highest opinion of his truly christian spirit: and a personal conversation with him has heightened that opinion. While I mourn over his extraordinary delusion, I feel that I could love him as a brother. But still, even to my respect and regard for such a man, the lofty cause of Christian Truth must not be betrayed and sacrificed.

The least evil of Mr. Newman's System is, that it is a tissue of contradictions and inconsistencies. Were it nothing more, it would reflect only upon his own clearness of apprehension: but unhappily, it exhibits a strange and mischievous attempt, to mix up together, wholesome food and rank poison, the sound doctrine of the Church of England and the pernicious dogmas of the Church of Rome, Scriptural Orthodoxy, and Popish Heterodoxy.

That such a preposterous effort, to blend together into one mass the unamalgamating elements of Truth and Falsehood, should produce the most unmitigable confusion, is small wonder: but the danger is, that Mr. Newman's ingenuity of mystification should disguise the real evil of his Lectures, and should seduce his incautious admirers into all the grossness of Tridentism before they are well aware of the precipice upon which they

totter.

When the book is simply read, as books (I believe) most commonly are read, there is a certain haziness spread over it, which, like the thick fog and darkness of old John Bunyan's Enchanted Ground, prevents men, without the aid of a guide and lantern, from distinctly seeing whither they are going.

But, when the several propositions are extracted and placed in immediate mutual juxta-position, the theological pilgrim, who has been toiling through Mr. Newman's opaca viarum, is enabled to see where he is, and thence to judge whether in broad day-light he be willing still to pursue his perilous journey.

This duty I have endeavoured to perform: and, with all kindness of feeling I say it, should my labour deprive my excellent friend of a single follower, still more should it lead himself seriously to reconsider the position which he has taken up, I shall have my reward.

With the very best intentions, with unquestionable sincerity,

with a character like that of the knightly Bayard sans peur et sans reproche, Mr. Newman strikes me, as labouring under the misfortune of possessing a very subtle and restless mind: a mind, which cannot be easy without making, in the simplest matters, endless distinctions, clear perhaps, by some incomprehensible intellectual process, to itself, but dark and perplexed and hopelessly unintelligible to all other persons. What benefit is to be derived from such a mode of theologising, even were Mr. Newman's doctrinal views more sound than I fear they are, I confess myself unable to discover.

Let that brotherly love, which is inspired by the consciousness of a common Saviour, a common hope, a common Church, and a common end, be our Irenicum.

NUMBER VII.

A BARRISTER'S LEGAL STATEMENT OF THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION.

In a conversation on the topic of Forensic Justification with an intelligent legal friend and very dear relative of my own, who has creditably deemed the study of Theology not incompatible with the study and practice of the Law, he technically and in the language of his own profession, expressed his conceptions of my ideas with so much clearness and precision, that I requested him to put down his statement upon paper. complied with my request and I thus have the high gratification of being enabled to give a layman's professional exhibition of the doctrine of Forensic Justification.

He

The terms, TO JUSTIFY and JUSTIFICATION, appear to me to require a different definition, according as they are employed with reference to the office of the Judge and with reference to the office of the Defendant or his Advocate.

If employed with reference to the office of the Judge, I should define the term TO JUSTIFY, as meaning To declare that

the Defendant is not amenable to any punishment; and the term JUSTIFICATION, as meaning The declaration of the Court that the Defendant is not amenable to any punishment.

If employed with reference to the office of the Defendant or his Advocate, I should define the term TO JUSTIFY, as meaning To shew sufficient cause why judgment should not go against the Defendant; and the term JUSTIFICATION, as meaning An establishment of the sufficiency of the cause shewn.

Considering the terms as employed with reference to the office of the Defendant or his Advocate, this Cause so shewn may be :

Either 1. An absolute denial or traverse of the charge;

Or 2. An Admission of the act charged, coupled with a denial of its culpability;

Or 3. An admission both of the act charged and of its culpability, coupled with an averment that its gravamen has been removed by sufficient satisfaction.

Almost every line of defence may be classed under one of these three heads and the position, in which fallen man stands with regard to his Maker, seems most analogous to the case of a Defendant, admitting to its fullest extent the wrong done, but relying upon satisfaction made for it on his behalf by another person.

