THE

ECLECTIC REVIEW,

FOR SEPTEMBER, 1831.

Art. 1.-1. Ecclesiastical History, in a Course of Lectures, Delivered at Founder's Hall, Lothbury, London. By William Jones, M.A. Author of "Lectures on the Apocalypse," &c. Vol. I. 8vo. pp. 556. London, 1831.

2. Library of Ecclesiastical Knowledge. Vol. I. of Historical Series. The History of Christianity to the Age of Constantine. 12mo. pp. 190. London, 1831.

3. Library of Ecclesiastical Knowledge. Vol. I. of Miscellaneous Essays. 12mo. pp. 240. London, 1831.

THE readers of Church history and of works on ecclesiastical

polity, are either the stanch, or the wary. The stanch are your sound, thoroughgoing folk, of all parties, whose notions of true and false in matters of this sort are as steady and immoveable as the two poles, upon which all the levities of the world are giddily turning about; and who, to free themselves from useless annoyances and idle oscillations of mind, will have every thing served up to them in their particular taste; nor will by any means dip a finger in a dish which has not been prepared by their own cook. But, on the contrary, those whom we call the wary, far from swallowing without fear whatever has been dished in their own kitchen, and far from always suspecting poison at other men's tables, are most jealous at home, and find it greatly promote health to dine often abroad.

Now it is an easy thing to recommend the proper sort of books to readers of the first named class. A good party man has only to look at the publisher's name, or, at furthest, to that of the author, and without a moment's more trouble, or the least exercise of judgement, he may be sure that all is sound and right-all as it should be:-he needs fear no spurious

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candour, no foolish concessions, no wincing, no misnamed liberality, no dangerous excess of learning or intelligence, in a book authenticated by the genuine shop-mark. On the contrary, he feels a comfortable certainty that it will fortify every wholesome prepossession, defend the soul against that spiritual ague-the doubt of being in the wrong; and in a word, will make the Roman Catholic a more devoted Catholic, or the Churchman a more orthodox Churchman, or the Dissenter a more resolute Dissenter, as the case may be, than he was before. In truth, if we held the office of literary directorsgeneral to the stanch men of all parties, we should, when consulted, do nothing more than, after having asked the individual his denomination, give him a billet either to Duke Street-City Road-Piccadilly-St. Paul's Church Yard (north side)—or, Stationer's Court. Who can say how much comfort and security are comprised (like a cordial essence in a patent medicine) in the simple names at the foot of a title-page;-Keating and Brown; Mason; Hatchard; Rivingtons; or, best of all, Westley and Davis !

To come home to the business in hand, and as we are intending to give to the volumes before us the benefit of a double recommendation, or a recommendation on two counts, we very confidently hand over, both Mr. Jones's Ecclesiastical History, and the publications of the Ecclesiastical Knowledge Society, to the favour of all stanch men on our side of the world; that is to say, to those who undoubtedly are in the right', and who moreover are resolved always to think themselves so.

But we must turn to the wary readers; that is to say, the free and intelligent, who cannot bring themselves to rely upon evidence on one side, even the best side, of any question. They read, for example, Hume's History, but do not trust it; or Mr. Lingard's History, but dare not trust it;-or they read certain well known church histories, but will not trust one of them, any more than they trust the History of the Decline and Fall. These cautious and independent men (we suppose them not to have access to the first sources of history) take care always to read modern compilations in pairs,-a Papist and a Protestant, a Churchman and a Dissenter, and so on; and, as they proceed, they exercise their skill in extracting from the adverse testimony the nearest approximation possible to simple truth. This method, it must be confessed, is at best a very imperfect one; but it is the only one within their reach; and the general result of it will be something incomparably better than either sheer ignorance, or the deformed image of knowledge-a mere scare-crow, which is held and admired by your stanch partisans.

Now this class of readers, who have risen dissatisfied from

the dried details of Mosheim, and have wished for something far more vivid and glowing, as well as more comprehensive, than they find in Campbell or Jortin, and who, even in reading Milner, feel that they dare not surrender themselves to a guide so prepossessed, though honest and pious;-these readers will gladly avail themselves of the aid afforded by some recent works of an opposite tendency. And without irony, we can say, that the publications of the Society for the Diffusion of Ecclesiastical Knowledge, besides being highly acceptable to all determined oppugners of hierarchies and establishments, will be profitably examined, or looked into, by impartial readers, who are, and justly, suspicious of our standard church historians, and wish to look at the same facts in a different colour. These compositions might be likened to the pencil notes, or marginalia, which sometimes greatly enhance the value of a copy of a good, but faulty author;-marking his misrepresentations, exposing by a brief hint his sophisms, or simply, by a treble note of sarcastic admiration, putting the reader on his guard against some impudent, but plausible untruth.

It will not be imagined that we, or any other honest reviewers, should pledge ourselves to the approbation, entire, of a series of papers or essays by various hands', and of course of very unequal merit. What we are prepared to do, is cordially to recommend these little volumes to all intelligent persons who wish to have before them evidence and arguments of all kinds on the important subjects of church history and polity. The volume containing the History of Christianity to the Age of Constantine, goes over, of course, the usual ground, after an introductory disquisition (which occupies a quarter of the whole) on the state of the world at the Christian epoch. The other contains six Essays; namely,-On Free Inquiry in Religion.-Christ the only King of his Church.-The Importance of Correct Views of the Constitution of the Church. The Constitution of the Primitive Churches.-On the present State of Religion in Great Britain.-On Episcopacy. A word more on these volumes presently.

