to be one, are supplemented by the Catholic Church, and its predecessors, 'the great heatlien of antiquity.' I am afraid there is some confusion among these five guides, parent, king, clergy, Catholic Church, and heathen philosopher; still I am anxious to know your rules for studying ethics under these motley masters.

S." Before we pass to this point, let me bring out more distinctly certain other precepts involved in these; the importance of which you will not understand, till you become deeply acquainted with the philosophical disputes of the day. When you examine the collection of ethical facts which history, daily life, the erections of art, and the records of consciousness present, and along side these facts find a variety of theories by separate leaders, you have the choice of proceeding in either of the three following ways:-as a rationalist, eclectic, or syncretist. German works tempt to rationalism; French to eclecticism; English work, or rather the English government, leads to syncretism.

C.-"These are certainly, as you observe, rather hard names, nor is it very plain to me, how you will make them ethical guides.

S."You may adopt one or other of these systems: first, you may resolve on forming a new theory of your own. You may say reason is given to be exercised, to search out truth independently, and not be ruled by the opinions of others. So said Locke and Rousseau, so says Mr. Owen. They all admire truth, as every founder of a pernicious system pretends to do but be assured the moment a man professes this earnest enthusiasm for truth, you have reason to distrust him; there can scarcely be a surer sign that his theory will prove a lie.

"This results from the two senses in which truth is used; as a fancy or a theory, and in its proper sense-as the unchangeable, infinite, selfexisting, unconditional nature of Almighty God.

66 The author of all evil never invented a more ingenious device, than this double sense of the word truth."-(Pages 64, 65.)

C.-"Mr. Locke must be greatly indebted to your kindness in classing him with Owen and Rousseau; nor have you by this double meaning of truth, injured the original thinker, since why should he necessarily, by professing a love for truth, mean it only in the sense of human fancies? But if the profession of an earnest enthusiasm for truth, be a good sign of lying, is it not safer to profess a love for lies, as a sign of the truth; and why, in this case, should you make so dangerous a pretence as to seek and teach this ambiguous truth?

"The unconditioned nature of Almighty God' is exactly what we can never know, without omniscience; but only those conditions and attitudes under which he is pleased to accommodate himself to human conceptions; -all else is so high we cannot attain to it; and, therefore, the truth you speak of, as a reality, is literally the sign of ignorance and falsehood.

S.-"Each man carries within him certain standard principles, nature forms a theory for him, does fire burn him to-day, he is prepared next time he sees fire to anticipate burning. These hasty generalizations, whether subjected to subsequent experiment or not, we make the rule of our belief, to try all facts by them.

"But we are morally culpable if we trust implicitly to these hasty generalizations; look, for instance, at the science of geology; distinguished

geologists have frequently changed their views, advancing and varying by subsequent experiment; but if without this, we assert our first conclusions dogmatically and reject all that does not coincide with them, we are morally guilty." (Pages 65, 67.)

C. "This is no great rule for the study of ethics, nor any objection to original thinking; it does not prove that we should not form opinions for ourselves; but that we should do so fairly, and with an eye to all the evidence within our reach and you have charged God, or nature, with this rationalizing process, in saying, that nature forms these theories for us, and that God expects we should correct them afterwards by our own enquiries, or (which is the same) by our private judgment.

"Who is it then, that violates the laws of God in our nature, EXCEPT THE CHURCH, which prevents us imitating the geologist in advancing, and tries to stereotype our intellects after a dogmatical creed, that is not to be improved upon or even enquired into?

S.-"Besides this sin of carelessness in not correcting our conclusions, if we bigotedly adhere to our own crude generalization, in opposition to other principles put before us, by parents, by the state, by learning, by antiquity, by goodness, by piety, in books, and buildings, and solemn rites, and vast institutions, and methodized systems;-if we cast these off and follow the thought of our own heart, beside the intellectual folly, there is added the clear moral guilt of irreverence, ingratitude, insensibility to shame, of stubbornness and disobedience, not only to man but to God, by whom human authority was placed over us."-(Page 67, 68.)

