On these points I think indeed that my Father, upon the whole, was more sinned against than sinning; but I should be far from attempting to vindicate all the condemnatory parts even of his serious writings. Since he was laid in the grave there have been vehement renewals of former attacks upon him; but if I had not been called upon to republish his Literary Life personalities of this sort would not have engaged my thoughts for more than a passing moment. He is at rest; no longer to be disquieted by injustice or capable of being harmed by it; "the storms, reproaches and vilifyings" of this angry world come not nigh his dwelling. But some willingly hear his voice, as it yet speaks in his written remains, and will read with pleasure the following extract from the Aids to Reflection, on the keen and poisoned shafts of the tongue," which I give in conclusion, as applicable to the subject that has been discussed, but without intending any particular application whatever. 66 "The slanders, perchance, may not be altogether forged or untrue; they may be the implements, not the inventions, of malice. But they do not on this account escape the guilt of detraction. Rather it is characteristic of the evil spirit in question, to work by the advantage of real faults; but these stretched and aggravated to the utmost. It is not expressible how deep a wound a tongue sharpened to the work will give, with no noise and a very little word. This is the true white gunpowder, which the dreaming projectors of silent mischiefs and insensible poisons sought for in the laboratories of art and nature, in a world of good; but which was to be found in its most destructive form, in 'the World of Evil, the Tongue.' I have heard it said that the lives and characters of men ought never to be handled by near relations and friends, whose pride and partial affection are sure to corrupt their testimony. This is like saying that animal food should never come to table be 13 Edit. 5, vo cause it is liable, in warm weather, to become tainted; reports of friends and relations are the flesh diet of the Biographical Muse, whereby she is kept in health and strength; without them her form would become attenuated, and her complexion sallow and wan. Contemporary biography can only proceed either from friends, from enemies, or from indifferent persons; the last class may be the most unbiassed in their testimony, but, for the most part, they have little testimony to give; they know nothing and care nothing about him whose life is to be recorded, till the task of writing it falls into their hands. It should be remembered, too, that a man's enemies-(and it is wonderful how many enemies men of mark are sure to acquire-among the vulgarminded, who hate genius, for its own sake, while they envy its outward rewards-among the high-minded and strong-headed, who are in violent antagonism to an individual genius, through the bent of their own),-that these will give their testimony against him gratuitously, and that unconcerned persons will adopt it for mere amusement's sake,-will carelessly repeat the severest judgments, insensible as the "two-handed engine" itself, that cares not whether it descends upon a reprobate or a royal martyr. The testimony of friends is needed, if only to balance that of adversaries; and, indeed, what better grounds for judging of a man's character, upon the whole, can the world have, than the impression it has made on those who have come the nearest to him, and known him the longest and the best? I, for my part, have not striven to conceal any of my natural partialities, or to separate my love of my Father from my moral and intellectual sympathy with his mode of thought. I have endeavored to give the genuine impressions of my mind respecting him, believing that, if reporters will but be honest, and study to say that, and that alone, which they really think and feel, the color, which their opinions and feelings may cast upon the subject they have to treat of, will not finally obscure the truth. Of this I am sure, that no one ever studied my Father's writings earnestly, and so as to imbibe the author's spirit, who did not learn to care still more for Truth than for him, whatever interest in him such a study may have inspired. These few lines are an attempt to bring out a sentiment, which my Father once expressed to me on the common saying that "Love is blind." Passion is blind, not Love: her wond'rous might OMISSA. principles in no danger of being exaggerated." Introd., p. 31. Principles cannot go too far, because they have the boundless realm of spirit to move in: manifestations,-thoughts, words, deeds (for thoughts are manifestations to the mind of the subject),—are in that other kingdom of Space and Time, which is essentially limited; and hence they may exceed in degree, even if they correspond to what is right. We cannot really possess any virtue in excess. Rashness, for example, is not exaggerated courage; it is courage unattended by good sense, consequently wrong in the mode, and possibly extreme in the measure, of its manifestations; and the same may be said of every vice which appears to be the wrong side of a virtue; it is a vice, not from intensity of degree, but from the want of true discernment and just feeling, quoad hoc, in the subject. For surely the prodigal giver is not more liberal than the generous man; neither are the rash more courageous than the truly brave. To be rash is to be fool-hardy; to be prodigal is to be a spendthrift. The truth is, that the matter of every virtue and vice is simply indifferent; it is the form alone that constitutes it good or evil. The mere natural disposition, which may be called the base of a virtue or a vice, is neutral; it becomes good by the direction which it receives from the Practical Reason; or evil from the obliquity which it is sure