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blood, and righteousness, and fruitfulness, and salvation, have procured for the heads and hearts of those who trust Him.

"How small the world looks in contrast with such an end, and what a poor consolation will it be for any of us to have attained even the whole world, if we lose it. Ah, this is a subject calculated to lift us up out of the littleness, and nothingness, and wickedness of the world around us, and to bring us up where Christ is all, and in all.

"Now this end is to be had in union with Christ, just as present grace and life are to be had in union with Christ. It is not eternal life apart from Christ, but it is eternal life in union with Christ, in fellowship with Christ. He will be the soul and crown of it.

"Beloved friends, there is a solemn passage which I will leave with you (1 Peter iv. 17, 18): The time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?' Now we may appear at the cross, thank God; now we may go and be made free from sin, we have but to touch the blood by faith and be free; now we may become servants to God, consecrated to Him by faith in that precious blood; now, in union with the Lord Jesus Christ, we may bring forth fruit unto God, and have the end everlasting life. But soon, not so. Soon there will be no cross for us to go to, soon there will be no sprinkling of the blood, soon no gospel proclamation : the door will be shut.

"The end.' May God give you and me that end of which Jesus is the consummation, and may we now find our rest in Him, that our end in eternity may be in fellowship with Him for His name's sake."

Extracts.

Roman Civilisation before and after Christianity.

In the course of the St Paul's Cathedral Tuesday Evening Lectures, the Dean began a new series last evening.

He said he proposed to bring before their thoughts, in fulfilment of his part of the series of Lectures, the subject of civilisation, first as it existed before Christian times in the Roman States, and next as it had been since Christianity had influenced the course of history and the conditions of human life. In doing this, he had to remember several things. He had to remember the vastness of the field before them, the huge mass of materials, and the number and difficulty of the subjects. He had to remember that civilisation was a thing of comparison, and that statements about it were constantly liable to be misunderstood, because the speaker might be thinking of one thing, and the listener or critic of another. One might be thinking of its triumphs, and another of its failures and shameful blots. Montaigne, Guizot, Buckle, -not to mention others-had made it their special theme, and yet they had left very much unsaid about it. Those who pursued their business in that great city, who came to hear and to worship in that great Cathedral, had constantly before their eye sin, in some form or another, that complex thing to which they gave the name of civilisation. It was, they all knew, a vague and elastic term, and he was not so ven

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turous as to attempt to define it, but he would include under the word civilisation," all that men did, all that they discovered during their lives. To raise the level of human life, to elevate the human character, to dignify human life, to better the social condition, in all these manifold forms and diversified relations, true civilisation might be found. He did not call the improvement of the intellectual faculties, or the arts which ministered to the convenier ces, and even to the embellishment of life, civilisation, for those things might exist, as they did in Egypt, China, and Japan, in the midst of the lowest order of what some might term civilisation." The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Italy witnessed a brilliant outburst of art. No one could deny that it was civilisation, but he did not call it true civilisation when men failed to discharge the duties of life. Not even the presence of Leonardo, Michael Angelo, or Raffael, could induce him to call that civilisation where there was unlimited perfidy in the Government which was carried on by the poisoned dagger, and where all the relations of society were disregarded. He should not call the railways, the telegraphs, or the newspapers of our age civilisation, unless he knew the nature of the traffic carried over the iron rails, the communications which were flashed along the wire, or the information conveyed in the columus. Neither could he call the vast resources of the country civilisation until he knew how they were applied. The true type of civilisation was man himself, and the circumstances which surrounded him. The civilisation of England, it was admitted, had been greatly influenced by Christianity, but high civilisation had no doubt assisted without such a connection. In the ancient world, as it was called, there were two great forms of civilisation, with which they must have the liveliest sympathy. They would not be men if they denied the civilisation of Greece, with Athens for its standard, and in a main degree its source— for it still lived in their civil and political, as well as in their intellectual life. That of Greece in the world's history, but it was too precocious for its chance of life, and it did not last long enough to work out in any proportionate way a history of its own. In the civilisation of Rome, on the other hand, they found a strength and stability which enabled it to keep its hold on the people amidst all their misfortunes and vicissitudes. It grew to impress itself upon mankind as a power which had a unique right to command their obedience and to order their affairs. It made their neighbours feel that the Romans were in a real sense the lords of the human race. To the eyes of moderns, as they looked back, it represented as nothing else did the civilisation of the then world. At the present day in England they lived in the cities which the Romans founded, and one of their great roads ran by the Cathedral in which they were assembled. Notwithstanding the dark tragedies which were enacted, the matchless perfidy, and the horrible cuelty which prevailed, which seemed to crush their own ideal, the Romans were keenly alive to what men ought to be, not as rich or clever, high in dignity or commanding in power, but as citizens of a great commonwealth. But while they spoke of the public spirit, the valour, and the stern adherence of the Romans to the State, there arose before them the descriptions given by Gibbon, Milman, and Merivale (the rev. gentleman quoted from those writers extracts showing the profligacy which existed in the highest ranks of Rome). Was it worth while in Christian days to think of such a civilisation as that? He submitted that it was, and that it would be their own fault if they did not draw some useful lessons from the better side of the Roman character, for Rome produced great and

