is no room for the exercise of reason-we are in the region of faith. We must believe and act, where we cannot discriminate; we must be content to take the history as sacred on the whole, and leave the verification of particulars as unnecessary for devotion, and for criticism impossible."—pp. 58, 59.

What can the infidel desire more than that Christians should confess, that to be in such utter uncertainty as to matters of historical fact as to have "no room for the exercise of reason," is to be "in the region of faith?" And to make the matter worse, the author justifies his absurdities by citing the authority of Bollandus.

"Since what is extraordinary,' says Bollandus, ' usually strikes the mind and is impressed on the memory in an especial way, it follows that writers about the Saints at times have been able to collect together nothing but their miracles, their virtues and other heavenly endowments being altogether forgotten; and these miracles, often so exaggerated or deformed (as the way of men is) with various adjuncts and circumstances, that by some persons they are considered as nothing short of old women's tales. Often the same miracles are given to various persons; and though God's unbounded goodness and power certainly need not refuse this Saint the same favour which He has already bestowed upon that, (for He applies the same chastisements and punishments to the sins of various persons) yet what happened to one, has often in matter of fact been attributed to others, first by word of mouth, then in writing, through fault of the faculty of memory, which is but feeble and easily confused in the case of the many; so that when inquiries are made about a Saint, they attribute to him what they remember to have heard at some time of another, especially since the mind is less retentive of names than of things. In this way, then, while various writers at one and the same time have gone by popular fame, because there were no other means of information, it has come to pass that a story has been introduced into the history of various Saints, which really belongs to one only, and to him perhaps not in the manner in which it is reported.

"Moreover it often happens that, without denying that a certain miracle may have occurred, yet the occasion and mode of its occurrence, as reported, may reasonably create a doubt whether this particular condescension, be it to man's necessity or his desire, became the majesty of the Eternal. At the same time, since His goodness is wonderful, and we are not able to measure either the good things which He has prepared in heaven for the holy souls He loves, or the extent of His favours towards them on earth, such narratives are not to be rejected at hazard, though they seem to us incredible; but rather to be reverently received, in that they profess to issue from that Fountain of Divine goodness, from which all our happiness must be derived. Suppose the very things were not done; yet greater things might have been done, and have been done at other times. Beware then of denying them on the ground that they could not or ought not to have been done."—pp. 59, 60.

The resemblance between this passage, especially the latter part, and the passage quoted in the preceding number of these papers from Mr. Newman's Sermon on Development, is too remarkable to be overlooked.

The introduction to the Life of St. Neot in this same volume will also furnish examples of a similar species of sophistry.

"Thus stands the case then. A considerable period has elapsed from the death of a Saint, and certain persons undertake to write an account of his very remark. able life. We cannot suppose them ignorant of the general difficulties of obtaining evidence on such subjects; what materials they worked with we have no means of ascertaining; they do not mention any. Now supposing them to have been really as vague as they seem, let us ask ourselves what we should have done under similar circumstances. Of course we should attempt no more than what we do as it is,— if we could not write a Life we should write a Legend. And it is mere assumption to take for granted that either they or any other under similar circumstances ever intended more. And this view seems confirmed if we look to their purpose. The monks of the middle ages were not mere dry annalists, who strung together hard catalogues of facts for the philosophers of modern Europe to analyze and distil and resolve into principles. Biography and history were with them simple and direct methods of teaching character. After all, the facts of a man's life are but a set of

phænomena, frail weary weeds in which the idea of him clothes itself. Endless as the circumstances of life are, the forms in which the same idea may develop itself, given a knowledge of the mechanic forces, and we can calculate the velocities of bodies under any conceivable condition. The smallest arc of a curve is enough for the mathematician to complete the figure. Take the character therefore and the powers of a man for granted, and it is very ignorant criticism to find fault with a writer because he embodies them in this or that fact, unless we can be sure he intended to leave a false impression."—pp. 80, 81.

