presents. Given at Lambeth House, the day and year above written, and in the fourth year of our translation. J. (L. S.) CANTUAR. We, William Lord Archbishop of York, Charles Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells, and John Lord Bishop of Peterborough, were present and assisting at the consecration within mentioned. W. EBOR. C. BATH AND WELLS. The signatures of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and of the Bishops of Bath and Wells, and Peterborough, were made in my presence, February 4th, 1787. (Copy.) WM. DICKES, Secretary to the Archbishop of Canterbury. ON Sunday, the fourth day of February, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven, and in the fourth year of the translation of the most Reverend Father in God, John, by Divine Providence, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of all England, and Metropolitan, in the Chapel at the Palace at Lambeth, in the county of Surry, the said most Reverend Father in God, by virtue and authority of a certain licence or warrant from his most gracious Majesty, and our sovereign lord George the Third, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, and so forth, to him, in this behalf, directed, the most Reverend Father in God William, by the same Providence, Lord Archbishop of York, Primate o, England, and Metropolitan, and the Right Reverend Fathers in God,f Charles, by divine permission, Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells, and John, by divine permission, Lord Bishop of Peterborough, assisting him, consecrated the Reverend William White, Doctor in Divinity, Rector of Christ Church and St. Peter's, in the city of Philadelphia, a subject or citizen of the United States of North America, and the Rev. Samuel Provost, Doctor in Divinity, Rector of Trinity Church, in the city of New York, a subject or citizen also of the United States of North America, to the office of a Bishop, respectively, the rites, circumstances and ceremonies anciently used in the Church of England being observed and applied, according to the tenor of an act passed in the twenty-sixth year of the reign of his said Majesty, entituled "An act to empower "the Archbishop of Canterbury, or the Archbishop of York, for the "time being, to consecrate to the office of a Bishop, persons being sub"jects or citizens of countries out of his Majesty's dominions," in the presence of me, Robert Jenner, Notary Public, one of the Deputy Registers of the province of Canterbury, being then and there present the Reverend and Worshipful William Backhouse, Doctor in Divinity, Archdeacon of Canterbury, the Rev. Lort, Doctor in Divinity, the Rev. Drake, Doctor in Divinity, William Dickes, Esquire, Notary Public, Secretary to his grace the said Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, with many others in great numbers then and there assembled. Which I attest. (Copy.) RT. JENNER, Notary Public, Actuary assumed. AND we, the underwritten Notaries Public, by royal authority duly admitted and sworn, residing in Doctor's Commons, London, do hereby certify and attest, to all whom it may concern, that Robert Jenner, whose name is subscribed to the aforegoing act, was and is a Notary Public, and one of the Deputy Registers of the province of Canterbury, and that the letters, name and words "Rt. Jenner, Notary Public," thereto subscribed, were and are of the proper hand writing and subscription of the said Robert Jenner, and that we saw him sign the same, and that full faith and entire credit is and ought to be given to all the acts, subscriptions and attestations of the said Robert Jenner, as well in judgment as out. In testimony whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names, to serve and avail as occasion may require, at Doctor's Commons, London, this fifth day of February, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven. Which we attest. (Copy.) EDWARD COOPER, Notary Public. NOTE. The letter of consecration of the Right Rev. Dr. Provost will be annexed to the next Journal of the General Convention. (To be Continued.) 1 BOOK NOTICES. MANSEL'S BAMPton Lectures, 1858. THE LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT EXAMINED, in Eight Lectures preached before the University of Oxford, in the Year 1858, on the Foundation of the late Rev. JOHN BAMPTON, M. A., Canon of Salisbury. By HENRY LONGUEVILLE MANSEL, B. D., Reader in Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy at Magdalen College; Tutor, and late Fellow, of St. John's College. First American, from the third London Edition, With the Notes translated. Boston: Gould & Lincoln. 1859. 12mo. pp. 364. We are reluctant to take up this volume in the present connection. Not only is the theme too tempting and suggestive to be handled in this summary way; but it is also utterly impossible, within our present limits, to place before the reader any true and just conception of the work itself. However imperfectly we may express ourselves now, we promise to return to the subject at an early day, and to do it more ample justice. It is of course generally known, that within the English Universities there has been developed, within the last few years, a strong reaction from what is called the "Tractarian Movement." It is a reaction thoroughly German in its type, and in its origin. It is learned, after a fashion, but its temper and tone provoke us to say, that it is illogical, inconsistent with itself, muddy, shallow, conceited, dogmatic and intolerant. Among the English names connected with