C. "I am afraid Professor Sewell that you are forgetting yourself, for I observe, that when you grow high and mighty, and introduce Divine sanction, it is to cover the weakness of your arguments.

"The scientific illustration, which supported your first rule, destroys the second; for, in geology, we have nothing to do with any human buildings or rites, but God's building of this earth, and are to correct old theories by new researches; and here you stop us suddenly, by piety, by books, by the fancies of men, which you had formerly declared to be falsehood under the name of truth. Human authority is Divinely appointed, but not human usurpation; and fact or reality, truth in its true sense, is, as you before observed, not men's theories, but God's works,existing things.

"But here we are called back to books,-Owen, Rousseau, the Church, and great heathen writers; the same argument imprisoned Galileo, and now you garnish his sepulchre; for he, in opposition to 'friends, the State, antiquity, learning, piety, books, buildings, and solemn rites,' declared, with stubborn disobedience, that the world goes round; and so it does; and will turn your buildings and solemn rites upside down.

"The worshippers of the great Brahm, or Budd, or Fo, will find in your Christian morals, a fair answer to the Christian missionaries. But it may be observed, by an obstinate original thinker, that, since God expects us to modify conclusions, and to follow truth, not human opinions, or socalled solemn rites, we shall obey him best, as we question, impugn, and overturn, not by the thought of our own heart, but by what he shews unto us, all that these hoary priests, solemn temples, so boldly impose upon us. This must be so, or Galileo, was morally guilty for speaking the truth.

S.-"Again, a man may hold a general principle, such as benevolence, and consider strict justice as so incompatible as to be rejected: but is he willing to carry out the principle of faith, so far as to trust legitimate authority, when it puts before him, gravely and obviously, things that seem inconsistencies? Remember (and you cannot receive a more important axiom,) that nearly all true systems rest on at least two principles, seemingly opposed to each other. If a system having in other respects a trustworthy character, hold decidedly and put forward prominently, apparent inconsistencies, the presumption is in favour of its truth. The refusal to try the possibility of practically holding together declarations not necessarily repugnant, but both supported by authority, is another moral fault, the cause of nearly all ethical errors, heresies, and schisms."(Pages 68, 69.)

C.-"Legitimate authority, is undoubtedly sufficient to support any doctrines; but if it be only illegitimate, the dogmatism and presumption of a teacher hiding himself behind a pretended Church, his best defence is the one you now set up,-the seeming inconsistencies of his teaching, in which you have an abundant evidence for a 'divine legation.'

"Perhaps, if you were for once to be consistent, and apply the defence to the other side, those objections you make to independent thinking, would appear to be a want of that faith which 'tries the possibility of holding together declarations not necessarily repugnant,' which want is a moral fault.

S."Once more, our error may arise from a sin of carelessness: from not thoroughly tracing out all the circumstances; and this carelessness, by the first law of morals, is a punishable offence."-(Page 69.)

C.-"Then we should be very careful and independent in the exercise of our private judgments: not being warped or ruled by others, since we are responsible for ourselves.

S.-"Why have we gone into this question? Because I wish to point out to you the many chances there are of error, if you will persist in walking by the sight of your own eyes;' and 'trusting to your own understanding;' the almost certainty that you will fall into them; the absolute certainty that, if you fall you will be punished, and deserve to be punished." (Page 70.)

C.-"This is very kind and considerate on your part; but it would be more to the point in view, if you would oblige me by saying, first, if my own eyes are of no use, what they were made for? And secondly, whether your own eyes are of any use to you, or whether you are blind also? And finally, whether this is a general law, that no man may safely walk by the sight of his own eyes; and consequently whether there is not equal reason to reject the sight of other people's eyes; for if none can guide himself, none can guide others; and the world is a blind asylum, without an eye doctor. But methinks you mean that I am blind, and you will lead me into a d tch; that it is a priests' plea, the weakness of the human understanding, in order to set up the super-human infallibility of a legitimate authority.

