head of it could be spared-Gregory declined on account of the judgments likely to fall on those who meddle with such things, and advised her not to covet so dangerous a possession; and when the empress continued to urge her petition, and cited the Greek practice of bringing relics from other countries, Gregory related an incident which had just occurred at Rome, where Greeks had been detected ransacking the tombs of St. Paul's Basilica by night, and, being questioned, declared that they meant to carry them to Greece as bones of saints: "from which circumstance (argues Gregory), I suspect that the Greeks do not really transport sacred relics" (Greg. Ep. iv. 30. p. 279).

The use of lights again was indispensable in the catacombs, but it was a strange perversion to continue it when worshipping during subsequent ages in the broad daylight. "We almost see (says Vigilantius) the ceremonial of the Gentiles introduced into the churches under pretence of religion: piles of candles lighted while the sun is still shining, and every where a people kissing and worshipping, I know not what, a little dust in a small vessel wrapped up in a precious cloth. Great honour do such persons render to the blessed martyrs, thinking with miserable tapers to illumine those whom the Lamb, in the midst of the throne, shines upon with the splendour of his majesty" (226).

We had noted many other points on which these monuments of the faith of the primitive Church have an instructive bearing; such as compulsory celibacy-separation of the clergy and. laity-intercession of the saints-purgatory, &c., &c. But these errors are innovations so notoriously, and are so much more clearly refuted by Scripture and the open pages of history, that the producing these inscriptions for such a purpose would be something like bringing out a lighted taper in the noon-day sunbeam; and there is, moreover, such a touching tenderness and such directness in the simplicity of these memorials of conjugal, and parental, and filial affection, that the heart becomes too deeply engaged to allow the head full liberty to do the hard, cold, dry work of the mere theologian. And we ask ourselves-what must be the feelings of one who has taken upon himself vows of celibacy on reading such memorials of affection? He is still a man-he cannot uncreate himself-he cannot eradicate the affections which God has implanted in the heart; but, alas, he may pervert them! He cannot cease to be a man, but he may more and more approximate to the condition of a fiend. Satan himself is but the perversion of the highest endowments bestowed by God on one of his creatures; and when violence is unnaturally done to the affections im

planted by God, the least of the evils produced by it is that of crushing these affections, as is the case in weak characters. Something worse is produced in strong minds-indignation against all those who have inflicted these cruel wrongs and "envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness" towards all those who enjoy unrestrained those bounties of Providence from which we find ourselves debarred-just as Milton represents Satan lashing himself into tenfold fury against God and man at the sight of Adam and Eve in the enjoyment of their own innocence, and such a creation as the garden of Eden.

"To Basilius the presbyter, and Felicitas his wife" (191). "Petronia, a priest's wife, the type of modesty, in this place I lay my bones; spare your tears, dear husband and daughters, and believe that it is forbidden to weep for one who lives in God. Buried in peace, on the 3rd. nones of October, in the Cousulate of Festus (i. e. in 472)" (193). "This grief will always weigh upon me: may it be granted me to behold in sleep your revered countenance. My wife, Albana, always chaste and modest, I grieve, deprived of your support, for our Divine Author gave you to me as a sacred boon; you well-deserving one, having left your relations, lie in peace-in sleep-you will arise-a temporary rest is granted you. She lived forty-five years, five months, and thirteen days: buried in peace. Placus, her husband, made this" (44).

And to sum up in one word the instruction to be derived from the Church of the Catacombs, and to meet thereby and refute thereby that one erroneous principle which lies at the root of all the Papal dogmas and superstitions-RESURRECTION— the resurrection of the saints, preliminary to the kingdom of heaven-this is the fundamental doctrine of the Church; and it was by disregarding this, and acting as though the kingdom heaven was begun on earth, and the Pope as Christ's vicar were the head of that kingdom, that all corruption came in.

St. Paul appeared to the Athenians a setter-forth of strange gods, because he preached the resurrection of the dead. But it was this one doctrine which formed the distinguishing mark of Christianity, as it was that the most scorned and opposed by the enemies of the Gospel. Pleading before Agrippa he says-"And now I stand, and am judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers: unto which promise our twelve tribes instantly serving God day and night hope to come; for, which hope's sake, I am accused of the Jews: why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that God should raise the dead?" The Jews, of all people, should be the last to reject it, being the hope of their fathers; but they did reject it and persecuted St. Paul for preaching it. The Church, in like manner, fell

away from the primitive faith; and purgatory, intercession of saints, relics, indulgences and other corruptions of doctrine, and worldly pomp and worldly devices, and all other corruptions of discipline and practice, have been the evil consequences.

It was in the hope of a resurrection, and not for the expectation of any benefit to themselves, that the primitive Christians so reverently interred and kept sacred the bodies of the departed; and they looked for a resurrection of which all the faithful should be at the same moment put in possession at the coming of the Lord; and in which, all partaking, each one would receive his own reward in proportion to the diligence which each had shown during life in improving present opportunities and using aright all the means of grace; but in which none would have aught to spare-none would lose his full reward.