Mr. Jones stands possessed already of a well-earned, might we say a hard-earned, reputation on the field of Church History, which this course of Lectures will not forfeit. Its form, as Lectures, will prepare the reader to expect much which is not mere history, and which could properly have had no place, if the volume had been announced as a History of the Church.' Thus we reach the eighth Lecture, and the 172d page, before we get clear of what might be deemed introductory matter. The Preliminary discourse comprises,-a view of the character of Christ, the Saviour of the world,-the state of the Gentile world at the time of the Messiah's appearance, and

the state of the Jewish nation at the same epoch. The first Lecture, besides introductory matter, contains strictures on the works of Dupin, Mosheim, and Milner. The second is on the nature of Christ's kingdom, and His doctrine. The third continues the same subjects, and includes-worship and discipline. Lecture fourth narrates the events mentioned or implied in the canonical records. The fifth and sixth, with some argumentative matter, carry on the same authenticated narrative. The seventh advances to the close of the first century. The eighth treats of the early heresies. The ninth relates the events of the first twenty years of the second century. The tenth describes the persecutions which filled the middle portion of the same period. The eleventh brings forward the early Christian writers, as far as to A.D. 200. The twelfth is devoted chiefly to Tertullian. The thirteenth is a controversial retrospection, which will give contentment to those who think with the Writer. The fourteenth brings on to the stage, Cyprian, Origen, and Dionysius. The fifteenth again treads upon disputed ground, in giving an account of the origin of spiritual despotism, and of dissent in the third century. The sixteenth, which closes that period, narrates the persecutions that raged in it. The seventeenth brings forward Constantine, and the greatest of all visible revolutions. The reign of the imperial convert occupies the eighteenth Lecture. The nineteenth is controversial; as is the twentieth. In the twenty-first, the Author resumes the office of historian, and carries his narrative down to the utter extinction of (public) paganism, under Theodosius. In the twentysecond, Mr. Jones is at once the polemic, the expositor of prophecy, and the historian; and in the latter capacity, he brings his reader as far as to A.D. 500. The twenty-third Lecture is devoted to a sketch of Druidism, preparatory to his account, in the twenty-fourth, of the plantation of the Gospel in the British Islands. The twenty-fifth reverts to the general history, and relates to the Novations and Donatists. The twenty-sixth narrates the rise and advance of the Romish politico-ecclesiastical power; and does not omit the occasion of bringing so biting a theme home upon the Church of England. The twenty-seventh is occupied with Monkery, Image worship, &c.; and the last is devoted to the rise of Mohamedism, and to the growing ignorance and corruption of the Christian Church; bringing the general history as low as to A.D. 800.

Full and elaborate criticism is always most properly reserved for works which, advance a claim to the highest kind of originality; as, for example, in the department of history, those which are the fruit of the Author's own laborious examination of ancient and original documents. But a book which, however ably written, has been drawn, as to its materials, wholly or

chiefly from other compilations, and which reports all facts, and makes all quotations at second-hand, cannot demand much more than a general recommendation to general readers. We perceive that Mr. Jones has consulted some original authorities; but it does not appear that he himself has the Fathers (Greek and Latin) at his fingers' ends; nor that he has traversed all the painful road of ancient lore, sacred and profane. He might not perhaps have pleased the class of readers for whom he writes, so well as he is likely to do, had he in fact brought before them the fruits of thirty years' hard reading in the dead languages. And as we do not feel bound to criticise or minutely examine these lectures as history, so neither are we at all inclined to remark upon them as controversy, in doing which we might be compelled to dispute some of the Author's most material and best fortified positions. We subjoin a paragraph or two from his account of the establishment of Christianity in Britain.

Of the state of the Christian religion in this country during the first three centuries, our information is so very scanty that it is difficult to speak with any certainty about it. We know indeed from Tertullian, whose testimony has been already adduced, that it had extended beyond the limits of the Roman province, into those parts of Britain which had not submitted to the arms of that victorious people; which seems to imply that it had found its way into Scotland and Wales, perhaps Ireland also. There were also two evils which greatly distressed the churches of Asia, Africa, and continental Europe, from which the British churches seem to have been happily exempt--I refer to persecution, and the prevalence of heresy.

It was the happy lot of the Christians in Britain, to enjoy a profound peace during the greater part of the first three centuries. No doubt their distant situation contributed greatly to this; to which may also be added the humane character of their governors, the want of power in their heathen priests, and their own prudent and peaceable behaviour. Hence it is not till the time of Diocletian, about the end of the third century, that we read of any persecution of the Christians in Britain. It is mentioned by Gildas, the most ancient of our historians, who says that it continued nine years in some other countries, but only two in Britain; and these appear to have been the two last of Diocletian's reign. Of the circumstances attending this persecution, we know but little; and even that little comes to us through a very impure channel; viz. the monks, a race of men who could never abstain from the marvellous where religion was concerned. The truth, when separated from the legendary and miraculous embellishments with which it is adorned by these writers, seems to be this, that some time near the end of the third, or beginning of the fourth century, the Christians of this country were persecuted for their religion;—that in their persecution, Albanus, a native, and probably an elder of the church in Verulamium (now called St. Albans) suffered martyrdom, and had the honour of being the first British martyr: that besides