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philosophy of mind and the history of man, with all that those terms comprehend, becomes, in successive portions, the field of investigation. The questions arising are of such a nature and such difficulty that an authority, if there were one, would not be too much for their resolution. But there is not an authority we are only in search of it: authority cannot be founded upon authority. There is the scripture. Very true: but to send us all alone to the tribunal of the scripture, to give up the question to be settled between the scripture and ourselves, involves the admission that we have the right of determining for ourselves the sense of scripture, without appeal to any authority over us. This would be precisely to grant that which, in the system of authority, is peremptorily denied us. Try you, then, to understand how that could be granted to us for one time, which is to be refused us forever afterwards; and how to escape the consequence that the entire system of protestantism is included in this your temporary concession.

'But may we not have recourse to the HOLY SPIRIT? Be it So. We must admit, then, that there is a Holy Spirit; that there is an action of the Spirit of God upon the spirit of man. Observe; it must be the individual man; for, in our supposed case, it is an individual who is seeking and examining. You admit, then, that the Spirit of God condescends to hold immediate communion with an individual of mankind. But, if that be possible once, it is always possible. Henceforth, then, authority is useless the Holy Spirit takes the place of the church. This, however, is what cannot be granted us by those who maintain the principle of authority. It follows, by the strictest necessity of reasoning, that they must put the Holy Spirit under arrest for the benefit of the church.

Then they send us, as inquirers, to natural reason; and to science, one of the acquisitions and instruments of reason. Upon reason is thus thrown the answering of a great number of questions, as I have above said, of such a nature and such difficulty, that it is quite inconceivable why authority has not, at the very first, applied itself to the solution of those questions. This is an enormous imperfection; an incomprehensible chasm in the system. If a man be capable of arriving by himself at a solution of those difficulties, surely he is capable by himself of arriving at the true sense of scripture. Suppose that natural reason renders some men capable of resolving the questions, the number of such men is extremely small. There is an immense multitude of minds to whom such an achievement would be quite impossible; yet they need to be convinced of the church's authority, for the church is the pillar and ground of the truth,' by its determining, always and in every case, the meaning of the divine oracles. The scriptures, and the

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Holy Spirit, being discarded as to all men; reason also, as to all probably, but certainly as to the vast majority; what remains? Upon what principle can we proceed to confide in authority? The whole of the most important interest in the world is thrown upon chance; the accident of birth and the impressions of childhood. Set aside this absolute incompetency; and there is nothing but protestantism-protestantism to the end. We are irrevocably protestants; not as a thing of result, the effect of a process of examination, but by the very fact of examination itself. Here, then, is the alternative, and it cannot be eluded; we must never examine; no, not for one moment; or we must always examine.

'Pascal lays it down as certain, or rather he establishes, that, by examining ourselves and by comparing the contents of the New Testament with our own consciences, we shall surely attain to faith, through the mighty grace of the Holy Spirit. In his view, believing is inseparable from understanding; to believe is to understand with the heart, with the new heart which the Holy Spirit gives. The HOLY SPIRIT, not the church; there lies Pascal's authority. Read attentively the Thoughts, and be pleased to answer this one question: In his system, is not church-authority entirely nullified, put absolutely out of the field? The trouble would be well recompensed of once studying under this point of view the INESTIMABLE FRAGMENTS which are now restored to us in their integrity.'

We doubt not but that our readers will warmly thank us for this long extract from the first of Professor Vinet's three articles of Review. The succeeding two numbers refer to details, and are not requisite for us. A few passages we shall introduce in their places.

The awakening of attention, produced by Victor Cousin's two publications, seems to have been the determining cause of Mr. Faugère's resolving upon a thorough investigation of the matter and presenting the results to the world. This he has done in a manner which reflects the highest honour upon his care, judgment, and fidelity. He collated all the important editions; he obtained from descendants of collateral branches of the Pascal family and their intimate friends,-a Transcript, which bears proof of being the first copy taken from the scraps of autograph found strung upon cords or otherwise dispersed, reduced into an imperfect order :-a copy, evidently of the preceding: -a collection of transcripts from Pascal's original fragments, made by Father Guerrier, an intimate friend of the family and a priest of the Oratory, (a Society honourably celebrated for their many learned labours, and among whom were Lamy, Le Long, and others :) and a voluminous collection of Guerrier's transcripts of the Pascalian papers, consisting

chiefly of Letters of Blaise Pascal himself, his father, his sisters and other relatives, the Duchess of Longueville, and De Sacy, Arnauld, Nicole, Duguet, Domat, and other distinguished persons; this collection was communicated by a very aged gentlemen, (whose courtesy in relation to Port Royal monuments some of our countrymen have experienced,) Mr. Bellaigue de Rabanesse, formerly a Judge in the Presidial Court of Clermont. But the greatest acquisition of all is the Autograph Manuscript of the fragmentary pieces, carefully let in to folio sheets of paper, and bound in a volume of nearly 500 pages; preserved, as we have said, in the Royal Library, and, by an order of M. Villemain, the Minister of Public Instruction, June 29, 1844, placed at the disposal of Mr. Faugère.

