But humble Christian will meet, for the one does not look with more ear nest love to God as the author of good ness, than the other reveres him as the fountain, the source, and the one great, only, object of knowledge, in whom all things live and move and are, in whom center all the mysteries of the universe, and who alone is light and truth. To know him is to have the only know ledge that knowledge to which man in his highest spirit of contemplation most fondly aspires; and he hath promised that to them who seek him aright there shall arise a dayspring of light and of knowledge, and that they shall know him, here indeed imperfectly, but when this universe shall have crumbled into dust, and all the knowledge of it shall be passed away and forgotten, he shall shine forth to his own people in his own glory, and they shall see him as he is.

For the Christian Journal.
Milton's Errours.

Messrs. EDITORS,

:

I have read the review which you have published of Milton's work lately discovered and printed; and I cannot withhold the exclamation, "How are the mighty fallen!" Once, I knew Milton only, or chiefly, as a great poet, the greatest master of his art, and all his mastership and all his art devoted to the cause of pure and undefiled religion at least, I saw nothing in any of his performances to lead me to question his soundness in the faith. But now, what shall I say? I thought that his majestic poems were intended in honour of the Son, of the Son of God, who " was with God," and who "was God:" alas, he meant no such thing, or else he "drew back" most fearfully; he has" denied the Son," in every sense in which he is worth calling by that title; and my Bible tells me that "who soever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father," (1 John ii. 23). The apostle's meaning, in this passage, is, I think, that God will take none of the honour offered him by men, unless they offer it in connexion with their unqualified belief in the divine Mediator, his divine Son. Milton's great poems then, VOL. XI.

if interpreted by this his newly-discovered key, are not truly Christian poems; they only celebrate the warfare of the creature Messiah with the crea ture Satan. I am sorry for it. I would willingly forget both Milton and his key (this his heretical work), and read Paradise Lost as a truly gospel pro duction, modified only by the needful machinery.-And as such I will read them. I will forget that its author left a work containing a theory altogether different, to be disinterred just before it was about to crumble into dust. I will believe (may the allusion be pardoned?) that, like those who were revived from the bier or the tomb only to die again in a few years, this work of Milton's will soon die as effectually as if it had never been printed; while his mighty verse shall continue its cas reer of immortality, posterity refusing to know him as a heretic, but only as a poet.

Were I an Arian, I should never boast of having Milton in my ranks; for his morals are, in too many parti culars, as pernicious as his doctrine. The same mind which saw Arianism to be right, saw polygamy and unlicensed divorce to be right. The same mind which interpreted Scripture in favour of the one, interpreted Scripture in favour of the other also. Will any deny that his mind was unworthy of reverence, was utterly warped and mistaken, in its view of the moral duty of matrimonial chastity? If this be unquestionable, then, how can his mind, though it was that of Milton, be pleaded, either directly or indirectly, as authority, or any thing like authority, for any doctrinal opinions whatever? His understanding was evidently in a very unhealthy state.

In fact, I know not that Milton ever exhibited great mental powers in the department of the understanding or judgment: his only claim to pre-eminence is in the department of the imagination.-In the discussions and expositions of casuistry and morals in which he was sound, there were writers enough in his age for him to copy. It is only as a poet that he copied none, and will probably never be copied, to any purpose.

14

set forth by order of King Edward VI., to be taught, learned, read, and used, of all his subjects."

Those who are acquainted with the history of the English reformation, and particularly with the controversial appeals often made to it, are no strangers to the titles of several of these books; but, from their extreme rarity, few probably have hitherto seen the works themselves. We are not aware that any copies of these reprints of them have yet been imported. Our readers therefore will doubtless be gratified with the following notices of the two publications, extracted from an English Review.

Concerning the volume that contains the" Articles," the "Institution," and the "Erudition," we quote the following remarks:

"This volume deserves to be received by the public as a very valuable monument of ecclesiastical history. Its use and application may, however, be various, according to the hands into which it may chance to fall; for we are sorry to observe, that the history of the reformation of religion in this country does not appear to be reduced, even yet, to any standard of certainty. What the early reformers really meant or did not mean,—what they did or did not maintain, remains, to this moment, matter of dispute with some; and, as in all partial references to ancient writings in support of particular opinions, the art of selection seems to be so well understood, as to lead to very different ostensible results. The truly unbiassed and impartial reader, critic, or historian, can have no security but in the power afforded him of consulting for himself the original records in their utmost fulness and integrity. Though it may not be universally known, yet it must, we think, be very generally so, that, as the Bible is to all who call themselves by the name of Christ, the authority to which they very confidently appeal,-let their sentiments and opinions on religious topics be ever so discordant, so the articles, homilies, and ancient formularies of our own church are continually cited by persons at variance on points of the first importance, as bearing testimony

on the part of our early reformers to their respective but different opinions. ' How then is the public at large to decide upon such differences? Garbled extracts are, on both sides, disputed; and the works cited, perhaps, so far from being in every body's hands, or easily to be seen, may be particularly secluded from the public on account of their rarity; or, what is even worse, may be extant, by means of the press, under different forms, being either imperfect copies of the originals, or imperfect copies of copies, tending only to breed confusion, and multiply disputes."

