as a remarkable fact, that numbers of Englishmen within and without the Church have believed strongly and intelligently in the Incarnation, while denying Sacramental Grace. They have happily failed to perceive, not merely the parallelism of the evidence for these truths, but that (if we may reverently say so) the Sacraments stand to the Incarnation in the relation of a hand to the body, and that to deny their efficacy is to isolate the main trunk of Christian doctrine from the human soul by removing the channels and media of a real interest in it. Accordingly, in France and Germany, upon a denial of the Sacraments, the Incarnation is first treated historically, and then denied. And the earlier phase of this fatal descent is observable in the impatience with which even religious writers think and speak of the fences raised around the doctrine of the Incarnation by the Church of the Athanasian and Leonine age, and in the popular sentiments about the (so-termed) Athanasian Creed. The Incarnation, apart from the Sacraments, which bring it into living and felt contact with our actual life, and subordinate its historical aspect to its present and practical importance, would have been exposed anywhere but in England to imminent risk of being utterly denied; it has been saved, under God, in a great measure through the inconsequent and unphilosophical character of English divinity.

On the other hand, this feature of English religious thought operates to prevent recognition of truths which follow immediately on what is already admitted. Men fail to see that they believe what is only a portion of a creed, and that what they believe suggests the importance of what they hold to be doubtful or matter of opinion. Doubtless, where faith is perfect, its entire object-matter is present to the soul with a living energy which supersedes all mere ratiocination and inference. When we see an entire body, we do not laboriously reflect that each portion of it is the correlative of something else. The sight of the whole supersedes this slow effort to analyse the relations and importance of the parts. But Mr. Heygate reminds us that we may thus light upon practices and arguments in antiquity which determine with clearness and precision the faith of the ancient Church. Thus, the practice of reserving the Eucharist proves a real belief in the efficacy and perpetuated effect of consecration; while Theodoret's arguments against Eutichianism could not have been sanctioned by a body which believed in Transubstantiation. Thus Infant Baptism presupposed Original Sin as its necessary explanation; and, as Mr. Jowett implies, the atonement could not have been doubted while it was fenced by the Eucharistic Sacrifice; and Absolution asserts implicitly the gravity of the penalties which follow upon unforgiven sin. It is characteristic of the fabric of Christian theology to oppose a practice or a rite

to the surging wave of adverse criticism, and to shelter the doctrines which such rite or practice may embody from the rude and untutored hearts of men at large, who are so little morally fitted for religious investigation. Thus the Atonement was guarded by one aspect of the Eucharist, the Incarnation by another, the Fall by Baptism, the Special Providence of God by continued prayer, the inspiration of Scripture by its use in the services of the Church, the power of Christ's cleansing blood by the rites of Absolution. And where the hold upon the outwork has been swept away or been yielded, the concession has ever failed to propitiate the opponents of faith, or to arrest their advance upon the citadel of Christian doctrine beyond it. We have indeed heard it suggested that the Immaculate Conception was projected as a new barrier which might meet and engage the tide of advancing unbelief at a point as remote as possible from the centre of Christian doctrine. But human expedients may not be thus grafted upon a divine religion; nor does the Incarnation need other defences than those which have been divinely authorized; nor can anything atone to the defenders of the Immaculate Conception for the renunciation which it involves of the authority of antiquity, or for the change which, as the Bishop of S. David's has recently pointed out, it has unquestionably effected in the principles of the Roman Church;' nor, in short, could any measure have been devised more favourable to the advance of continental infidelity.

Mr. Heygate is at unnecessary pains, as it appears to us, in resting his opposition to that unhappy dogma upon its incompatibility with the prevalent opinion current in the ancient Church, upon the subject of Original Sin. This only amounts to showing that it could not have been generally held then; whereas it is notorious that four years ago it was no part of the faith of the Roman Church. His happiest effort is the Essay on the relation of the Eucharistic Sacrifice to the Doctrine of the Atonement.' We must extract one passage, as more than any other characteristic of the writer whom many of our readers will gratefully remember as the author of 'Sermons on the Care of the Soul' :

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It is far too common to confine the atonement to the death of Christ on the cross, which is indeed the crowning act of his vicarious sufferings, although not of our justification, for which the Resurrection was necessary (Rom. iv. 25), but which was preceded by acts in each and all of which the ancient Church, and devout minds in all ages, guided and encouraged by Scripture, have acknowledged redemption. The fast of Christ for man's greediness: His humiliation for man's pride; His poverty for our love of this world; His Gethsemane for man's Eden; His betrayal for our

1 Charge, 1857, Appendix.

falsehood; His forsaken estate for our forsaking of God; His meekness for our anger; His bonds for our lawlessness; His silence for our excuses; His stripes for our deserving of stripes; His condemnation that we might not be condemned; and other like saving acts, which bring the colour of shame into our cheeks, and tears into our eyes, are all parts of that vicarious suffering whereby the original and actual sins of men are forgiven; and the Crucifixion itself was not simply a death, but a death which redeemed man in his various members; and by its crown of thorns, nails, and thirst,-by its manifold und unspeakable agonies, atoned for our various and unspeakable sins.'-P. 76.

