wonderful, that at the end of the tenth letter, when Pascal, by the help of his Jesuit father, has extracted all these precepts from the works of the casuists, he should break forth in a torrent of indignant eloquence, which closes against him the doors of his too confiding teacher ?"

As the work proceeds, the letters wear a graver character, and Louis de Montalte, the imaginary author, no longer writes to his friend in the country, but to the Jesuit fathers. They complained that he used weapons of ridicule upon sacred things; he reminds them of the wide difference there is between laughing at religion, and laughing at those who profane it by their extravagance; and he defines the limits within which wit and satire are lawful weapons. But the Jesuits had not henceforth much raillery to fear :

“Every letter now to the end is full of clear, close reasoning, and vehement invective, exchanged sometimes for bitter sarcasm, but rarely relieved by gleams of humour or fancy. With every letter his voice assumes a deeper and a sterner tone. "The best comedies of Molière,' says Voltaire, 'have not more wit than the first Provincial Letters. Bossuet has nothing more sublime than the later ones. The key note is at first struck from the salons where the wits congregate; but the harmonies grow graver and more solemn, till we seem to sit beneath the pulpit of Port Royal.""

But, after all, it remains a question whether these five notable propositions were really contained in the Augustinus. Pascal declares that he could not find them there; and neither his honesty nor his penetration will be called in question. Mr. Beard determines that although the express words are not mentioned, yet the sense is there. We shall not venture to decide, -at least, not till we are sure that we understand what the propositions mean. They "deserve to be recorded," as our author says, "in all their original obscurity." This obscurity was, we may remark, by the way, useful to both parties. It gave rise to the cavil that the propositions might be taken in an heretical and in a catholic sense. Then sprang a double question,-if condemned, in what sense were they condemned? If really maintained by Jansen, in what sense were they maintained? And every one of these questions originated a controversy for itself. The propositions were as follow: Mr. Beard gives them as presented to the pope in the original Latin, which he thus translates :

"I. Some commandments of God are impossible of performance to just men, according to their present strength, even though they be willing and striving to perform them; and the grace which would make these commandments possible, is also wanting to them.

"II. In the state of fallen nature, no resistance is ever made to internal grace.

"III. In order to produce merit or demerit in the state of fallen

nature, liberty from necessity is not required in man, but liberty from constraint is sufficient.

"IV. The semi-Pelagians admitted the need of prevenient internal grace for all actions, even for the beginning of faith; and they were heretics, inasmuch as they would have this grace to be such as the will of man could either resist or obey.

"V. It is a semi-Pelagian error to say that Christ died or shed His blood for all men, universally."

We were not acquainted with Mr. Beard as a writer; but his name cannot remain long unknown. We feel it, however, to be no disadvantage, but the contrary, that we can review his book without the slightest knowledge of the author, his predilections, or his party. A pure, clear style (the certain indication of a powerful mind), and a congenial subject, are happily combined. And the author appears to us to reverence and appreciate the great truths of our salvation. He is, however, too anxious to make it appear that spiritual religion may be found alike in protestant churches and under the dark shadows of the papacy. In one sense this is true. God's people are to be found in every church in which Christ is recognized as a divine Saviour, and therefore in the church of Rome. But the point of real importance is one that Mr. Beard has scarcely touched. As long as her children acquiesce in her outward forms, no matter how far their hearts may be from God, so long are they dear to Rome. Conformity to the church covers every sin. Had the saintly men and women of Port Royal been as frivolous and worldly as they were devout, their genius, rank, and learning would have secured for them a high place in the affections, perhaps in the calendar, of Rome. When they began to be in earnest, Rome began to suspect them; as they grew in grace and spiritual discernment, her suspicions darkened into hatred. Just in proportion as they "walked in the light," Rome discouraged and oppressed, and at last disowned them. It is not enough to show that piety may exist in cloisters. What is the tendency of the Romish system? What encouragement does Rome offer to the sincerely pious? Rome herself gives the answer. It echoes from the dungeons of the Inquisition; it roars in the fires of Smithfield; it meets us in the Bacchanalian orgies of the Carnival; it is borne to us in the chilling blast which sweeps across the deserted plain on which once stood the house of Port Royal des Champs. And therefore our calm, solemn, and deliberate verdict, as we lay down the lives of the holiest of her communion,-an Arnauld, a Mère Angélique, a Pascal and a Quesnel,-is still the same as ever,—NO PEACE WITH ROME.

HEBERT'S NEOLOGY NOT TRUE.

Neology not True, and Truth not New: Three short Treatises concerning the Rev. F. O. Maurice's Vere-street Sermons; the Rev. Professor Jowett's Doctrine on "The Righteousness of God;" the Rev. J. L. Davies' Reply to "Atonement by Propitiation," with that Treatise also, and a Summary of the Atonement Controversy. By the Rev. Charles Hebert, M.A., Mary-le-bone. London: Nisbet and Co. 1861.