How wonderful these people's notions of truth must be! "If we could not write a Life we should write a Legend." Would it not be more reasonable to decline writing altogether. And considering, that what is supposed is, that some one has undertaken to write a Life-if there are no materials to be found, it would be honester to abandon the idea.

"What we have been saying then comes to this. Here are certain facts put before us, of the truth or falsehood of which we have no means of judging. We know that such things have happened frequently both among the Jews and in the history of the Church; and therefore there is no à priori objection to them. On the other hand we are all disposed to be story tellers; it is next to impossible for tradition to keep facts together in their original form for any length of time; and in those days at any rate there was a strong poetical as well as religious feeling among the people. Therefore as the question, were these things really so?' cannot be answered, it is no use to ask it. What we should ask ourselves is, Have these things a meaning? Do they teach us any thing? If they do, then as far as we are concerned, it is no matter whether they are true or not as facts; if they do not, then let them have all the sensible evidence of the events of yesterday, and they are valueless."-p. 81.

6

Now, undoubtedly, if people will honestly say-this is romance or allegory and not history or biography-it is very unreasonable to ask whether it is true or not? No one pretends it to be true. But if people, at the end of their meditations and developments, bring forth their "mental creations" as history and biography-and above all, as the history of God's providential, spiritual, and miraculous dealing with the most eminent of his servants-it seems a very proper (though it may not be a very convenient) question to ask-" were these things really so," and it seems scarcely consistent with modesty to treat a civil inquiry so cavalierly.

It may be supposed, however, that this school has still reverence enough for sacred things, to abstain from these liberties when they approach the Holy Scripture. One would be glad and thankful to think they had-for, as long as men retain their reverence for the word of God they are not wholly irreclaimable.

The general notions which this school inculcate as to the interpretation of Holy Scripture, are very clearly stated in a passage in the life of Archbishop Langton, in which the author is stating Langton's preference for the mystical and allegorical method, of which Innocent III. was the patron. Having described the scholastic and literal method, and stated that Langton preferred the other, he says:

"This, which we may call the devotional method, sought to feed and fill the soul with the Divine word, to present a material to the ruminative faculty. The other addressed itself to the intellect, this to faith. It neglected the historical sense, a view of Scripture which it considered Jewish. • If once,' says S. Bernard, thou couldst taste ever so slightly of that finest wheat flour,' wherewith Jerusalem is filled, how willingly wouldst thou leave the Jewish literal interpreters to gnaw their crusts alone!" Not that it set aside the historical sense, much less considered it untrue; but it looked

on the acts and circumstances of the persons described as done by themselves, and ordered by Providence, with an express reference to the acts of Christ, and the circumstances of his body, the Church, as regulated more by the laws of the unseen, than by those of the material world, the world of time and space. This sense is only to be understood by those whose sight was purged by austere life. It is the wisdom which S. Paul spoke among them that are perfect. To those whose hearts are absorbed in the world, it seems folly and fatuity. Relish for mystical exposition is the sure test of the spiritual mind."—pp. 61, 62.

And then he proceeds to mention that this mystical and allegorical method obtained chiefly among the monks. It is unnecessary here to consider the consequences of such a system, nor is it needful to point out the fallacies by which it is here sought to be advocated. If the grammatical sense of Holy Scripture be addressed only to the intellect, and the allegorical to faith, it is plain that faith does not consist in believing the written testimony of God; but some far-fetched and recondite meaning of it, or rather no meaning of it at all, but some application which has no other source than the fancy of the expositor, or it may be fancies, for a thousand allegories and applications, equally remote from each other, and from the text, may be drawn, from one and the same passage, by a lively imagination. Further on, this author informs us that the Old Testament, "IF not made Christians by allegory, is after all no more than Jewish hisTORY." To expose the infinite presumption and profaneness of such a sentence must be needless in a Christian country. The writer of these papers cannot, however, but avow his conviction that not one nor all put together of the false and dangerous doctrines which this party are endeavouring to disseminate by means of these lives of the Saints and other works, is comparable with this. It does, in fact, as already observed, lay the axe to the very root of all sound theology, and sows the seeds of every sort and degree of heresy and error; but, in fact, it is a falsehood so pervading so utterly alterative of the whole mind into which it is received, that it destroys the power of discriminating truth and falsehood. For this, as it has been most truly observed in one of the most important pamphlets (if one measures not by bulk, but by the nature of the subject) which has appeared in the course of the Tractarian Controversy, is "one of the worst effects of this allegorizing system. Those who habitually employ their minds in the study and generation of what is imaginary, are but too likely to lose sight of the real nature and just value of truth.”* This is the prime error of this party, and, as far as a mistake and a false position, irrespective of wrong principles, can be, it is the source and fountain of all their other errors. To what lengths they are now disposed to go in their tampering with Holy Scripture has been shown by a work published a year ago by the Rev. F. Oakeley, "The Life of our Lord and