"It is a reprint of ancient formularies, the originals of which are not of easy access, and which have been variously printed, and not rightly understood by historians of no small name. It is a reprint of ancient formularies, which, while certain writers have been anxious to refer to them for principles of early Protestantism, others have de nounced as plainly and decidedly Papistical. The truth, upon perusal of the whole, will, we shall not hesitate to say, be found between. They are partly Papistical and partly Protestant; but, at all events, as the learned editor rightly observes in his preface, of no absolute authority either way, as being, at the best, documents of an anterior date, to the full and formal renunciation of Popery in these realms,

anterior, that is, to the reign of Edward VI., being compiled under his predecessor, who, it is well known, continued to hold most of the doctrines and tenets of the Church of Rome, while he politically opposed the encroachments and usurpations of the Pope.

"It is very extraordinary that people should, to this day, seem to think that so great a revolution, as the reformation of religion in all parts of Europe really was, could have been brought about otherwise than gradually. All the reformers of note had long lived in communion with the Church of Rome, and in subjection to the priesthood; and it was vain to expect that, on a sudden, they should be able to see or detect all the abuses and errors to which they had previously given their countenance; or so nicely guard their pro

ceedings as, in no instance, to do either too much or too little."

"If the formularies are decidedly Papistical, they ought to have little or no weight, as authorities with Protestants; but if there be, even in the most suspicious parts, a great deal of pure Protestantism, mixed up with what remains of Popery or Romanism, the true Protestant must stand justified in referring to them as excellent authorities, so far as they go. And if Cranmer had but a hand in them, it is fair to go back to them as documents of authority, regarding the progress of opinion in his days; and, from their very imperfection, capable of bearing evidence against the parties most directly opposed to him, either as connected with the Church of Rome, or that of Geneva. Our meaning is, that though they might have been more perfect, and freer from unsound doctrines; yet where they show, being imperfect, a manifest tendency to avoid the extremes, either of Romanism or Calvinism, they evince the struggles of the great reformer's mind to approach perfection as nearly as he could do so; and where he could not prevail to get rid of a false doctrine altogether, the endeavours he made so to shake the principle of such doctrine, as to procure it to be, in due time, entirely dismissed.

"It would be absurd for us to do more than merely hint at the controversies still afloat upon certain points, in which the early reformers are brought forward as witnesses on one side or the other, but without sufficient agreement as to the tendency of their own avowed sentiments; and it may certainly so happen, in referring back to their writings, that they may seem to have contradicted themselves. Cranmer, indeed, is known to have done so upon the point of transubstantiation; Ridley, in the very last year of Henry's reign, having, by argument, brought him over to his opinion. But are no allowances to be made for such a change of sentiments in a reformer, noted for his caution and prudence, and who had more, perhaps, to apprehend from precipita tion, than from what others would ac count negligence or dulness. In mat

ters of opinion, prejudices must have considerable force, and cannot be expected to give way till the truth be rendered manifest on the one side or the other: for prejudices, or rather, perhaps, prepossessions, are not necessarily false: they may be true, after all; but time must be allowed for investigation. Cranmer acknowledged the force of prejudices explicitly and honestly; and that, in fact, to use his own words,' he had been, in many years past, in divers errors.' The opinions of the early reformers, at different periods, should always, therefore, be received cum grano salis: no man was more indulgent to the prejudices of others than Cranmer.

"These formularies, therefore, we conceive to be of great importance, not as documents of pure Protestantism— far from it; but as documents containing a great deal of Protestantism, especially for those times, and justly to be referred to, as far as their evidence goes. The public may be thankful to the regius professor of divinity, for the care he has taken to rescue these ancient documents from all chance, in future, of misrepresentation; for it is very doubtful how far they were known, or rightly understood, by some of our most celebrated ecclesiastical histori ans, as Burnet and Collier for instance; but the former particularly, who not only seems to have confounded one with another, but to have assigned wrong dates to them, and indeed to have fallen (confessedly through haste;' a bad excuse) into many mistakes concerning them. Here they are in full; more correct than they are to be found in other copies still extant; with the addition of one copy of the Articles, in particular, discovered by the professor, in Bishop Tanner's valuable collection in the Bodleian library. This has been added that the public may be apprised of its existence, and of the various readings it contains, as compared with the Cotton MS.; which latter seems, by some writers, to have been too hastily taken for the original, as delivered to the world; though it bore a different title from Bishop l'anner's copy, printed by Berthelet in 1536, which Dr. Lloyd conceives to