Equally noteworthy is his correction of Archbishop Magee's meagre treatment of the objection that there could be no imaginable connexion between the death of an animal and the remission of sin (p. 77). But space obliges us to refrain from doing more than commend Mr. Heygate's book to the attention of our readers. More perhaps is due to suggestive books than to books of information; and Mr. Heygate, while full of matter, is a very suggestive writer. He propels his readers into ranges of thought which lie far beyond those which he actually traverses; and if, as in his discussion on Predestination, he is occasionally meagre, what he does say is much to the purpose. His book, we fear, is not likely to fall into the hands of those who have most to learn from it. Our countrymen at Cawnpore would have thankfully escaped the Sepoys by taking refuge, had it been possible, behind the defences of the Residency at Lucknow. But in the things of faith men are generally less wise than in matters of sense and time. Nor do we expect even a majority of our evangelical brethren to reconsider their contempt for the principle of antiquity in the light of its results, or to fall back upon a position which would dissociate them from reasoners and consequences, with which their prayers and earnestness have no legitimate connexion. Good will have been done if sound Churchmen are led to prove more searchingly the real principles of their creed; and to take their stand with increased resolution, intelligence, and thankfulness, upon a basis which sufficed for their pious forefathers-which will protect them from Rationalism, and which will not lead them to Rome.

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ART. VIII.-The Declaration of the Six Scottish Bishops.

SINCE the publication of our last Number, there has been a meeting of the Scottish Episcopal Synod; an event which, we believe, took by surprise a large portion of the Scottish clergy and laity, who had imagined that nothing of the sort was to take place before the usual yearly meeting in September. Much as we regret, on many accounts, that the idea of postponement was not carried out, we are not blind to the difficulties of the position in which the six Bishops found themselves placed. The excited state of a portion of the laity, who appear to have wished for some repression of the Bishop of Brechin's teaching without so solemn a proceeding as a judicial trial; the fancied danger of a disruption between the northern and southern dioceses, or of a secession on the part of some of the lay impugners of Bishop Forbes's Charge; the increasing interest in the matter exhibited by the remarks of the press in England, and the publication of pamphlets in Scotland-all these considerations must have weighed upon the minds of those who determined upon this meeting, and the Pastoral Letter resulting from its deliberations.

Now we are most anxious not to forget the respect due both to the office and the character of the six Bishops, whose Pastoral has by this time, no doubt, been seen by our readers. But their proceedings are avowedly 'not of a judicial character;' their Letter, confessedly, embodies no new canon, but only words of 'guidance and admonition:' and they, who have so freely criticised (to use the very gentlest language) the acts and writings of their brother Bishop, can have no right to be surprised or to complain, if a document thus made publici juris become in its turn the subject of free, but not, we hope, either irreverent or captious criticism.

A complete survey of the very grave questions both of doctrine and discipline opened out by this Pastoral would occupy a volume. We can only touch upon some salient features.

I. As regards doctrine. While admitting in this Pastoral, as a just ground of thankfulness, the absence of any teaching which positively contravenes what we have been accustomed to maintain for truth, and its susceptibility (we trust) throughout of a Catholic interpretation, we see no reason to change the opinion expressed by us in April last, that a declaration of this nature would (so far as it was binding) tend to narrow the latitude hitherto allowed, both in England and Scotland, on the mystery of the Holy Eucharist. Our judgment is confirmed by finding that a contemporary newspaper, which no one will accuse of being either hasty or intemperate, and which cannot be charged.

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with any leanings towards extravagant doctrine, has given utterance to precisely the same sentiment, maintaining that 'the Reformed Church hitherto has not excluded the line of 'doctrine held in the Charge.' To have even attempted such limitation, though (happily) not by dogmatic canons or binding resolutions, seems to us to lay upon its authors the burden of a very serious and deep responsibility.

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But, further, we must avow our inability to see any mode of reconciling the present document with the one issued by three of the Scotch Bishops in December last. Let us not be misunderstood. In April, we remarked upon an apparent discrepancy between a sermon by Dean Ramsay and the document for which the Dean, in company with other Presbyters, thanked the three Bishops. Perhaps we ought to have explained (what we gladly seize the earliest opportunity of explaining) that nothing was further from our intention, than to cast the slightest stigma upon the character of one of whom we have always heard the most favourable reports for long and faithful services to the Church, mild and conciliatory character, and the possession of many gifts peculiarly calculated to fit him for the important station which he occupies in Edinburgh. We were only trying to show cause why toleration should be exercised, by the display of the danger which even most excellent men incur in times of excitement. And as then, so now. The six Bishops have really, we believe, persuaded themselves that the necessity for immediate action was imperative, and that the principle of Salus Ecclesiæ suprema lex must overrule all personal considerations. But even such a principle, though not of course intrinsically a low one, may become a snare. It cannot surely justify, on the part of Christian rulers, any exercise of that summum jus which the proverb pronounces to be summa injuria; it cannot efface the intellectual discrepancy of propositions such as the following. The writers are above all suspicion of dishonesty; but can they be acquitted of inconsistency?

Proposition signed by three Bishops of the Scotch Church in December, 1857.

"We hold and teach that the Body and Blood of Christ are not so present in the consecrated elements of bread and wine, as to be therein the proper object of such supreme adoration as is due to God alone.'

Proposition signed by the same three Bishops (with three more Co-Bishops) in May, 1858.

'You will remember that, as our Church has repudiated the doctrine of Transubstantiation, so she has given us no authority whereby we can require it to be believed that the substance of Christ's Body and Blood (still less his entire Person as God and Man, now glorified in the heavens) is made to exist with, in, or under the material substances of bread and wine,'