good men, and laid down a high standard of human responsibility. It had a high belief in what man can do, and clear views of what man ought to aim at. And yet this high standard of Roman civilisation explained its final and complete collapse, for a nation could never with impunity be unfaithful to such a standard. Because Roman civilisation was false to its principles, there was no reversing of its doom.

Matthew Arnold.

THE Cornhill Magazine lately contained a contribution from the pen of Mr Arnold. The drift of it may be gathered from its title—“ Puritanism and the Church of England." Mr Arnold's previous articles, it seems, have given offence; so, at least, we infer from the conciliatory tone of the paper under review. He is kind enough to come forward and say that he had only the best intentions in vilifying the Puritans as he did. He considers the Puritans as "an obstacle to progress and true civilisation;" his feeling toward them is "not one of ill will, but of regret at waste of power;" his desire " is a desire of comprehension." But he is sure that the "waste of power must continue, and the comprehension is impossible so long as Puritanism imagines itself to possess, in its two or three signal doctrines, what it calls the gospel." tanism is mistaken; Puritanism keeps "pounding away at St Paul's wrong words, and missing his essential meaning;" and so Puritanism keeps outside the National Church. Mr Arnold regrets this; he wishes to see the old breach between conformity and non-conformity healed; that is why he penned his tirade against the Protestant interpreters of the Apostle Paul. "It was out of no sort of malice or ill will," he is careful to say, "but from esteem of their fine qualities, and from desire for their help, that we have addressed ourselves to the Puritans.”

Puri

Mr Arnold, we suppose, has rightly enough divined the reason why the Dissenters do not belong to the Church of England. They hold what they regard as an uncompromising scriptural creed. Their faith in that creed must be shaken before they can consider any overtures for union-comprehension is the word-from Mr Arnold. And so Mr Arnold went to work to prove that their theology was all wrong. This was a very natural course for him to pursue, and is only open to the single objection of being a failure.

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It has been alleged by those who speak for the Puritans, that the doctrines which Mr Arnold saddles on them are held by members of other churches as well-the Church of England, for example; that in giving the Puritans special credit for them, therefore, he is altogether too generous. Mr Arnold proposes to meet this objection by showing, first, that the Church of England seems to have displayed, with respect to those very tenets which we have criticised, a continual power of growth, which has been wanting to Puritan congregations;" and secondly, "how, from the very theory of a historic or National Church, the probability of this greater national power of growth seems to follow."

The first proposition amounts to this.

The Church of England has always been latitudinarian in doctrine. Hers has been a policy of toleration, so far as dogma is concerned. On the other hand, the Puritans were always stickling for orthodoxy. Once the Church of England came near committing herself to predestination.

The Lambeth articles of 1595 bristles with it. But Whitgift had to recall them, and came within an ace of a pramunire for his pains. Again, at the Hampton Court Conference, 1661, the Puritans insisted on predestination, and again the Church resisted. Last of all, the Savoy Conference, 1661, shut the door in the Puritans' faces, and the cruel Act of Uniformity soon followed.

"It

All through this history the Puritans wished to tighten dogma-the Church to relax it. Different minds will construe the actions of the parties differently. Mr Arnold thinks the Church had an eye to progress; we think she was indifferent to truth. Mr Arnold thinks the Puritans were a set of narrow-minded bigots; we look upon them as the champions of Protestantism. Meanwhile, this bit of history to which he treats us does not help his case. For the same records which reveal the Puritans as stiffnecked on doctrinal points present the Church of England as unbending in regard to the Liturgy. The Puri· tans asked for a thorough reform, and got this for their answer— was the wisdom of our reformers to draw up such a Liturgy as neither Romanist nor Protestant could justly except against." The truth is, that England was ready enough to compromise with Rome, but she had only abuse for the Puritans. As Mr Skeats, in his recent "History of the Free Churches of England," well says "There is to this day a hereditary tenderness of feeling in the Church toward the members of the Roman Catholic communion, and an hereditary antipathy toward Protestant dissent. Separation from Rome is looked at with mournful regret: separation from Protestant dissent with holy pride."