"You may, perhaps, (I know not by what culpable negligence,) be unaware, that the rule 'lean not to your own understanding,' refers to THY understanding, as much as to mine; and that it excepts no man in your

entire priestly fraternity: 'He only is excepted who did put all things under him,' that in all religious questions we should read only his word, and seek his Spirit, and refrain from priests whose breath is in their nostrils, and who cannot believe, because they seek honour one of another, and of all mankind.

"You may, perhaps, be ignorant, that this attempt of priests, to set up for guides and to disparage human intellect, in comparison with their own, is that awful sacrilege and presumption of taking God's seat, and assuming to themselves the pre-eminence he expressly reserves to himself; thus becoming gods, adopting divine arguments, the position of the omniscient and infallible, as a reason for our submission to them; taking God's word out of his mouth, and clothing themselves in the honours which belong only to the King immortal and invisible.

"You may, perhaps, be ignorant, (through some moral fault of not examining all the circumstances, according to your own rule,) that God, in his word, teaches us what we could not otherwise know, and, on this ground, requires us not to rely on our own opinions and conjectures apart from his teaching; and that, therefore, for your priests to apply this to yourselves, is to climb up to God's throne, and to approach very nearly to the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost by denying or superseding his office as the medium of spiritual teaching for the world.

"This is a very grave charge, and is intended gravely, against you and the whole priesthood,-that by an ignorant or wilful perversion of the Scriptures, which are the work of the Holy Ghost, you set up for guides of the blind, to take the place of Scripture and set the Holy Ghost aside, annul his office, and assume it yourselves: and this is blasphemy, for a man to take God's place, as every priest does; and as you do, in this use of the Holy Scriptures.'

(To be Continued.)

III.

STATESMEN'S RELIGION.

"EVERY PLANT WHICH MY HEAVENLY FATHER HATH NOT PLANTED SHALL BE ROOTED UP."-(Matt. xv. 13.)

NEWMAN'S PHASES OF FAITH.*

WE have long meditated an examination of Mr. Newman's history and defence of his development into the opposite direction of his brother, the Father Superior of a Birmingham Roman Catholic Oratory, and the intended head of the intended Irish Roman University. We have, however, been prevented hitherto from bestowing upon that gentleman the attentions we purposed, and now can only introduce him to our readers in this department, preliminary to an examination of his subsequent views, in the columns devoted to our infidel friends, when we hope to enquire into his transmigration out of a Christian creed, into that of nondescript pious infidelity.

And we desire our Church of England friends to consider the important fact, that of late, they have trained two classes of men in their seminary for religion; namely, PRIESTS FOR ROME, and WRITERS FOR InFIDELITY: amongst the latter we may enumerate, F. W. Newman, Fronde, and Foxton, the most earnest and polished subverters of the Christian faith. Both these results we attribute to the same source, the want of clearness and consistency in the formularies and doctrines of the Established Church; by which some, relying on authority, find it leads further than England, namely, to Rome; and others, also relying on authority, find it inconsistent and incapable, and thereby become loosened from the foundations of their religious belief, which having first received as an entire system on tradition, the failure of any one part, renders them suspicious of everything; because their reason is not exercised to entertain truth on its proper grounds, but only as a national faith, stereotyped from our forefathers, instead of independent judgment and enlightened personal

conviction.

Such, at least, is our conclusion, and the only remedy we can imagine, is in a reconstruction of the Church, on a scriptural principle, casting out those remnants of Roman ritual which nullify and contradict the fundamental doctrines of the Reformation; nor can this be accomplished, without trusting that popular element, which has, in the laity of the Church,

"Phases of Faith, or Passages from the History of my Creed." By Francis Wm. Newman. London: John Chapman.