This gentleman has proved himself to be one of the most laborious, judicious, and faithful of editors. He brings us into the presence of the real Pascal; even into the very palpitations of his heart. It is truly a subject for joy, and gratitude to benign providence, that, after almost two hundred years, this monument of honour and affection is raised to the memory of one who must be ranked among the most talented, the most amiable, and the holiest of men upon earth; and still more is the event to be acknowledged as a benefit to the world. As a man of profound thinking and sublime soarings of the soul, yet ever deeply humble, we put Pascal in the rank of Bacon, Boyle, Milton, Howe, Edwards, Coleridge, Robert Hall, and John Foster. High and long sustained as the popularity of Pascal's Thoughts has hitherto been, we trust that they are destined to fill a still more extensive sphere of usefulness. As an achievement in the domain of Literary History and Bibliography, the exhumation, we may even say, of the manuscripts, and the extraordinary concurrence of independent circumstances which have produced this edition, will give it an attractive interest to men of philological and critical leisure; and that is a class of men which has always flourished in France, and more abundantly, notwithstanding the short storm of revolutionary barbarism, within the last seventy years. A similar progress of those studies has taken place in every part of Europe. Hence, a very wide distribution of these volumes may be expected, even on this ground alone. But there are higher reasons for our hope. Condorcet, Voltaire, and we are grieved to add, within these two years Victor Cousin, have laboured to substantiate and diffuse the opinion, that under the guise of piety, Pascal was a secret unbeliever, or at least much inclined to scepticism with regard to the greatest moral truths. Thus the purity and sincerity of his character has been called into question; and it may be feared that the device has succeeded, with regard to numerous young persons, well disciplined, it may be, in mathematics

and the exact sciences, but ill-taught or totally untaught upon the nature, evidences, and claims of heavenly revelation; the device, we fear, has succeeded to confirm the notion, that the finest minds have examined the whole question of revealed religion, and have found the alleged evidence of the gospel to be so uncertain, that these young persons may be excused from giving themselves further trouble about it. Unreasonable and criminal as is this prejudging, it is very agreeable to the unwary and unconverted mind. But now the presumption is destroyed. Not only the reasonings of the philosopher stand out in their more complete comprehension and cogency; but the warmth and brightness and depth of his PIETY is attested in a manner which nothing could resist, but a very hard heart or a stupid intellect. It may well be hoped that some volatile minds among the French, cultivated or rude, which have welcomed atheistic principles, as a relief from the alarms of natural conscience, will be drawn by the charm of this great name, to read the unfoldings of their countryman's inmost feelings, and to perceive something of the beauty of holiness in his character. This publication may, and we trust will, be a powerful barrier against the frivolity, immorality, and wreck of principle which so fearfully abound.

We gratefully call to mind, amidst all that we mourn in the moral condition of the French people, that true religion among them has, within the last thirty years, risen from the dust in which it had been trodden down, and has resumed an activity long unknown. This revival has been greatly aided by the evangelical protestant press. The Life and Writings of Pascal, Romanist as he was, will furnish many powerful instruments for the advancement of the holy cause. As the mortal foe to this resurrection of scriptural religion, popery has started into the vigorous employment of its wonted practices for gaining the ascendancy over mind and society. The mystery of iniquity has called up the spirits of darkness, with all the deceivableness of unrighteousness.' Its chief instrument in this working' (2 Thess. ii, 7-11) has been the Order of Loyola, blasphemously calling itself the Society of Jesus. For its innumerable atrocities, that order had been banished from the principal popish states of Europe, and was formally abolished in 1773 by Pope Clement XIV. But, from motives and with objects very intelligible, it was re-established thirty years ago by Pius VII: and now it actually reigns in France, fostered by silly women, and used as the tool of tyranny and perfidy by wretched men, whose consciences must teach them a very different lesson. The present illegal harassments of the pious protestants, the infamous proceedings in Tahiti, and the machi

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nations in the Levant, with many other instances of crafty wickedness, are effects of the restoration of the Jesuits. Mr. Faugère's publication comes most seasonably to help just men of all parties and denominations in their resistance to the brood of the old serpent. The treatment of Pascal, even in his philosophical character, by the frauds of the Jesuits, must have left in the minds of all scientific men a feeling of indignation and abhorrence. This, we hope, will be revived and strengthened by the new homage to his name. It may also appear no unreasonable expectation, that an edition will be called for of the Provincial Letters, and that will do glorious execution against the man of sin,-that wicked one.'

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Our hopes and expectations rise higher still. Notwithstanding the deplorable impregnation of submission to the false church and the papal usurpation, which, from his educational and other circumstances, had been put into Pascal's mind, he, with his fellow-confessors and fellow-sufferers, were wondrous witnesses to the gospel of the GRACE of God,' and its proper fruits. His Thoughts, and other pieces, contain a multitude of evidences and illustrations of the essence of doctrinal christianity, SOVEREIGN, FREE, ELECTING LOVE acting through a DIVINE REDEEMER and a DIVINE SANCTIFIER; and the essence of practical christianity, LovE TO GOD because HE is LOVELY, and LOVE TO HOLINESS because it is HIS IMAGE. In the late revivals of piety among the protestants of France and Switzerland there has been some deteriorating matter-dross adhering to the silver-descending to them from some of their own old writers (for example, Ravanell of Montauban), and exemplified at large in our Marshall and Hervey. But we trust that our brethren have too much nobleness of mind to be above deriving instruction from Pascal and Quesnel, and those like them. Thus, such servants of Christ as our beloved Cæsar Malan may obtain unspeakable benefit to their own souls and to the souls of multitudes besides; and thus a studious attention may be drawn to the works of Edwards and Bellamy, Dwight, Maclaurin, Witherspoon and Dr. Erskine, Fuller and Ryland, Woods and Beecher. Upon this subject we cannot force ourselves to abstain from citing, somewhat condensed, a passage from the Augustinus of Cornelius Jansenius, which we obtain through the medium of Theophilus Gale's True Idea of Jansenism, 1669, p. 113. The spirit of God, in the most salutary manner, indicates to us, that there is no love of ourselves more true than that whereby we love God with all the heart. And because the most refined and noble love of God consists in a man's being abstracted from the reflection and consideration of

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