* A letter to a friend on the Tract for the Times, No. 89. By the Rev. S. R. Maitland, (London, Rivington, 1841,) p. 17. It is hard to imagine a greater service to the cause of truth than would be done by the learned author of this excellent pamphlet pursuing the subject at the length and detail it requires, and which no one living is better qualified to do. The subject of the interpretation of Scripture, and of the prophecies in particular, has been involved in such confusion by Mr. Newman and his party—for example, in his Sermons on Subjects of the Day-that a work vindicating the true and only principle of interpretation, and unravelling the sophistries of this school, is exceedingly needed at the present moment.

Saviour Jesus Christ, from the Latin of St. Bonaventure, newly translated for the use of members of the Church of England." The whole object of this work is to teach people to turn the history of our blessed Redeemer into poetry and romance, a process which Mr. Oakeley calls Meditation. There was a time when clergymen of the Church of England would have turned with horror from such an employment. But there is no limit to the consequences of indulging in a habit of tampering with truth ;and when people have sufficiently confused their minds to relish this allegorical and mystical mode of interpretation, and regard the Old Testament as no better than Jewish history, till they have made it Christian by their allegories and meditations, it is not in the least surprising that they should proceed to the New Testament; rather it would be wonderful if they did not. For, as Mr. Maitland has observed, one of the injurious effects which flows from this allegorical mode of interpretation is this—" It leads men to tamper with the Word of God, and either by addition, suppression, or some tortuous proceeding or other, to make it agree with their imagination." And, in like manner, this taste for writing legends prepares the mind for treating the Bible in the same manner, and what the next step will be, it is not very difficult to prognosticate"When Lives of Saints take the place of romances and fairy tales," as the author of the Life of St. Gilbert speaks, (though with little consciousness that this is what he and his friends are labouring to effect,) one can readily guess the result likely to follow from the publication of myths and Legends. Most truly does the same author state the manner (though apparently without a thought of the application which may be made of his words) in which this is brought about.

"They who consider the Saints in a dreamy way, will hardly be able to do more than dream that there has been upon earth One, who was and is Man-God, for the lives of Saints are shadows of His, and help to interpret His actions who is incomprehensible. They who look upon the Saints as mere personages in religious romance, will be apt to look on Christianity as a beautiful philosophy."-St. Gilbert, p. 130.

Mr. Oakeley's translation of Bonaventure's Life of Christ proves, how soon men become hardened to the evil of their proceedings when once they suffer themselves to trifle with truth. One would have thought that the feelings of reverence, which his party have so long claimed to possess almost exclusively, would have made him withdraw his hand, when he was tempted to give to English readers a work which pretends to supply what God has thought proper to conceal. But no. He is aware of the difficulty. He states it. He labours in his introduction to remove it. This is his defence.

