the earthly part of those who are in it, and it must be overcome. Nor is that, now, a light and easy task, which was so difficult as to call forth the mighty energy of a regenerate will. That has not become a matter of course, which once required the undivided exertions of a whole life. Ourselves remain the same: in the same world we live, and he who plots against us is the same; though we can talk fluently of apostolic succession, and nicely discriminate heresy, and strongly denounce schism, and perceive the beauty of unity, and understand the language of symbols, and take pleasure in Gothic architecture, and rejoice in the solemn unexpectedness of Gregorian tones. Our dangers and difficulties are the same, only more to be dreaded because appearing under a new aspect: we are vulnerable exactly where we always were, but the form of the weapon being changed, we are thrown off our guard.

For this reason we feel ourselves called upon, by our office, as Christian Remembrancers, to sound a note of warning against the peculiar dangers to which men are exposed in times like these: not setting up ourselves as above the need of like teaching, but wishing ourselves to learn the lesson of practicalness, whereof we would remind others.

We intend the few remarks which follow on this subject, as an introduction to some thoughts on the influence of Church principles on the education of children.

Now it is plain that the great danger of the semi-puritanical school, from which many have but just escaped, was the substitution of religious feeling for right action and right faith:trusting to feelings, instead of looking to our Saviour, and cultivating excitement of feeling instead of aiming at strict obedience; and their great error was that they made religion wholly subjective. The Creed had become a lifeless form, because it spoke not of justification in every line: faith was to be exercised upon itself; all other objects were taken away from it. Every thing else but the question, " How is an individual to become interested in the privileges of the Gospel?" was degraded down into the position of a non-essential. Self, self, self, became the all-absorbing object; one's own faith, one's own feelings, one's own comfort, one's own experience, were for ever thrust forward upon the mental vision; all things else were unimportant, part of the "endless genealogies," and "questions which minister strife," subjects by all means to be shunned, as inevitably tending to make a person unspiritual. Nay, people trusted to something less substantial than their feelings: they leaned upon the shadow of a shadow-their own perception of their faith, feelings, experience. This was their great ground of comfort, to be conscious of their faith being lively, i. e. warm and confident. This led straight to assurance, and all its consequences, bad or good.

Now here were three great dangers: a real turning away from Him whose name was so frequently in their mouths: a false judgment of their own state, depending upon an unconsciously selfish indulgence of natural feelings, instead of fruitfulness in good works; and, lastly, a perpetual verging on heresy, in the great fundamentals of the faith. The articles of the Creed, put as they were in the back-ground, and classed with "non-essentials," would occur to notice sometimes, and draw forth passing observations; and truly the fearful positions which we ourselves have heard maintained by well-meaning persons, were such as make us shudder at the recollection of them. We have heard really good persons-persons, too, who would dread of all things most a derogation from the honour of our Saviour,state as their belief, what, carried out to its necessary consequences, would lead straight to Tritheism (if such a thing may be) or Arianism: they being unconscious all the while of saying anything awful, or indeed important at all one way or other. Why does one hear such things as these? Of course one does not expect every layman (and lay woman) to be conversant with S. Athanasius or S. Cyril; but one does expect, and ought to expect, that every attentive church-goer shall have been taught that ignorant speculations beside the Creed are highly dangerous: one has a right to expect that educated people should have been taught that the Creed has a meaning, and that only heretics presume to disregard or deny it. We are fully persuaded that ninety-nine out of a hundred "orthodox dissenting" teachers (so called) if questioned on the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, would utter rank heresy, and stoutly maintain it; and we greatly fear that many clergymen could be found who would only be restrained from a similar course, by a ready and stringent appeal to the Athanasian Creed.*

* Take the following specimens of the effect of looking upon high doctrines in a merely subjective way. We do not mean to say that Mr. Best intends to be heretical, but surely the reception such language meets in "the religious world," is a very fearful sign of the times :-

"These designations, or characters, [i. e. the Holy Names of the Three Persons] are obviously connected with the several offices which are sustained and fulfilled by the several Persons of the Trinity in that arrangement of the scheme of human Redemption which was revealed at the same time. They are intended to give us some important intimations of what each Person is to us, or does for us. They are instructive appellations or titles, not intended to show us any inherent attributes of the Divine Nature-not to point out what God is in His Eternal and Immutable Essence, in which He is incomprehensible and past finding out, [but what if He have revealed Himself?] because there is on earth no likeness to which He can be compared; but they are titles condescendingly and graciously assumed, to give us such knowledge of the relations in which the Triune God stands to us under our dispensation of grace and mercy, as can be conveyed by these earthly similitudes, which God in His wisdom saw to be fittest to set them forth."-Letters on a Socinian Tract, by Rev. Thomas Best, Perpetual Curate of St. James's, Sheffield, &c. London, 1840, p. 162.

