same level with holy hope, much less with holy love. Enough there is in the Gospel to bid the most abandoned sinner not to despair: Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.' And although it is not for us to draw a line which is known to the Divine Omniscience only; yet, it seems probable that those alone will be eternally lost who have practically said to their Maker-'I will have none of you.' Assuredly, any who suffer such loss and woe will have drawn it on themselves by their own deliberate act.

And if these pages should fall into the hands of any one who may be still in doubt, we would beg that such an one would accept from us the warning of a parting word, although (like most of what has gone before) it has already been partially spoken by other tongues. In the course of some fifty yearsprobably at a very much earlier date-both writer and reader must be in a position that will rend asunder for them the veil which at present hides the world unseen. Then will doubt be resolved into certainty, and mysteries, at present but faintly intelligible, become clear alike to him that serveth God and him that serveth Him not.' We have seen in how many cases a doubt which, happily, dared not expand itself into denial-was all that even those who were most interested in disbelieving the existence of hell could attain unto. Well were it for such sceptics to act at least upon the safer side-to try so to order their lives as if what they so shrink from believing may prove true. May He, the Merciful, who has revealed this truth, make up for all reticence on the part of those who are in duty bound to repeat His warnings-for all faults in manner on the part of those who do assert it because He has said it! What better thing can such teachers wish for themselves and for those who listen to their voice, than that both may together be delivered from that terrible and hopeless doom? Spare Thy people, whom 'Thou hast redeemed by Thy precious Blood, and be not angry 'with us for ever. By the mystery of Thy holy Incarnation; by Thy Cross and Passion; by all that Thou hast wrought and 'suffered for us in Thy Life and Death, and by Thine Inter'cession at the right hand; from Thy wrath, and from everlasting damnation, Good Lord, deliver us !'

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ART. IX.-The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua critically examined. By the Right Rev. JOHN WILLIAM COLENSO, D.D., Bishop of Natal. Part II. London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, and Green. 1863.

It is amusing to observe how pertinaciously the Bishop of Natal adheres to the Latitudinarian party in the Church, and how unscrupulously they throw him overboard. He avows his entire sympathy with them, but they will have nothing to do with him; he mixes himself up with Essays and Reviews,' but the Essayists and Reviewers maintain a profound silence; he makes several bids for Mr. Maurice's support, but Mr. Maurice can see a line of demarcation between himself and the author of the 'Critical Examination of the Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua,' which Dr. Colenso cannot recognise; and his declararation of open war with the authors of the papers in the volume entitled 'Aids to Faith' entirely fails to elicit any kind of approval from the sympathizers with the views which that volume attacks. He proclaims aloud his indignation at the heavy losses actually sustained by Mr. Heath by his loss of preferment and the means of living in the sacred cause of freedom of thought, and calculates the probable sum in which Messrs. Wilson and Williams will be mulcted if their appeal to the Privy Council is unsuccessful; but these gentlemen seem in no hurry to identify their cause with his. The principle of freehandling seems to stand aghast at its own precipitate development; and it appears that people who have gone along with the stream hitherto will rather incur the charge of inconsistency and want of logic, than at once proceed to make sacrifice of the faith in which they have been educated from their childhood. We really cannot find that any person has ventured to come forward and endorse the statements of either of the volumes which have been published by Dr. Colenso. We do not observe that, in the list of the current publications of the day, there are any pleas put out in his defence, any attempt to throw a veil over his assertions, or to institute a half-apology by showing that at least there is some truth involved in his allegations. He is assailed in the Magazines and Reviews with a perfect hailstorm of missiles, and no one appears to utter a syllable in his defence, except the writers in the Unitarian, the semi-infidel, and sceptical periodicals. These last, we suppose, contain the hearty welcome and encouragement' which the author says his book has met with from 'many influential quarters,' and for

which, in his preface to the Second Part, he offers his acknowledgments and thanks. As regards all others, it seems as if Churchmen and Dissenters were for once agreed; and, as far as the world of professing Christians in this country is concerned, the Bishop of Natal stands absolutely alone.

There is, indeed, one periodical-the Athenæum-which has admitted some letters written by Dr. Kalisch and Professors Hupfeld and Ewald to the Bishop of Natal, which have been inserted by the Bishop himself. These are full of sympathetic expressions; and we doubt not thousands of unbelievers might be found who would express their opinion in language more or less resembling the contents of these letters. Meanwhile, we shall content ourselves with observing, that there does not appear, even amongst the most ardent admirers of Dr. Colenso, any appearance of compliment as to his critical skill or philosophical acumen. The point which elicits applause is his boldness. Whether this quality, as exercised in the attempt to demolish the authority of Canonical Scripture, is entitled to a high degree of praise is what will be variously judged of according to the prepossessions of him who judges. The manifesto of the English and Irish Archbishops and Bishops, both as regards the names which it contains as well as the few who, for whatever reason, are not there, probably represents the state of feeling which is general amongst the clergy and the more educated portion of the laity. If the opinion of the clergy were taken on the subject, there would be a few who, from some crotchetty objection or other, would not subscribe to such a document; some few, probably, who would only partially endorse it; many, of course, who would fall in with the stream, and just do as others do: and perhaps this section find their representatives in two or three of the Irish prelates, who shall be nameless: whilst we can scarcely doubt there would be rather a larger number in proportion than appears in the Bishops' Protest who would be too indifferent to the matter to take any active steps in connexion with it. But there is not enough dissent from this manifesto at all materially to interfere with the opinion that this book has been unanimously condemned by the English clergy.

