers and activity an influential division of the High Church party- the Ritualists. The representative men of this section are, Mr. Mackonochie and Dr. Littledale. The former proclaims that his views upon the Eucharist are thoroughly Roman. "I believe," he says, "that the elements of bread and wine remain in their own material substance; yet, they are after consecration, not what nature formed, but what the benediction of consecration has consecrated, and by consecration changed." For the simple law in physics-that in relation to a body in given space you can only predicate presence

* For an account of the origin and growth of this doctrine in ancient days, we refer the reader to Dr. Dorner's History of the person of Christ. Division 2. Vol. II. From page 207.

or absence-theologians, like Mr. Mackonochie, have a supreme contempt. They speculate in regions where such laws and mundane requirements can be treated with infinite disdain. No absurdity baulks or abashes them. They boldly affirm "that power of making the body and blood of Christ is vested in the successors of the Apostles," and in the "consecrated bread Christ in his manhood is present upon the Altar, present in his very flesh—. the very flesh which was born of the Virgin, and is now glorified at God's right hand in heaven." The dislike of these quasi Romanists to Protestant teaching and action is most rabid and bitter. They speak of their design "to cut the cancer of Protestantism out of the Church," and "to hew down the fatal upas tree of Protestantism with boldness. The champion of this new reformation, Dr. Littledale, speaks thus of the Reformers:-" The religious changes of the 16th century were commenced by a man who murdered his wives, carried on by a statesman who murdered his brother, and completed by a queen who murdered her guest." He declares that Bilney, one of the best of the martyrs, "brought about his own death by false swearing and sedition;" that the so-called Reformers were "miscreants richly deserving the sufferings and death they endured;" "and," says this representative man, "I prefer the morality of Danton, Marat, and Robespierre, and the infidel, to theirs." Here is another excerpt from these choice theologians: "Luther's doctrine of Justification by Faith is a very pernicious thing; it makes no matter what a man's life is if he says he has faith, he is saved. Protestantism has no logical basis; it must make way for the religion of the future," which is Anglo-Catholicism, or Romanism, against which Protestantism has done battle for three hundred years. "The Bible," say these teachers of ours, "standing alone is the same as the Vedas, Koran, a Papal Bull, or the Book of Mormon. Among the Dissenters there is the most deplorable deterioration of morals, combined with the loudest protestation of faith." It might be difficult to say whether the virulent abusiveness or flagrant untruthfulness of all this is most open to condemnation. It is a thing to excite our wonder, that such utterances find countenance and sympathy. That they represent a large constituency in the Establishment is capable of quick and easy proof. But the anomaly becomes monstrous when we remember that these men are in a communion avowedly Reformed and Protestant; and that her Homilies, in language more remarkable for energy and truth than politeness, declares that the Roman Church, to which these theologians look so fondly, is "a withered, old, filthy harlot !"

Surely, a heterogeneous thing is the Episcopal Church; for while such mutual haters as Ryle and Mackonochie, McNeile and Littledale, Dean Boyd and Mr. Bennett, of Frome, dwell together in

common discord, there is within its pale a broad or latitudinarian party represented by Alford, Trench, Stanley, Kingsley, Maurice, Jowett, and Bishop Colenso. If not so large in number, this party in its influence upon society is second to none in importance. Not a few of our most popular authors and contributors to the secular press are tinctured, and some deeply imbued, with the spirit of the Broad Church. We will advert to the general features of the party before considering what may be peculiar to each or any of the representative men we have mentioned. They are all agreed in their distaste for creeds and dogmatic theology in general. Hence, in the pulpit they preach the Gospel broadly and avoid formal divisions in their sermons. They dwell more upon the events of Scripture than upon its doctrines, holding that a correct and beautiful life is of more account than the firmest faith in any creed. They profess great toleration and charity for all dissidents. They perceive "the soul of good in things evil," and affect to recognize the substance of truth and the essence of religion in the manifold forms of belief and unbelief. Believing that "the patient and reverent search after truth is an act of worship of the highest order," they cannot unchurch or outlaw a man who has been led by his pursuit of truth to conclusions very different from their own. Thus, the Church to them is broad, being composed not merely of men believing in this or that doctrine, but including the earnest and truth seeking in all communions and of all creeds. Some of the party (as Dean Stanley) admire and defend the Church because of its comprehensiveness. That his church shelters and defends Mackonochie, Ryle, and Colenso, is a cause of glory to the Dean, while it appears to be a disgrace and scandal to the most of Christian people. The view they take of religion is equally broad. The Spirit of God is at work in the soul of the poet, literateur, artist, discoverer, politician, and philosopher, as well as in the Christian. It is part of their religion to cultivate their intellect and refine their taste.

The Broad Church party is pyramidal in form. Some composing it are broader, others superlatively so. Beginning at the apex of the pyramid, we find Archbishop Trench and Dean Alford. Then we have Maurice, Kingsley, Llewellyn, Davies, and many of "that ilk," who are latitudinarian; and, lastly, at the base of the pyramid we find Professor Jowett, whose views are so broad as to be almost pantheistic.

Some may demur to Dean Alford being placed in such company. We are aware he is confessedly an evangelical; yet we, advisedly, though not invidiously, name him in this connexion. His greatest and best known work is his Greek Testament. One writer speaks of it as being marked by "sound common sense, and frank acceptance of the results of German criticism." Another competent