be, indisputably, the most authentic. The difference between the two titles is this. In the Cotton MS. they are set forth as Articles about Religion, set out by the Convocation, and published by the King's authority. In the edition discovered by Dr. Lloyd, in Bishop Tanner's collection, they are entitled, Articles devised by the Kinge's Highnes Majestie, to stablyshe Christen Quietness and Unitie amonge us, and to avoyde Contentious opinions; which Articles be also approved by the Consent and Determination of the holi Clergie of this realme.' The latter is supposed to have been corrected by the king's own hand."*

*Note for the Christian Journal,

Many divines of the Church of England, eminent among whom was Dr. Paley, have regard ed the XXXIX Articles as "Peace Articles." From this opinion the present writer has ever lissented; himself believing them thoroughly, in their obvious and plain sense; and not doubt ing that they were intended to establish, as the authorized faith of our church, all the doctrines contained in their obvious and plain interpretation. It must be confessed, however, that the above title of the Articles, as quoted from Bishop Tanner's collection, is an argument that their original purpose was at least as much for producing peace, as for enjoining doctrines in an absolutely definite form. They are there denominated "Articles-to stablish Christian Quietness, and to avoid Contentious opinions;" quietness and the avoiding of contention appears to have been one great object in giving authority to that early creed of the English Church. And so far as the original intention of such an instrument may be brought into any future argument concerning that instrument, or concerning those substituted for it, this title of the first Articles confirms the opinion of Dr. Paley.

But, in the title since given to the English Articles, and prefixed to them at this day, they are declared to be "for the avoiding of the diversities of opinions, and for the stablishing of consent touching true religion." This language can scarcely be reconciled with the notion that they are only peace-articles; for, instead of professing, as before, to "stablish quietness," they now claim to "stablish consent." Besides, every English clergyman, in subscrib. ing them, “acknowledges all and every article to be agreeable to the word of God;" and that, under a royal declaration, that "no man should put his own sense or comment to be the meaning of the article, but should take it in the literal and grammatical sense."-With this new title to the Articles-with such an acknowledgment in subscribing them and with the further explicit language of this royal declaration, it would seem very unfair to build an argument that their chief object was to preserve peace, on the clause of the title they bore under Henry VIII, "to stablish Christian quietness." This however is no question for us, it belongs only to the English clergy.

Of the "Primer," a somewhat later work, and in every respect, it would appear, worthy of unqualified approbation, as being purely Protestant, truly pious, and eminently practical, the fol lowing extract from the above Review will afford very satisfactory information. May we not hope that an American edition of this work will be printed? "This excellent little book, which Mr. Walter has taken the pains to restore, though as nearly as possible three hundred years old, has a perfect right to be esteemed as modern, as it was at the first moment of its composition; for it is no less than a most legitimate appendix to our Books of Common Prayer, adapted indeed to private use, but of the same weight and authority in its origin; being compiled and put together by those most respected and venerable founders of our English Protestant Church, Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, &c., and set forth, as the titlepage informs us, by order of King Edward VI.

"Mr. Walter, in his preface, has given us a history of the Primer, which might well make those amongst us ashamed, who actually never heard of it before; for though it has long fallen

The title of the Articles, as established by the American Episcopal Church, contains neither of the above clauses; as may be seen by a reference to the Prayer Book. They must therefore be received and interpreted on principles consonant with the natural use and pur pose of any such creed. That natural use and purpose is to define, to the extent deemed requisite, the doctrines vowed by our church

and if so, then the definition must be received in the obvious and plain sense of the words in which it is couched. Whatever is explicitly declared in that formula, no Episcopal clergyman can, with candour, contradict; and hence, Unitarianism (to name no other errour) is strictly and totally prohibited them. What is not so absolutely defined, is open to just so much latitude of opinion as the language of the Articles will justly allow, and no more. In so far as they contain an obvious and plain sense, they bind us; in so far as they do not, it may be presumed that some latitude of opinion was intentionally allowed. And within these limits [but not with any greater license] we, of the American Episcopal Church, may appeal to the original purpose of the Articles in our mother church-that they were to "stablish Christian quietness." No one can require us to define or to believe more of any controverted doctrine than our church has defined or asserted and if our opinions and our teachings go to this extent, no one has a right to invade our Christian quietness." CLERICUS.