NOTICES OF BOOKS. 1. A Charge delivered at the Ordinary Visitation of the Arch- 2. The Sacrament of Baptism: with remarks on the Ambiguity in the Modern Use of the word Regeneration. By the Rev. R. W. Bosanquet, M.A., late of Baliol College, Oxford. 455 The Archdeacon of Maidstone's Popery Exposed and Refuted. Η ΚΑΙΝΗ ΔΙΑΘΗΚΗ. Griesbach's Text, with the various Readings of Mill and Scholz. Second Edition, revised and 1. The Controversy of Faith. Advice to Canditades for Holy Orders, on the Case of Gorham v. the Bishop of Exeter: con- taining an Analysis and Exposition of the Argument by which the Literal Interpretation of the Baptismal Services is to be 2. The Theory of Baptism. The Regeneration of Infants in Baptism Vindicated on the Testimony of Holy Scripture, Christian Antiquity, and the Church of England. A Greek and English Lexicon to the New Testament. By An Introduction to Conchology; or, Elements of the Natural History of the Molluscous Animals. By George Johnston, Researches on Magnetism, Electricity, Heat, Light, Crystaliza- tion, and Chemical Attraction, in their Relations to the Vital What Mean ye by this Service? The Question Discussed in the Trial of George Herbert, Richard Hooker, Charles Simeon, and Thomas Scott, on the Charge of Heresy. By the Rev. Westminster: Memorials of the City, Saint Peter's College, A Synopsis of the Doctrine of Baptism, Regeneration, Conver- sion, &c., by the Fathers and other Writers, from the Time of The Metropolitan Interments Act, with Explanatory Notes; an A Selection from the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle, with Notes and an Introductory Discourse. By W. Fitzgerald, M.A. 475 The Proofs of the Presence of the Holy Spirit with the Anglican Church. A Sermon by the Rev. Henry Hughes. The Life and Letters of St. Paul. Edited by the Rev. W. T. Conybeare, M.A., and the Rev. J. J. Howson, M.A. A Hand Book for Travellers in Central Italy: including the THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND Quarterly Review. JULY, MDCCCL. ART. I.-1. A Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury from the Bishop of Exeter. Murray. 1850. 2. A Letter to the Bishop of Exeter; containing an Examination of his Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury. From W. GOODE, M.A., F.S.A. Hatchard. 1850. 3. The Final Appeal in Matters of Faith. A Sermon preached in St. George's Catholic Church, Southwark, on Sunday, March 17th, 1850. By the Right Rev. N. WISEMAN, Bishop of Melipotamus, V.A.L. Richardson. 4. Remarks on Dr. Wiseman's Sermon on the Gorham Case. By HENRY DRUMMOND. Bosworth. 1850. IT is but seldom that the still small voice, that whispers forbearance and charity, can be heard amid the din of contending parties and while angry strife is raging: men will not patiently listen to reason when the blood is heated by controversy and the hostile passions have been roused by blows given and received. It is, nevertheless, the duty of all who deplore such contentions among brethren, fellow-citizens, and fellow-Protestants, to interpose; and, though they may not at once succeed in allaying the storm, their efforts will not be unattended with blessing both to others and to themselves, even if they should seem to have nothing more to interpose than their prayers or their tears. We have common foes enough, watching for every such VOL. XXVIII.-B opportunity of weakening and destroying both, to induce far more mutual forbearance than has been shown on either side: foes who are rejoicing in this discord among members of the same reformed Church and contrasting it with their own vaunted unity. We are giving them an advantage with all those who know not how vain is this boast, and who know not the difference between an uniformity produced by constraint and requiring an atmosphere of ignorance, and unity of faith grounded on Christian liberty and expatiating in the light of heaven. And much as we deplore these controversies, it is not because such questions have arisen, but it is on account of the acrimonious spirit in which they have been carried on. The discussion of such topics as these are signs of life and vigour in the Church, and is a more hopeful sign than the apathy and deadness of the Roman Church, which extinguishes all intérest, forbids all enquiry, permits no appeal from itself, not even to Scripture, and calls this blind submission unity. Without discussion we cannot know the truth; but it must be conducted with the endeavour to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace (Eph. iv. 3), that thus all may be brought in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man. Henceforth, no more children tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the sleight of men, and cunning and craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive; but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things which is the Head, even Christ (15). What can be more unseemly than to behold a bishop reviling the courts of law, sneering at the most upright administrators of justice, not sparing his jibes against his own metropolitan or even his Sovereign? We seem as if living in the times of Thomas à Becket, or St. Thomas, as Dr. Wiseman calls him; when a haughty prelate, under a real or pretended zeal for his order, thought himself at liberty-perchance, even bound in conscience to violate all decency of demeanour, to set aside oaths, to cancel all former obligations, and in pursuit of what he in his private judgment might regard as his duty to God, but which every one else regarded as the aggrandizement of himself and his order, to become virtually a perjuror, a traitor to his king, and to set the whole kingdom in a flame. The rights both of Church and State are far better understood in these days than they were in the twelfth century: nor are the people in much danger of being so subjugated in this land and in our day by the one or by the other. But the passions of mankind remain much the same; and we can never dispense with the warnings to be gathered from past experience, or with the necessity for calling into exercise the virtues of mutual charity and forbearance. When St. Paul endeavoured to heal the divisions which had arisen in the Church at Corinth, he not only seeks to inform the understanding, he also addresses himself to the heart: he not only presses upon the Corinthians those doctrinal truths tending to correct the erroneous notions which they had formed, but also presses upon them-presses above and beyond all other things-the more excellent way of charity-charity which vaunteth not itself and is not easily provoked, and without which all knowledge and all attainments profit us nothing. Fas est ab hoste doceri. There are passages in Dr. Wiseman's sermon which, being duly pondered, would greatly tend to allay the clamour that has been raised, both by showing how it was not an ecclesiastical but a legal question that the courts of law had to decide, seeing that the English law has constituted the Sovereign the supreme authority in the Church; and also by showing that the Church which has so long acquiesced under this arrangement cannot now begin to complain, because she feels herself for the first time galled by a yoke which she has been so long contented to wear; and least of all can the inferior clergy and laity complain of this as a grievance, while the bishops, who have always had a seat in the House of Lords, have made no protest on behalf of the Church. "Who, after all (says Dr. Wiseman), represent the Church? Who are they whom Christ has appointed to watch over the law, over the interests, over the principles, of his Church? Is it the sheep or is it the shepherd? Is it the subject or is it the ruler? Is it the clergy-the ministering clergy of the Church and the laity; or is it the episcopal body, whose duty and office it is to speak the sentiments of the Church? Now, it is clear that, while the clamour that is being made proceeds from those whose duty it is to listen, and to learn, and to obey, and teach others to learn and to obey, they who naturally must be admitted as the interpreters of the Church's wishes-as the depositaries of her true principles, as the most likely to have at heart her best interests-have from the beginning acquiesced in the present law; they were, in fact, parties to its enactment. They had opportunity of protesting or warning against it, of opposing it, of proposing amendments to it, while it passed through the Legislature: yet they never did one of these things. Surely they bear the full |