infirmity (nay, human criminality) to every book of the Bible, uttered by anybody rather than by a father of the church, and guaranteed by anybody rather than by an infidel in triumph. A boy may fire his pistol unnoticed; but a sentinel, mounting guard in the dark, must remember the trepidation that will follow any shot from him, and the certainty that it will cause all the stations within hearing to get under arms immediately. Yet why, if this bold opinion does come from a prelate, he being but one man, should it carry so alarming a sound? Is the whole bench of bishops bound and compromised by the audacity of any one amongst its members? Certainly not. But yet such an act, though it should be that of a rash precursor, marks the universal change of position; there is ever some sympathy between the van and the rear of the same body at the same time; and the boldest could not have dared to go ahead so rashly, if the rearmost was not known to be pressing forward to his support far more closely than thirty years ago he could have done. There have been, it is true, heterodox professors of divinity and freethinking bishops before now. England can show a considerable list of such people—even Rome has a smaller list. Rome, that weeds all libraries, and is continually burning books, in effigy, by means of her vast Index Expurgatorius,* which index, continually, she is enlarging by successive supple

* "Index Expurgatorius:"-A question of some interest arises upon the casuistical construction of this index. We that are not by name included-may we consider ourselves indirectly licensed? Silence, I should hope, gives consent. And if it wasn't that the present Pope, being a horrid Radical, would be sure to blackball me as an honest Tory, I would send him a copy of my Opera Omnia, requesting his Holiness to say, by return of post, whether I ranked amongst the chaff winnowed by St Peter's flail, or had his gracious permission to hold myself amongst the pure wheat gathered into the Vatican garner.

ments, needs also an Index Expurgatorius for the catalogue of her prelates. Weeds there are in the very flowergarden and conservatory of the church. Fathers of the church are no more to be relied on, as safe authorities, than we rascally lay authors, that notoriously will say anything. And it is a striking proof of this amongst our English bishops, that the very man who, in the last generation, most of all won the public esteem as the champion of the Bible against Tom Paine, was privately known amongst us connoisseurs in heresy (that are always prying into ugly secrets) to be the least orthodox thinker, one or other, amongst the whole brigade of eighteen thousand contemporary clerks who had subscribed the Thirty-nine Articles. Saving your presence, reader, his lordship was no better than a bigoted Socinian, which, in a petty diocese that he never visited, and amongst South Welshmen, that are all incorrigible Methodists, mattered little, but would have been awkward had he come to be Archbishop of York; and that he did not, turned upon the accident of a few weeks too soon, by which the Fates cut short the thread of the Whig Ministry in 1807. Certainly for a Romish or an English bishop to be a Socinian is un peu fort. But I contend that it is quite possible to be far less heretical, and yet dangerously bold; yes, upon the free and spacious latitudes purposely left open by the English Thirty-nine Articles (ay, or by any Protestant Confession), to plant novelties not less startling to religious ears than Socinianism itself. Besides (which adds to the shock), the dignitary now before us, whether bishop or no bishop, does not write in the tone of a conscious heretic; or, like Archdeacon Blackburne* of old, in a spirit of hostility to

*"Archdeacon Blackburne:"-He was the author of "The Confessional," which at one time made a memorable ferment amongst all those

his own fellow-churchmen; but, on the contrary, in the tone of one relying upon support from his clerical brethren, he stands forward as expositor and champion of views now prevailing amongst the elite of the English Church. So construed, the book is, indeed, a most extraordinary one, and exposes a record that almost shocks one of the strides made in religious speculation. Opinions change slowly and stealthily. The steps of the changes are generally continuous; but sometimes it happens that the notice of such steps, the publication of such changes, is not continuous, that it comes upon us per saltum, and consequently with the stunning effect of an apparent treachery. Every thoughtful man raises his hands with an involuntary gesture of awe at the revolutions of so revolutionary an age, when thus summoned to the spectacle of an English prelate serving a piece of artillery against what once were fancied to be main outworks of religion, and at a station sometimes considerably in advance of any station ever occupied by Voltaire.*

It is this audacity of speculation, I apprehend, this étalage of bold results, rather than any success in their development, which has fixed the public attention. Develop

who loved as sons, or who hated as Nonconformists, the English Establishment. This was his most popular work, but he wrote many others in the same temper, that fill six or seven octavos. I fear that it may be a duty to read him; and if it is, then I think of his seven octavos with holy horror.

