think otherwise. An old man may present a great many arguments to support his opinion that he shall live as long as his son, or even survive him; but the law of nature remains unchangeable, that the fathers pass away and the sons come into their stead. Spain, though now far sunk below the rank of states which were one time her inferiors, may revive. For Spain is a nation of strong-minded men, whose intellect, so far from being exhausted, has never yet had free development. But the Papacy can never revive. For it was a mere system springing out of peculiar circumstances which are for ever passed away. To all the world, excepting his own scanty

estates, the successor of Hildebrand is no longer anything but a priest.

Of the other party which then rose to divide the Christian world, we are perhaps not yet fully furnished with the materials of a just estimate. For it is still in the youth of its progress. Viewing it, for the present, only as a power effecting the state of the world, its aim was from the beginning, not temporal dominion, but the conversion of men from sin unto righteousness, and their securing of their perfect liberty to live accordingly. To the whole extent of its genuine operation, therefore, it increased the value of all its adherents, and constituted them free citizens of a pure and enlightened community. It was the very genius of true liberty, and being unconfined by local possessions, the more readily diffused itself through the nations, leavening the individual mind, and thence sending out its fruits in the improvement of society. These outward effects are much more extensive than we ordinarily conceive. For they appear not only in what is known as Protestant, but also in the Roman Catholicism of the present day, in the intercourse of nations, both in war and peace, in society in general, in fact, they colour the whole civilisation of our time. It was the Reformation that saved Romanism, as far as it is a church, and not a political system. When it occurred, it was unavoidable; but had it not occurred, Christianity must have been extinguished in idolatry, licentiousness, and unbelief. We entirely credit the professions of Romanists when they claim to be in theory and spirit the same with their predecessors of the eleventh century; but their practice is materially different when it falls under the eye of a Protestant public-a public which they must henceforth expect to meet, in increasing numbers, in all quarters of the globe. Christians now in Romanist communion have much to thank the Reformation for. But an age is yet approaching when grander effects shall be seen from that question of the sixteenth century, and a future critic may charge even our own time with under

estimating the movement headed by the brave young monk of Wittemberg.

At the same time, we shall certainly not be understood as meaning that for the reasons now mentioned, Romanism was so improved as to do well enough for those who retained it. Constraint to decency and the outgrowth of spiritual life are very different things, and more different in their fruits than in their looks. The one is an artificial flower, which is always the same, or changes only by fading; the other, a product of creative energy, is ever advancing from one state of development to another, and even its apparent death is only retreat into the germ of a new life. While the countries which accept the Reformation are marked by popular intelligence, enterprise, and prosperity, taking the lead in everything that pertains to the elevation of human nature; those who adhere to the Romish faith, without exception, lag behind, or make advance only by feeble imitation of their Protestant neighbours, and that always at the expense of their Romanist principles. France is no exception. For the pride of her monarchy was the humiliation of her people, and her popular movements have all been after Protestant example, and would have been more successful had they caught the spirit while aiming at the results. Of Protestantism, it is remarked by M. St Hilaire, in the Revue Chrétienne, that "When it has disappeared, it may be said to have carried with it the vital force of the people who permitted it to die. Of this, Spain and Italy are witnesses. Not with impunity do men reject the gospel to attach themselves to human traditions. Is not the blessing of God, which rests so visibly upon England and all Protestant Europe, averted from those beautiful lands? Yet in them Catholicism reigns in all its pride." France and Sardinia, to all the extent that they are prosperous, are unpapal: and necessarily so. To think of living and thriving now, after the fashion of the middle ages, is preposterous, as it would be to attempt to restore the civilisation of ancient Egypt, to revive a mummy, or to combat the Minie rifle with the bow and arrow. Not to take any higher view of the matter than that of mere statesmanship, it is vain to hope for national prosperity now through any principles other than those of the Reformation.

The most instructive lesson taught us by this review of the historical causes of the Reformation, and of its nature and effects, which we have thus imperfectly traced, is that the truth of God, the gospel of his Son, or rather, the Son of God himself, is the life of the world. The real invisible power which prepared the way for Luther; which overthrew the dominion of the Papacy; which emancipated so large a part of Europe from civil as well as ecclesiastical bondage; which

opened the way for science, commerce, and the useful arts to their wonderful achievements, was none other than the power of the truth and Spirit of God. There is no real life, no desirable progress, no true liberty, but in connection with true religion. What is called civilisation, the progress of society, development of the race, is nothing but the progress of evil, tending more and more to darkness and degradation, except so far as that progress has its source and guiding power in the truth of true religion. All the efforts of infidel or atheistic advocates of liberty, equality, or human happiness, have ended only in the increase of despotism, vice, and misery. It is this great lesson, that all the blessings of the Reformation, all its power to promote the progress of the nations, all its good effects in the past and in the future, are due, not to emancipation of mind, or to the civil liberty which it secured, but to its religious element-to its springing from the desire to secure the image and favour of God, which the volume before us is designed and adapted to teach. There is no secular vocation of man comparable in responsibility and importance to that of the historian. He is the interpreter of God. He unfolds the meaning of God's doings, as the preacher expounds his word. If the exposition which he gives of history be false, and especially if it be irreligious, if it ignores the hand of God and the power of his truth and Spirit, it is in effect the transfer of atheism into the ordinary affairs of life, and has all the evil consequences which must flow from atheism. The idea that religion is to be confined to the Church, or to the department of morals, that God is to be worshipped in the sanctuary or the chamber, but disregarded in the world and in history, an idea which has such a hold on the minds of most men, is thoroughly anti-scriptural. We regard, therefore, as a very great event, the appearance of a history destined to take rank with the first works of its class, written by a true Christian in a bold, open, yet moderate and catholic Christian spirit; which everywhere recognises the gospel as the word of God, and points it out as the true life of the world.