Again, p. 166:

"These discriminative appellations of the Persons of the Trinity are characters in which the Triune God has revealed Hmself to us, in reference to the Christian Covenant,

Such are some of the dangers of a teaching wholly subjective; dangers known well enough to most of our readers; which, however, it is well to touch upon again, for the sake of those who are still exposed to them.

From this form of evil many have happily escaped. By the providence of God, they have come within the range of sounder teaching, and it has had its effect upon them, of one kind or other, most surely in many instances, doubtless, a sound and healthy effect-we trust in most: and yet it is capable of being taken up (as was foretold) as a beautiful picture, not practically, and in reality; and then, of course, the effect will be evil, in proportion to the power for good received in vain. This, then, is the danger-holding the faith in an unreal way admiring the Catholic system; but living like the world: talking of doctrines; but not carrying them out into practice: luxuriating in the frame-work of the Church, all that meets the eye and ear, all that is valued by a refined taste and cultivated intellect, but forgetting that the patient sufferings of the poor, and the selfdenials of the meek-spirited, are the priceless gem (in the sight of angels, and of Him who is the Lord of angels,) for which this fair casket was prepared.

And here we may be allowed to say, that we have observed a very great tendency to this fault in the manner in which many of these subjects have been treated, of late, in the columns of some ecclesiastical newspapers. What can be more irreverent, e. g. than the off-hand strictures of some juvenile correspondent on the advertisement of a fashionable robe-maker, in which, and in the defensive reply, the symbols of holiest mysteries of the faith (as such) are bandied to and fro, perhaps, in somewhat of an angry spirit, just as question might be made about the fashionable sitting of a newly-invented cape, in "Townsend's Book of Fashions and Monthly Magazine?" We do not accuse any of these papers, with which we are acquainted, of positively favouring, or exemplifying, in their responsible articles, the evil of

and to the offices which the Persons of the Trinity severally sustain in the arrangement of Infinite Wisdom and Grace. We must not suppose that in the Divine Essence there is any such relation as Father and Son." The italics are Mr. Best's own.

And though afterwards he says there is "distinct Personality," as above "Triune," yet "they are so represented in order to show," &c.

At the beginning, too, he constantly qualifies his statements of the Trinity in Unity by some such disparagement of their revealed titles; e. g. at p. 32,

"We believe that the one Living and True God subsists in three distinct equal Persons-of one substance, power, and eternity-that one of those Divine Persons took man's nature . . . whereof is one Christ, revealed to us as the Son of God [sic] for the reasons which I may hereafter show," the reasons, namely, specified in the former quotations. This would look strange by the side of Bishop Pearson and his authorities; S. Cyril of Jerusalem, for instance, Tiùs Toû eoû čσti púσei, kaì où θέσει, γεννηθεὶς ἐκ Πατρός.—Catech. xi. § 7.

And S. Athanasius, Ἐπὶ τῆς θεότητος μόνης ὁ Πατὴρ κυρίως Πατήρ ἐστι, καὶ ἐπὶ τούτων καὶ μόνων ἕστηκε τὸ Πατὴρ ἀεὶ Πατὴρ εἶναι, καὶ τὸ Υἱὸς ἀεὶ Υἱὸς εἶναι Cont. Arianos, I. 21, p. 426.

which we complain. But we could wish, very seriously, that they would exercise a more severe censorship over the correspondence which is made public by their instrumentality. These hasty productions, it may be said, are as light, and fall as harmless, as straws or feathers: but straws and feathers mark which way the wind blows, and the fructifying seeds of many noxious plants are scattered far and wide on wings of lighter materials than straws or feathers.