this development, are F. W. NEWMAN, GREG, BADEN POWELL, FROUDE, JOWETT, and MAURICE; while in this country we have THEODORE PARKER and his numerous imitators and satellites. Indeed, this new development, directly or indirectly German in its origin, has already poisoned American theology to an extent far greater than is generally supposed. Its habits of thought, its methods of reasoning, are recognized, more or less distinctly, in more than one of our American Divinity Schools; and we do not hesitate to say its peculiar mode of thinking prevails, though to a limited extent, even within our own Branch of CHRIST'S Holy Church. In a late Article, "Recent Works on Christianity," we endeavored to sound an alarm; we have alluded to the subject again and again; and, God being our helper, we are not yet done with it. It is a fact to be grateful for, that, at Oxford, the English head-quarters of this new enemy, the "Truth as it is in Jesus" is finding defenders worthy of the occasion, armed at all points, and able and ready to carry the war into the very heart of Africa. Mr. Mansel, in these Bampton Lectures delivered last year, entered the lists on the question of Christian Theology; and the Lecturer of this year, Mr. Rawlinson, as we understand, is directing his lance at what may be called the modern German Canon of Biblical Criticism; and we are told that he is thoroughly competent to the task. Mr. Mansel, in these Eight Lectures, exhibits a thorough familiarity with his subject. The Notes show that he has not only read, but appreciated, the writings of the leaders in this late German movement; such as Kant, Hegel, Fichte, Schleiermacher, Wegscheider, &c.; and, that he has clearly detected the 'prov cudos' which lies at the basis of their mongrel systems. The plan of his work is briefly this. He first examines critically and comparatively the two modern developments of Dogmatism and Rationalism. In his Second, Third, and Fourth Lectures he gives a searching analysis of that false system of Philosophy, which underlies the Neology of modern German, English and American Infidelity; and here he exhibits the real strength and power of his position. His argument has a two-fold direction. First, as relating to the Philosophy of the Object of Religion, or the fundamental ideas of the so-called Rational Theology; that is, its conception of the Nature of God. And then, he directs inquiry into the Philosophy of the Subject of Religion, in which he notices the conditions and limitations of Human Consciousness. The following are pregnant passages, illustrative of both sides of the argument, and they contain the whole gist of the matter in a nut shell. "We are compelled, by the constitution of our minds, to believe in the existence of an absolute and infinite Being,-a belief which appears forced upon us as the complement of our consciousness of the relative and the finite. But the instant we attempt to analyze the ideas thus suggested to us, in the hope of attaining to an intelligible conception of them, we are on every side involved in inextricable confusion and contradiction. It is no matter from what point of view we commence our examination; whether, with the theist, we admit the co-existence of the Infinite and the finite as distinct realities; or, with the pantheist, deny the real existence of the finite; or, with the atheist, deny the real existence of the Infinite; on each of these suppositions alike, our reason appears divided against itself— compelled to admit the truth of one hypothesis, and yet unable to overcome the apparent impossibilities of each. The philosophy of rationalism, thus traced upwards to its bighest principles, finds no legitimate resting-place, from which to commence its deduction of religious consequences." And again: p. 91-2. "Our whole consciousness manifests itself as subject to certain limits, which we are unable in any act of thought to transgress. That which falls within those limits as an object of thought, is known to us as relative and finite. The absolute and the infinite are thus, like the inconceivable and the imperceptible, names indicating, not an object of thought or of consciousness at all, but the mere absence of the conditions under which consciousness is possible. The attempt to construct in thought an object answering to such names, necessarily results in contradiction; a contradiction, however, which we have ourselves produced by the attempt to think; which exists in the act of thought, but not beyond it; which destroys the conception as such, but indicates nothing concerning the existence or non-existence of that which we try to conceive. It proves our own impotence, and it proves nothing more. Or rather, it indirectly leads us to believe in the existence of that infinite which we cannot conceive; for the denial of its existence involves a contradiction, no less than the assertion of its conceivability. We thus learn that the provinces of reason and faith are not co-extensive; that it is a duty enjoined by reason itself, to believe in that which we are unable to comprehend." pp. 109, 110. He thus concludes, that "there can be no such thing as a positive science of Speculative Theology. For such a science must necessarily be based upon an apprehension of the Infinite; and the Infinite, though we are compelled to believe in its existence, cannot be positively apprehended in any mode of the human Consciousness." pp. 220-1. In his Fifth and Sixth Lectures, he adopts Bishop Butler's argument of Analogy; and shows that