to assume in the silence of the Divine Light. Compare with our 9th and 13th Articles. "Waterland modernizes Tertullian." Ib., p. 63. Dr. Pusey does the same, I think, when he argues that the ancient writer could not have separated the new birth from reception of the Spirit. (Script. Views, pp. 152-4, and Lib. of the Fathers, 10, p. 263.) From T.'s own language, it seems clear enough that he did separate them; that he believed the soul to be reformed by water and supernal virtue first, informed by the Spirit afterwards; the tenement to be prepared before the Divine Tenant entered. His words are (I give Dr. P.'s own translation, only changing water for waters, as more literal), “Thus man, who had aforetime been in the image of God, will be restored to God after his likeness, &c. For he receiveth again that Spirit of God, which he had then received by his breathing upon him, but had afterwards lost by sin. Not that we obtain the Holy Spirit in the waters, but being cleansed in the water, under the Angel, we are prepared for the Holy Spirit." To make his plain meaning doubly plain, he adds, “For thus was John aforetime the forerunner of the Lord, preparing his way." I d not forget that, in those days, Anointing and Imposition of hands were immediate adjuncts of Baptism, and T. affirms that in them "the Spirit descends upon the flesh;" but to call them parts of Baptism, is surely to use a deceptive phrase; if they were component parts, the Church could not have detached them from that which they helped to constitute; they are either distinct sacraments, or no sacraments, in the higher sense here in question, at all. On this and other points Tertullian's doctrine of baptism differs essentially, as it seems to me, from that which is now set forth as the doctrine of the Fathers,-which was the doctrine of some of them. True it is, that such a separation of ideas as I have ascribed to Tertullian argues an utter want of metaphysical insight into the ideas themselves; but I believe that in the early times of Christianity there was this want of insight in Christian writers; Hermas, the inspired Shepherd, as Irenæus and others then thought him, separates ideas still more strangely, and his strange separation seems to be adopted by Clemens Alexandrinus ! (Hefele's edit., p. 224, with extract in note from Strom. II., p. 452.) "tacit establishment." Ib., p. 73. I mean silent as to its coincidence with Luther's doctrine. But Mr. N. expressly admits that Luther is "in the right" with regard to "the exact and philosophical relation of justification to sanctification," and "prefers" his statement, scientifically considered, to that of St. Austin; Luther himself considered St. Augustin to be substantially of his mind in the matter. See Table Talk, p. 211. Truly as now Mr. N. teaches a " rationalistic Romanism," so formerly he taught a Lutherano-Anglicanism; he never has succeeded in blinding his mind's eye to one whole side of truth. His literary genius and intellectual power are as apparent in his last work as ever; but it is one thing to walk in the high road, and quite another to make paths in an untrodden territory. Ib., 83. "faith justifies before and without charity." In Gal. ii., 16, the grace, charity, is so connected with deeds of charity, bona opera, that it is not easy to tell, from the author's mere words, whether he meant the former by itself, or as incarnated in the latter, when he says, hæc fides sine et ante charitatem justificat. But, even if he meant that faith justifies before the inward grace of charity, this is but asserting that priority of faith, in the order of thought, which the mind cannot reject, which is involved in the Tridentine saying, that faith is the root of all justification; for the root is before the stem and branches. Faith justifies before outward charity in time; before inward charity in order of nature. Mr. Newman asks, in reference to Melancthon's and Calvin's statements on this point, "what is the difference between saying, that faith is not justifying unless love or holiness be with it, or with Bellarmine, that it is not so, unless love be in it?" Answer, none at all, if in be taken merely to denote the relative situation of love and faith in the human mind. But that is not the point; the point is, does the justifying power belong to faith, as faith, or does love help it to justify? By denying that faith is informed with charity, Luther only meant to deny that it is rendered justifying by charity. Mr. N. himself teaches that faith has the exclusive privilege of connecting the soul with Christ, and thus implicitly denies, that love is in it for the purpose of such connexion; while to works he seems to ascribe another sort of justifying power. What Luther meant to insist upon is, that it is the apprehension of Christ that justifies rather than any quality of the mind considered as such. "substituted for general renovation." Ib., p. 80. Mr. Ward holds it a sure sign of moral corruptness in Luther's doctrine of faith, that it is proposed as affording relief to the conscience. But how does it propose this? By deadening the conscience? No, but by giving it rest. He giveth his beloved rest; but they must be His beloved who can obtain this rest, according to Luther. It proposes to relieve the conscience by substituting simple faith in Christ as the means and instrument of justification, which includes righteousness and spiritual peace, for outward works of penance as the preparatory means. His opponents affirm that such performances are the way to true Faith; but this Luther denied; he thought that men might go on all their lives obeying a priest's prescriptions, yet never turn to God with their whole heart and soul, but be kept walking to and fro in a vain shadow; he saw too that spiritual physicians often acted selfishly, making a worldly |