But this is an evil soon perceived, and for that reason more easily checked or remedied than another and more subtle development of the danger which accompanies the revival of longdormant principles. It appears as though, not the visible framework only of the Catholic Church, and her external decorations, were calculated to please the natural taste; but her whole system, liturgical and doctrinal, being, as it is, the most perfect embodiment of the principle of beauty, is endowed with an attractiveness which draws to herself all that is not absolutely corrupted, of our unearthly nature. Thus arises a danger, great as her Perfection is intellectually satisfying, of admiring, and loving (in a sense) that which is not exercising its due moral and spiritual influence upon the beholder. We know not how any one, once blest with the vision of her celestial glory, naturalized as it were upon earth, can turn away and be satisfied with anything less lovely. It seems impossible. And if this be so, men who remain inwardly unchanged, continuing to glory in that greatness which has subdued their intellect, will be led to act, speak, write, for her after a carnal fashion to carry on her warfare with unsanctified weapons, and by this means, while the good cause is injured, they are settling themselves down, unsuspectingly, in an evil condition. This conclusion is confirmed by the following remarks of Archdeacon Manning, in one of his most magnificent sermons:

"There are about us... the loud schemings of men who, under the name of the Church, would serve themselves of the Church as a contrivance for civilising mankind: but they are not God's kingdom. There is under the badge of religion, a strife and struggle for mastery, among men who bear the sacred name which the saints first bore at Antioch: but God's kingdom is not in their heady tumult: there are the visible hurryings to and fro of a Jehu-like zeal for the Lord: and there are the plottings of earthly Christians for men may plot for Christ's Church as well as against it. The same earthly and faithless temper of mind which sometimes resists God's will, may also insinuate itself into His service.”—Serm. xiii.

It seems, then, that as the great error of the defective system, of which we have spoken before, was making religion wholly subjective, so the tendency now to be guarded against by many individuals, is that of making it too exclusively objective. The most fundamental doctrines of our holy Faith, even that of the Ever-blessed Trinity, and the mystery of the Incarnation, were brought down to earth, there to be irreverently viewed (not in

their own intrinsic majesty, but) in relation to the condition of the individual inquirer: so viewed only, and considered quite unimportant, as articles of faith, except in that view. We cannot be too thankful for better teaching and sounder belief on this point: but there does seem to be danger of erring the other way, and of being satisfied to hold doctrines simply, without regard to the personal relation in which the individual stands to them. And it seems to us this error is especially inexcusable in the doctrines of the visible Church, and communion of saints. The articles of the Creed which precede these are revealed subjectively only by a wonderful act of Divine condescension. Their glory were all-perfect if man were not. He may, indeed, rejoice that the Divine Nature in each Person is for him-on his side but chiefly he must adore the Majesty which is without, beyond, above him: he must look upon the Form of the Perfect Man and see in It the Incarnate God. But (if we may say such things,) the visible texture of the living Church seems to have been woven together, for the very purpose of enclosing within itself the individual being of each immortal Person. It would seem as if her priesthood, her sacraments, her creeds, her liturgy, were no essential part of the spiritual temple, but rather divinely-authorised accessories, valuable according as they are effective in training up her living sons: and if so, not so much to be gazed upon, as acted up to, and used, by each individual in his own case, for the purpose which (as it seems to us) called them into being. We do not say these things are not to be believed: they must, or we could not act upon them: nor that the Catholic Church is not to be believed in; nor that She is not endued with a personality. We hold that, by ineffable union with her incarnate Head, she so becomes His Body that His Personality pervades her wholly; and thus she becomes an object of faith, and through her and in her is seen, and believed, and loved, and worshipped He Who is All in all.

Still (we think) it remains true that her earthly constitution is rather to be felt, and dwelt in, and acted in, and loved as it is known subjectively, than looked upon, and admired from without.

In this view, everything that is beautiful, attractive, and lovely in her system, becomes of immense personal importance to each individual among her members. For they all tend, as home comforts, to attach him to his domestic duties; and to encourage and bear him up when his duties become burdensome. This view should be connected with what our Lord and His true shepherds have always taught about the difficulties of the heavenward road; and thus a beautiful concord will appear to exist between the personal condition of an individual Christian, and the state to which he is called as a member of the Christian Fellowship. Tribulation to be endured: difficulties to be contended with: self-discipline to be practised: this is his portion.