"But let the reader who may be inclined to object boldness to our Saint's devout speculations, consider well with himself, first, whether he have himself ever meditated, strictly speaking, upon points in the Sacred History; i. e. proposed some event in our Lord's Life on earth, say his Nativity, or His Temptation, or His Passion, as an object of direct, and, as far as might be, undistracted contemplation for a certain period of time? If that period have been as short as five or ten minutes only, let him farther reflect whether he have not brought the solemn transaction home to his mind by the help of innumerable particulars, and even collateral incidents, for the proof of

* Ib. p. 10.

which he would find it hard indeed to lay his hand upon any text of Holy Scripture. If the subject of his meditation were the Nativity, for instance, whence, I ask, did he derive the particulars of his idea (for definite idea he must have formed) of the Blessed Virgin, or of St. Joseph? He conceives, again, of the holy parents, that, at the moment to which his contemplations relate, they are sitting, or standing, or kneeling; where does Scripture say so? And when this is urged, he answers almost impatiently; Of course not; Scripture cannot descend to such minutiæ. The Blessed Virgin must have been in some posture, why not in this! This is the most natural and reasonable. Why may I not please to imagine that she knelt to the Divine Infant when she first beheld Him, and that He smiled on her with a look of uninfantine intelligence? Scripture says that she was humble, and that He, though her Son, was also her GoD. May I not put these statements together, and draw my own inference from them? You cannot prove me wrong, nor suggest any alternative which is not equally unauthorized, and more improbable. And, at last, what great harm, though I be mistaken? I do no violence to the sacred text; I am guilty of no irreverence towards the holy Persons in question, for reverence towards them is the very basis of my supposition; and, for myself, I rise from such meditation, as I trust, holier and better than I went to it; more indifferent to the world, more dissatisfied with myself, and fuller of love to God and my brethren."-pp. vi. vii.

And so, because you cannot prove me wrong, I am at liberty to make whatever additions to the word of God appear to me not incongruous with the original story of the Evangelists. It is useless to attempt to reason with persons who have reduced their understandings to such a pitiable state. It is more to the purpose to lay before the reader the passage in this translation of the Life of Christ, which Mr. Oakeley is here covertly defending. Observing only, that Bonaventure does not pretend that his account of the Nativity is altogether a flight of his own imagination. Here follow his words in Mr. Oakeley's translation "for the use of members of the Church of England."

"And now let me earnestly entreat you to attend diligently to all which I am going to relate; the rather, because I had it from a devout and holy man of our Order, of undoubted credit, to whom I believe it to have been supernaturally imparted.

"When the expected hour of the birth of the Son of God was come, on Sunday, towards midnight, the holy Virgin, rising from her seat, went and rested herself against a pillar she found there: Joseph, in the meantime, sate pensive and sorrowful; perhaps, because he could not prepare the necessary accommodation for her. But at length he too arose, and, taking what hay he could find in the manger, diligently spread it at our Lady's feet, and then retired to another part of the building. Then the Son of the Eternal God, coming forth from His Mother's womb, was, without hurt or pain to her, transferred in an instant from thence to the humble hed of hay which was prepared for Him at her feet. His holy Mother, hastily stooping down, took him up in her arms, and tenderly embracing Him, laid Him in her lap; then, through instinct of the Holy Ghost, she began to bathe Him in her sacred milk, with which she was most amply supplied from heaven; this done, she took the veil off her head, and wrapping Him in it, carefully laid Him in the manger. Here the ox and the ass, kneeling down, and laying their heads over the manger, gently breathed upon Him, as if endowed with reason, and sensible, that through the inclemency of the season, and His poor attire, the blessed Infant stood in need of their assistance to warm and cherish him. Then the holy Virgin, throwing herself on her knees, adored Him, and returning thanks to God, said, 'My Lord and heavenly Father, I give thee most hearty thanks, that Thou hast vouchsafed of Thy bounty to give me Thine Only Son; and I praise and worship Thee, O Eternal God, together with Thee, O Son of the Living God, and mine.'

“Joseph likewise worshipped Him at the same time; after which he stripped the ass of his saddle, and separating the pillion from it, placed it near the manger for the blessed Virgin to sit on; but she, seating herself with her face towards the manger, made use of that homely cushion only for support. In this posture our Lady remained some time immoveable, gazing on the manger, her looks and affections all absorbed in her dearest Son."-pp. 23, 24.