I. Now it is obvious, that a Defendant, so circumstanced, must not only shew, that The thing which he relies on as a satisfaction has actually been done, and that It is abstractedly sufficient to cover the wrong but he must further shew Such a connection, between himself the wrong-doer, and the party who has made satisfaction, as to entitle him to appropriate to himself the benefit of that satisfaction.

1. In the Christian Scheme, every man is compelled to admit, in its fullest extent, the charge brought against him and he is at liberty to couple this admission with an averment; that Our Saviour, by his death, made satisfaction for the sins of all mankind.

2. But, if he stop here, and attempt thence to argue; that THEREFORE he is justified: the reply is; that, Although the satisfaction, made by Christ, is fully SUFFICIENT to cover the sins of all mankind, yet it is distinctly declared, that no man can

APPROPRIATE that satisfaction to his own case, except by Faith.

3. Hence he must go further, and aver: that He HAS that Faith. Otherwise, though he pleads a satisfaction abstractedly sufficient, he fails to shew his own connection with it and with the person who made it.

II. Perhaps the following illustration may explain my meaning more fully.

After a rebellion, in which all the inhabitants of a province have been implicated and have thereby forfeited their lives, the king of the country issues a proclamation, declaring: that He has agreed to pardon all the rebels SOLELY in consideration of a sum, already paid, in the way of ransom, by a certain sponsible individual, for the offences of all parties engaged in the rebellion; provided always, that no person shall be entitled to claim the benefit of the ransom, who does not come in by a given day and enrol himself as henceforth the lawfully acquired vassal or liege-man of the ransomer.

I. Here, if any person be subsequently charged with the rebellion, it will not be enough for him to plead, The PAYMENT of the ransom for his offence, and its SUFFICIENCY in point of value to buy him off, and the king's PROCLAMATION to that effect: but he must further aver and prove, that He enrolled himself and duly took suit and service with his ransomer according to the tenor of the proclamation; pleading, that He has THEREFORE become entitled to claim all the benefit of the ransom.

2. Now, in this case, the enrolment is not The satisfaction for the offence or The thing which justifies the confessedly offending individual: for, by the terms of the proclamation, the sole consideration for the pardon is The ransom.

So, in like manner, in the Christian Scheme, Faith is not The satisfaction for our sins or the thing (properly speaking) which justifies us for the sole consideration, on which pardon is offered and granted to us, is The Merits and Death of Christ.

3. The Enrolment in the one case, and Faith in the other case, I take to be purely INSTRUMENTAL. They are, respectively, the MEANS, through which the Defendant, in either case alike, is enabled to appropriate to himself an existing satisfaction abstractedly sufficient to cover the wrong done.

(1.) In the former case, we are justified or made clear in the sight of God, on account of the ransom made applicable to our offence through the INSTRUMENTALITY of the Enrolment.

(2.) In the latter case, we are justified or made clear in the sight of God, on account of the Merits of Christ, made applicable to our sins through the INSTRUMENTALITY of Faith in him.

The principle of the Romish Church is, to hoodwink the Laity, and to keep them theologically in a state of degraded submission to the Clergy. But the directly opposite principle of the Church of England leads her Clergy, with one of the most eminent of her Prelates, to exclaim: Would God, all the Lord's people were prophets! She asserts, indeed: that It is not lawful for any man to take upon him the office of publicly preaching or ministering the Sacraments in the Congregation, before he be lawfully called and sent to execute the same: but she rejoices, when a layman will so study Theology, as to be qualified, though he may never be commissioned, to undertake the peculiar functions of the Priesthood.

NUMBER VIII.

PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD, VIEWED AS TENDING TO EFFECT THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION.

In the Oxford Tracts for the Times, the author of the Tract, number 38, mentions, with evident regret, that the Prayers for the Dead, which were suffered to stand in King Edward's first Liturgy, were afterward omitted: and the omission of them he ascribes to the influence of Bucer and the Puritans and the Foreign School of Geneva.

This matter has been well discussed by Archdeacon Browne in the Appendix to his Charge of June 7, 1838, append. numb.