The Church of England has always been indifferent to strict doctrinal statement. That is the fact. The Church of England "seems to have displayed a continual power of growth" with respect to doctrine-that is Arnold's way of putting it.

Meanwhile, let Puritans bear in mind that a wide-awake Englishman sees in them a hindrance to the spread of Rationalism, and for that reason wishes them absorbed in the Establishment. Let them remember that their hold upon the doctrine of justification is the leaven which will save Britain from a Socinianised Church. Now is the time for us all to heed the words of Wesley, at which Arnold sneers:-“ Plead thou solely the blood of the covenant, the ransom paid for thy proud stubborn soul."

We fear that there is too much room for Mr Arnold's prophecy that the Church of England will outgrow the doctrine of justification by faith; nay, we fear that his prophecy is a vaticinium post eventum. We are impressed with the idea that there are a great many in England whose faces are set toward a Socinian goal. And the Essay of Bishop Ellicott, in a volume entitled "The Church and the Age," just published, goes far to confirm our opinion. The demand made in some quarters for the removal of the Athanasian Creed and the Thirty-nine Articles is only a pulsation of this movement.

Extremes meet sometimes; and Mr Arnold finds support for his views in no other person than Dr Newman. The latter made use of the theory of development to prop up the doctrine of purgatory-the former uses it in the service of Socinianism. "A historic Church,” he tells us, 66 cannot but allow the principle of development." Mr Arnold's development is neither more nor less than Herbert Spencer's evolution. It "must follow its own laws-may often require vast periods of time; cannot be hurried-cannot be stopped." That is his philosophy in a nutshell. It was the philosophy of Buckle too. But the latter never

believed in free will, and so was more consistent than Mr Arnold, who does, or pretends to. Postulate development, and what follows? There can be no standard of truth. Truth, like everything else, is on the march. Nicene theology was good for its day. Augustinianism for its. Reformation theology for its. But what was true for the first, third, sixteenth centuries, cannot be true for the nineteenth. Part with the old, welcome the new. "Ring in the Christ that is to be." (What did Tennyson mean?)

It is surprising that both Dr Newman and Mr Arnold try to justify the dogma of development by appeal to Scripture. "The Bible is written on the principle of development." So says Newman, and Arnold quotes him approvingly-as if that proposition carried with it the implication that there is no end to development. Because God unfolded the plan of grace gradually, does it follow that He has given men the authority to make endless additions to it? Does the divine revelation amount only to this, that by the principle of development the same doctrine may be repudiated in the nineteenth century which was affirmed in the third century?

Is there no difference between formulating the doctrine of Christ's divinity out of Scripture passages, and manufacturing the dogma of purgatory out of whole cloth?

Mr Arnold is in no position to understand the principle of Protestant dissent. "The Church," he says, "exists not for the sake of opinions, but for the sake of moral practices." Arnold does not care à fig for scriptural theology, or scriptural polity. The Puritans do; nay, they consider that sound doctrine and scriptural polity are safeguards against lax morality, and we are inclined to the opinion that they are right. Mr Arnold thinks that "separation on plain points of morals" is justifiable; but separation on doctrinal points he has no patience with. The sale of indulgences was a moral offence, and that justified a break with Rome; "the doctrine of purgatory or the real presence did not." This explains how Mr Arnold can be so lenient toward the errors of Romanists. He does not believe in purgatory, or the real presence, or apostolic succession-not he. But he as little believes in the Divinity of Christ, or justification by faith. He wishes the Church of England to adopt a toleration policy, which will embrace the two extremes of religious thought—which will take in the ultra-Ritualist and the ultra-Rationalist.

So he says to the Church of England :--Relax your cast-iron Liturgy; let the Dissenters pray without the book or with. Let them preach in surplices, or Geneva gowns, or black coats. And then, with his eye on the Romanists, and that he may find room for them in the ecclesiastical omnibus, he says:-Don't let a man's belief in purgatory, or his worship of the Virgin Mary, or his belief in Papal infallibility, stand in the way of his being recognised as a member of the National Church, in good and regular standing.

Addressing Puritans, he says:-You have a great many fine points, and would really be an element of strength in the Establishment. Only you must not stickle so for predestination and justification by faith. Hold your own opinions if you will, but don't make them the platform of a narrow sectarianism. Don't make so much ado about scriptural polity. As far as that goes, half the Anglicans do not pretend that their polity is scriptural. Adopt church bishops as a development of Catholic antiquity, just as you have adopted church music and church architecture, which are developments of the same."

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