Religion and Philosophy are both subject to the same difficulties in dealing with the Absolute and the Infinite; and, that in this regard, nothing is gained by rejecting Revelation; and, with a force and power which are irresistible, he drives home upon our modern cavilers the conviction that their only refuge, in giving up a Supernatural Christianity, is in a bald and naked Atheism. The author's argument here is thoroughly annihilating; and his copious illustrations in the Notes, from the so-called "great thinkers of the age," force upon the reader the conclusion, that these men are as stupid and illogical, as they are tumid. In his two last Lectures, Mr. Mansel states and defines what he regards as the true province of Reason and the Moral sense in matters of Religion. Instead of making Human Consciousness the sovereign arbiter and ultimate appeal, as our modern infidels do, and of its pronouncing dogmatically on the great doctrines of the Gospel, as the Trinity, the Atonement, &c., because they do not square with our notions of right and fitness, the author's position is admirably stated as follows: "The primary and proper employment of man's Moral Sense, as of his other faculties, is not speculative, but regulative. It is not designed to tell us what are the absolute and immutable principles of right as existing in the eternal nature of God, but to discover those relative and temporary manifestations of them which are necessary for human training in this present life." p. 210. And as to the use of Reason in the subject matter of Revelation, he says, "The legitimate object of a rational criticism of revealed religion is not to be found in the contents of that religion, but in its evidences." p. 205. The whole of the Eighth Lecture is a masterly summing up of the entire argument; clear, terse, eloquent, and devout. The argument of the work is based upon the great principle enunciated by Sir William Hamilton, and which contains in itself a refutation of the whole school of German sophists, to wit: "the unconditioned is incognizable and inconceivable; its notion being only negative of the conditioned, which last can alone be but partially known or conceived." We have said that these German philosophers are self-contradictory. Even Tennemann thus speaks of the results which his countrymen have already reached: "The vast variety of contradictory attempts, destructive of each other, to which the spirit of philosophical research has, in modern times, given birth, may appear to throw suspicion on the cause itself, and to discourage the very idea of the possibility of a satisfactory solution of the problems proposed by the discovery of a theory of knowledge based on firm and immutable principles. The critical system itself has failed to check, as it undertook to do, the daring flight of speculation, or to disarm scepticism; and has had the effect of affording them renewed strength and more lofty pretensions." Some of our best American scholars, who, in their earlier years, were somewhat taken with German Philosophy, later in life have become thoroughly sick of its vast pretensions, and its almost utter fruitlessness; but most of all, of the infidel habits of thought and feeling which it is sure to generate. Its nou or is wrong. It starts with a lie in its right hand. We have already spoken of the Notes. Filling more than one hundred and thirty pages in fine type, the original Greek, Latin, French, and German of the English, are given in a translation, in this American edition. They are sufficiently full to represent that system of speculation which is spreading so rapidly in this country, which is as blasphemous as it is insidious, and which is the more to be dreaded, as it conceals its designs under the pretentious garb of sanctity, philanthropy, and learning. We will not lay down the volume without saying that the work is open to severe criticism in one or two points, but they do not touch its main positions; while most of the comments upon the book, which we have seen, seem to us rather an attempt to exhibit the metaphysical acumen of the writer, than to over. turn the foundation on which Mr. Mansel has planted himself. We are aware that we have but imperfectly indicated the method of the argument in these Lectures, and their pertinence and value. But we would not fail, in behalf of American Churchmen, to express to the learned author our grateful appreciation of a work so needful, and so nobly done. Its usefulness will be greater in the American, than in the English Church; as we are exposed, even more than our English brethren, to the baleful influence of German infidelity; while we have fewer correctives which we can bring to bear against its poison. Our clergy, and, we trust, multitudes of our laity, will read the book; and will be strengthened by it for the great conflict of the age, against a proud, bitter, infidel, dogmatizing Rationalism, which is eating out the very heart of our Religion, and which is sapping the foundation on which rest not only the Sacraments and Ministry of the Gospel, but all its most vital Doctrines. COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. By Dr. AUGUSTUS THOLUCK. Translated from the German. By CHARLES P. KRAUTH, D. D. Philadelphia: 1859. 8vo. pp. 440. We need not say that Tholuck is regarded as one of the most orthodox of the modern German Commentators. A later edition of his Commentary on the Gospel of St. John, that is, the Sixth Edition, was published in 1844, and after 22 VOL. XII.-NO. II. |