Till the resurrection none are in any other than a waiting condition; the departed saints are waiting for their consummation in the reunion of soul and body at the resurrection; neither the soul without the body, nor the body without the soul, being the perfect man; and the Church on earth is waiting for that change of body which shall take place at the translation of the saints; because flesh and blood as it is-under the taint and corruption of the fall-cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. The danger at the beginning was lest the living Church-the Church where the separation of soul and body had not taken place should suppose this condition gave them a precedency, or facilitated in any way the consummation. Therefore, St. Paul warned the Thessalonians by reminding them of his former teachings, asserting that those alive and remaining should not prevent or go before those which were asleep; for the dead in Christ shall rise first. But the danger since has lain rather in the supposition that the departed saints have an advantage over the living members of the Church; but against this mistake St. Paul has also provided, in asserting that the change of the living, as well as the resurrection of the dead, shall be in the same moment, as in the twinkling of an eye. The whole Church, from the first martyr, Stephen, to the end of time, is in precisely the same condition-all waiting to hear that voice of the Son of Man which shall raise the dead and change the living. Their spirits sleep in Christ, and therefore in peace and joy; we which are alive, in like manner, hope in Christ and find peace therein. And this hope it is which has been the strength and the joy of the faithful in all generations; and which has in it not only balm for our own sorrows, but an antidote against all the poison of the false doctrines we allude to, leading us to look, from first to last, unto Christ as the only Saviour.

It is not by relics of saints, whose bodies need to put on incorruption and immortality as much as our own, that any sanctity can be imparted: it is not by the intercessions of those whose final condition is not yet determined that we can be in any way helped or benefited: it is not by purgatory or any material process that our sins are expiated, and the stain left by sin can be obliterated. It was by the sacrifice of Christ alone that atonement was made: it is to the Son of Man alone that the Father hath given life in himself: it is His voice that all that are in the graves shall hear and shall come forth-they that have done good unto the resurrection of life; they that have done evil unto the resurrection of condemnation.

ART. VIII.-The Real Danger of the Church of England, by the Rev. W. Gresley, M.A., Prebendary of Lichfield, Examined. London: Seeley and Co.

1846.

2. A Second Statement of the Real Danger of the Church of England, by the Rev. W. Gresley: containing Answers to certain Objections which have been made against his Former Statement. Second Edition. London: Burns. 1846.

THE first of these publications consists of extracts from the Record newspaper; and the anonymous scribbler of that paper finds it prudent, upon coming before the public in a less ephemeral shape, to preserve the incognito enjoyed by him when he first wrote in its pages-a proof that he does not feel quite satisfied with his theology, and that he thinks it discreet to be modest. The second is the reply of Mr. Gresley to this and other assailants, and a very masterly reply it is. We predict that it will go beyond a second edition, and that every succeeding copy will add to the conviction of the public that the Evangelicals are not less faulty in their views of the doctrines of the Church than were the seceders to Romanism, and that they are not so honest as they were, in that they still retain their berths.

That something in the way of ejection must be resorted to, before the Church can be placed in its true light, we have already said; and of the soundness of this view nothing that has hitherto been published can cause us to doubt. The Evangelicals will not voluntarily surrender their places: sacrifices will not be made by them: they know the money-value of incumbencies too well to think of changing their position. Were the Church to be remodelled to-morrow upon an exclusively Roman basis they would hold on; they would not see, or they

would pretend that they could not see, that it was no place for them. Nay, so strong is their desire to be beneficed in the Church of England that they almost quarrel with their opponents for setting the example of secession, as though it might be brought up as a precedent against them when their conduct shall form as prominent a topic of conversation as that of Mr. Newman and others, and the " tocsin of Popery" shall be sounded with less effect than at present-when Low-Churchmanship and Dissent shall be seen in their true colours, and special pleading shall no more prevail.

Speaking of the comparative merits of the two extreme parties in the Church, the writer in the Record says:

"The issue has been that the head and many of the most distinguished Tractarians are now in the bosom of Rome; while men of Evangelical principles stand steadfast on those great principles which they have ever held, and which they believe to be the great principles of Scripture, on which rests our apostolic Church."-(Gresley Examined, p. 16).

If the writer had said that the issue of the principles of the seceders showed them to have been, from the beginning, inconsistent with the doctrines of the Church of England, while those of his own party were as yet untainted with suspicion, we could have understood the argument that was intended to be pursued; but when he talks of the opinions of his party being the same as ever, and contrasts its position with that of others who have gone to Rome, it does appear as if with him the maintenance of principles was of more consequence than their consistency with the prescribed rules of the Church, and as if to stay in the Church were of more consequence than to believe with it. The writer appears to be rubbing his hands, and chuckling over his security, when he ought to be enquiring into the tenability of his position: his argument is as follows-we are as we always were: therefore we must be right; we hold our livings: that is truth. He does not appear to think that documents should be examined to justify his position: the timidity of our rulers is enough. Not but what he does go into documents, but it is merely to furnish a popular argument for the defence of his party-nothing more. He cares not whether his argument be tenable or not-he cares neither for conscience

nor truth.

Our readers will probably recollect that the great point, in the former pamphlet of Mr. Gresley, was that the Evangelicals denied the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, and that, notwithstanding that denial, they retained their places in the