* "Voltaire: "-Let not the reader misunderstand me; I do not mean that the clerical writer now before us (bishop or not bishop) is more hostile to religion than Voltaire, or is hostile at all. On the contrary, he is, perhaps, profoundly religious, and he writes with neither levity nor insincerity. But this conscientious spirit, and this piety, do but the more call into relief the audacity of his freethinking-do but the more forcibly illustrate the prodigious changes in the spirit of religious philosophy wrought by time, and by the contagion from secular revolutions.

ment, indeed, applied to philosophic problems, or research applied to questions of erudition, was hardly possible within so small a compass as one hundred and seventeen pages, for that is the extent of the work, except as regards the notes, which amount to seventy-four pages more. Such brevity, on such a subject, is unseasonable, and almost culpable. On such a subject as the Philosophy of Protestantism-"satius erat silere, quam parcius dicere." Better were absolute silence, more respectful as regards the theme, less tantalising as regards the reader, than a style of discussion so fragmentary and so rapid.

But, before we go farther, what are we to call this bold man? One must have some name for a man that one is reviewing; and, as he comes abroad incognito, it is difficult to say what name could have any propriety. Let me consider: there are three bishops in the field, Mr H., and the Scotchman-that makes five. But every one of these, you say, is represented equally by the name in the title"Phileleutherus Anglicanus." True, but that's as long as a team of horses. If it had but Esquire at the end, it would measure against a Latin Hexameter verse. I'm afraid that we must come at last to Phil. I've been seeking to avoid it, for it's painful to say "Jack" or "Dick" either to or of an ecclesiastical great gun. But if such big-wigs will come abroad in disguise, and with names as long as Fielding's Hononchrononthononthologus, they must submit to be hustled by pickpockets and critics, and to have their names docked as well as profane authors.

Phil., then, be it-that's settled. Now, let us inquire what it is that Phil. has deen saying, to cause such a sensation amongst the Gnostics. And, to begin at the beginning, what is Phil's. capital object? Phil. shall state it himself—these are his opening words:-"In the following

pages we propose to vindicate the fundamental and inherent principles of Protestantism." Good; but what are the fundamental principles of Protestantism? "They are," says Phil., "the sole sufficiency of Scripture,* the right of private judgment in its interpretation, and the authority of individual conscience in matters of religion." Errors of logic show themselves more often in a man's terminology, and his antitheses, and his subdivisions, than anywhere else. Phil. goes on to make this distinction, which brings out his imperfect conception. "We," says he (and, by the way, if Phil. is we, then it must be my duty to call him they)—" we do not propose to defend the varieties of doctrine held by the different communities of Protestants." Why, no; that would be a sad task for the most skilful of funambulists or theological tumblers, seeing that many of these varieties stand related to each other as categorical affirmative and categorical negative: it's heavy work to make yes and no pull together in the same proposition. But this, fortunately for himself, Phil. declines. You are to understand that he will not undertake the defence of Protestantism in its doctrines, but only in its principles. That won't do; that antithesis is as hollow as a drum;

* "Sole sufficiency of Scripture:"-This is much too elliptical a way of expressing the Protestant meaning. Sufficiency for what? "Suffi ciency for salvation" is the phrase of many, and I think elsewhere of Phil. But that is objectionable on more grounds than one; it is redundant, and it is aberrant from the true point contemplated. Sufficiency for itself, without alien helps, is the thing contemplated. The Greek autarkeia (avragnea), self-sufficiency, or, because that phrase, in English, has received a deflection towards a bad meaning, the word self-sufficingness might answer; sufficiency for the exposition of its own most secret meaning, out of fountains within itself; needing, therefore, neither the supplementary aids of tradition, on the one hand, nor the complementary aids on the other (in the event of unprovided cases, or of dilemmas arising). from the infallibility of a living expounder.