We rejoice to hear that this work has received the three thousand francs' prize from the Sarbonne, a decision not less honourable to that venerable body than to M. St Hilaire.

ART. IX.-Essays on some of the Difficulties in the Writings of the Apostle Paul, and in other parts of the New Testament. Essay III-On Election. By RICHARD WHATELY, D.D., Archbishop of Dublin. Seventh Edition, enlarged. London: John W. Parker. 1854.

The Primitive Doctrine of Election; or, An Historical Inquiry into the Ideality and Causation of Scriptural Election, as received and maintained in the Primitive Church of Christ. By GEORGE STANLEY FABER, B.D., Master of Sherburn Hospital and Canon of Salisbury. Second Edition. London, 1842.

A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of Predestination. By J. B. MOZLEY, B.D., Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. John Murray, London. 1855.

The Absence of Precision in the Formularies of the Church of England, Scriptural and suitable to a state of Probation. Bampton Lectures for 1855. By JOHN ERNEST BODE, M.A., Rector of Westwell.

An Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles, Historical and Doctrinal. By E. HAROLD BROWNE, B.D., Norrisian Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge, and Canon of Exeter. Fourth Edition. John W. Parker, London. 1858.

WE had occasion lately (p. 200), in connection with some discussion on the subject of Liberty and Necessity, to remark, that the most obvious reflections suggested by a survey of the controversies which in all ages have been carried on in regard to this matter, were these:-1st, That it has been so thoroughly exhausted, that nothing can now be said about it but what has been said in substance a thousand times; and 2d, That there are difficulties attaching to it which never have been solved, and which never can be solved, at least with man's present capacities and opportunities of knowledge. These statements apply a fortiori to the more comprehensive subject of foreordination, using that word in its widest sense, as including the whole of what may be said to constitute the fundamental and distinctive feature of the Calvinistic system of theology. Nothing can be said either for or against the true doctrine upon this subject but what in substance has been often said before, and it is plainly hopeless now to give anything like a direct and adequate solution of the difficulties with which it is surrounded-difficulties which must occur at once to everyone who reflects upon the matter. Notwithstanding the obvious truth of these two positions, the subject as a whole, or in some of its departments or

aspects, has always continued to be discussed. It is so important and interesting in itself, and it is so much bound up with topics which must occupy the minds of reflecting men, that it cannot be laid aside or overlooked. There are two distinct and definite theories upon the subject opposed to each other, to one of which competent persons who investigate it carefully must lean; and it is to be expected that, from time to time, there will be some men who may consider themselves called upon to communicate to the world the benefit of the views which have occurred to them on the one side or the other.

It happens not very unfrequently that some ingenious but not very erudite or long-sighted polemic, whether Calvinist or Arminian, imagines that he has fallen upon something original in the discussion of this subject--that he has enforced or refuted some leading argument more skilfully and successfully than had ever been done before, or that he has devised an important contribution towards a real solution of the difficulties which attach to it. Such discoveries, though sometimes brought forward with a good deal of pretension, have uniformly turned out to be of no real or substantial value. In so far as there may have been anything true or solid in them, they have affected or modified the statement and discussion of the subject merely in appearance, or only in an infinitesimal degree. The result has always been, that both Calvinists and Arminians have been able to defend their respective opinions with about as much plausibility as before, and that the real difficulties attaching to the subject, though by a skilful mode of presentation they may have been slightly changed in their aspect or position, have not been solved, and if thrown into the background at one point, have soon appeared again at another, as formidable and as impracticable as ever.

It has often been alleged that Calvinists are very pugnacious, ever ready to fight in defence of their peculiar opinions. But a survey of the theological literature of this country for the last half century, gives no countenance to this impression. Much more has been published in defence of Arminianism than of Calvinism. Calvinists have scarcely shewn the zeal and activity that might have been reasonably expected of them, either in repelling attacks that were made upon them, or in improving advantages that were placed within their reach. In the early part of the century, indeed, the Refutation of Calvinism by Bishop Tomline (or Pretyman) was thoroughly refuted by Scott, the commentator, in his "Remarks" upon it, and by Dr Edward Williams in his " Defence of Modern Calvinism." But since that time, Coplestone, Whately, Stanley Faber, and Richard Watson-men of deservedly high reputation-have all written against Calvinism, and some of them very elaborately,