We have implied that the organs of nearly all the religious bodies outside the pale of the Church, as well as those of different parties in the Church, are unanimous in their condemnation. We do not say this as if there were anything surprising in such a fact, or anything that affords especial matter for congratulation; it is simply that unanimity which would appear against any form of infidelity when once recognised as such; it shows only that people are alive to the transactions which are going on around them, and that, whether they can answer difficulties or not, they do not mean to be cajoled out of

their faith by specious arguments. Meanwhile, it may, perhaps, afford matter of surprise to some that one important body of religionists in this country remains silent: we allude, of course, to the members of the Roman Communion.

It may be thought that they are about equally concerned with ourselves when the Canonical Books which we in common hold are attacked, and their authenticity and genuineness denied. Yet, whatever scattered notices of the sceptical productions of the day appear in their organs, their reticence as to the general questions at issue is somewhat remarkable, and suggests an inquiry into its causes. We shall not, we trust, be thought uncharitable if we just allude to the undeniable fact of the great want of learning which characterises the mass of people who belong to the Roman Communion in this country. Their learned men may be counted by units, but their number will scarcely reach into two figures. After mentioning Cardinal Wiseman's name with the respect which is due to his various gifts of mind and his large acquirements, we are at a loss to find any of their number (we speak now, of course, of those who have been bred up amongst them, and not of converts from the Church of England) who will bear any sort of comparison with our own scholars and divines. They have, generally speaking, neither the means of providing for the education of their gentry, nor have they any of that liberal intelligence which, amongst ourselves, exhibits itself in innumerable Quarterlies and Monthlies. We say not a word in disparagement of the half-dozen intellectual converts whom they have gained, and whom we could ill afford to lose; but we think it cannot be denied that there is in their body, as at present existing both among clergy and laity, a very singular stagnation of intellect. The Review (Home and Foreign Review) which a liberal section of the English Romanists has lately started, as it has been all but condemned by authority, scarcely forms an exception to what we are saying. We shall be told, of course, that this is not singular, but merely the normal result which shows itself in the Roman Communion. It is not our business either to endeavour to substantiate or refute this accusation. We only notice the fact here as one of the causes which have been in operation to prevent replies to infidel objections coming from the pens of Roman Catholic writers. And it is right it should be mentioned, lest too great weight should be assigned to the other main cause to which the phenomenon is attributable.

We hope we shall not be misunderstood when we allege as the main reason of their silence the subordinate nature of the subject. Attacks upon the currently received interpretation of Scripture are judged to have more or less force in proportion as the person who judges of them gives his adherence to such

mode of interpretation. Now, it is obvious that there has been no more pronouncement of the Church Catholic upon the subjects of the Inspiration and Interpretation of Scripture, than there has been upon the Copernican theory of the Universe. It is quite possible that nearly all the pious minds of the seventeenth century may have felt strongly the impiety of a theory which appeared to them to contravene the express statements of Holy Writ. It was natural it should be so. Persons who

were not acquainted with the Bible so far as to know that it spoke of the sun as moving round the earth, and people who disbelieved in the Divine origin of Holy Scripture, were in a more favourable position for judging of the scientific question than the learned and the religious. Neither ought the latter to be blamed for at first withholding their assent to assertions of which they could not understand the proof, and which appeared to them to militate against what had been revealed. Things took their own course; the truths of science have been established, and there is no one now who thinks there is any difficulty in the fact that Scripture speaks of the sun revolving round the earth, and that science tells us it is nearer the real state of the case to consider the earth as moving round the sun. It is most probable that if any book of Canonical Scripture had followed, in point of chronology, after some great physical discovery, which had been generally recognised, the expressions made use of by the writer would have accommodated themselves to the then existing state of knowledge. Thus the words of the inspired writers would have varied with the variations in the amount of scientific knowledge possessed by themselves and others of their time, as they manifestly adapted themselves to the state of development of the language at the time when they were written. Why should it be thought more repugnant to the truth that the writers of Canonical Scripture were inspired, that the sentiments they uttered did not anticipate the discoveries of modern science, than that they were clothed in a language which, at least in the New Testament, had greatly declined from its classical purity and beauty? Ever since the revival of Greek literature, scholars have been busily pointing out to us what, in some sense, may be called the defects of style in Evangelists and Apostles. This analogy between the two cases of science and language, as affecting theories of Inspiration, seems to us worth attending to; probably it may throw some light upon the question of verbal inspiration, as well as help towards the understanding of the subject generally.

But we have digressed a little from our immediate subject, which is the comparative unimportance to Catholics, whether