We have reached a crisis in theological opinion; but its final issue, who can predict? Are we any nearer the solution of the problem, how our own intellectual processes, or subjective conditions of mind, are to be reconciled with our modern systems of theology; or how both of these are to be brought into harmony with the disclosures and teachings of the Christian Testament? Between the human moral consciousness and the supernatural discoveries of revelation, there must be a perfect correspondence. The facts which lie far down in man's fallen nature, instead of being overlooked or depreciated, are the data on which the Bible proceeds. It assumes the lapsed and ruined condition of humanity: it does not come to reveal this fact, or to reason men into its belief; it takes it for granted, as something of which man has but too painful consciousness; and from this point, it sets out in its revelation of that infinite love which has provided for the recovery of our race. Here is the grand radical difference between our mode of philosophical thinking and the deeper utterances of the work of God." We begin with the intellectual process; the Bible begins with the moral consciousness. Our metaphysics take no cognizance of sin as a fact inseparable from man's nature; Scripture makes this the basis of all which it declares. We assume a condition of humanity which does not exist, and hence reason from false premises; on the other hand, the spirit of inspiration seizes on the very fact which our philosophy ignores, and brings into view that which philosophy never even dreamed of. Hence the effort of the present day to get rid of an external revelation, to rob that revelation of all supernatural or sufficient evidence, and to reduce our belief in its very existence to a mere fiction. And certainly it is more consistent to set aside the written word altogether, then first to admit its existence and authority, and then reason against it from our own intellectual or subjective consciousness.

Mr. Hebert, in the controversy before us, has taken advantage of his position as a believer in revealed truth. On this he plants his foot, and challenges the united strength of his opponents to force him from it. Conscious that he is standing on the side alike of religion and of humanity, he "speaks

yet

what "he knows," and this with a firm and manly tone; but withal in the spirit of love. We quite agree with him, that "vital differences constitute the heart of the controversy;" it may be conceded, that there is an advantage in the present struggle, it is manifestly, as well as really, a wrestling for the essentials of Christian doctrine,-'Agitur de VITA et sanguine,' the errors of his opponents "are vital; they are so strongly pronounced, that their exposure will prove their antidote; and that the discussion of them forms an excellent opportunity for urging upon the minds of all, but particularly upon students at the universities, upon candidates for the Christian ministry in all places, and upon inquiring minds among young men in general, the investigation of the truth once delivered by Christ and His apostles."

sons

Our author deals first with Mr. Maurice in his published works. One of the latest of these is, his Vere-street sermons, in which he asserts, that to every man, and to every man alike, has been given the spirit of adoption, so that he can claim God as his Father, and partake "the deep infinite blessing that is hidden" in this fact; that our sin consists in forgetting this; and that we are delivered from our sin only by remembering it! Is it then true, that all men have received the adoption of ? Is it true, "that St. Paul means to say, that all men, heathen or Christian, or that even all Christians—the real and the nominal alike, have received this adoption?" Is it true, that "every lost drunkard, every reprobate son and daughter of shame, every lover of filthy lucre, every Godless and Christless child of pleasure," have been introduced into this highest privilege? These questions are pressed by Mr. Hebert upon Mr. Maurice, and demand his answer. "Mr. Maurice utters a loud declaration, that they all have received the adoption of sons." Mr. Hebert again asks,

"Can men be serving God and drunkenness? Can men enjoy the witness of the Spirit in uncleanliness? Can the love of the world, and the love of the Father, exist together? Both cannot reign. And if the former reign, manifestly the latter cannot. Therefore such have not the 'adoption of sons;' and to tell such that they have, is doing all we can to shut them up in error, and to prevent their finding the truth of salvation." Again :-" If we are not yet partakers of real sonship in heart, and of the inward witness of the Holy Ghost, that God is in a spiritual sense 'our Father,' then it is a delusion to believe that it is so with us: a delusion which may probably prevent our seeking to become reconciled with God, and to be adopted into His family of real and loving, and holy sons. It is a delusion which may leave a man at ease, resisting that voice of the spirit within him, which urges him continually to repent and come to Jesus. It is a delusion which may last during prosperity and pleasure, and even through sickness and trouble; but it will probably fail him at death; and after death, and in the day of judgment, it will utterly fall to

ruins. It will sink under him. It will be like wax melting, or like flax 'that falls asunder at the touch of fire.'”

Mr. Hebert next grapples with Professor Jowett on the doctrine of imputed righteousness. The professor, having arrived at the conclusion, that "the use of language and the mode of thought are different in the writings of the apostle from what they are among ourselves," he tells us that "there is no other righteousness than that of God;" that "man who is righteous has no righteousness of his own," but that his righteousness is the righteousness of God in him." Now what does he mean by this righteousness of God in man? Does he point to the righteousness of Christ which is made over to the believer? Nothing of the kind. With him "righteousness is the righteousness of God; and the righteousness of God in man is man's communion of His righteousness,-an actual participation in God's inherent original righteousness!" He says, that the

righteousness of God is an idea not difficult for us to comprehend; human justice is also intelligible; but to conceive justice or righteousness passing from heaven to earth, from God to man, actu et potentia, at once, as a sort of life, or stream, or motion, is perplexing;"-that "yet this notion of the communion of the righteousness of God being what constitutes righteousness, is of the very essence of the gospel;"-that "this is what the apostle and the first believers meant and felt ;" and that "if we could get the simple and unlettered Christian (receiving the gospel as a little child) to describe to us his feelings, this is what he would describe;" but how this communion or participation in God's own inherent righteousness is to be obtained, the professor does not even deign to explain. An imputed righteousness, wrought out by Christ, and accepted through faith by man, he wholly repudiates, and treats as one of the after-thoughts of theology. Even on that fundamental passage of St. Paul in Romans iii. 21-26, he says that "the righteousness of God may either mean that righteousness which existed always in the Divine nature, once hidden, but now revealed; or it may be regarded as consisting in the very revelation of the gospel itself in the mind and the heart of man." On which Mr. Hebert, with great point and force, remarks,

"Now the gospel is a message about God's righteousness, which, with Mr. Jowett, means God's inherent justice or righteousness; which is a mere property or attribute of the Godhead. Therefore this second proposed interpretation of the righteousness of God is this. The attribute righteousness' means the revelation of the attribute; which is much the same as saying, the uncovering of a picture is the picture itself. Is not this a descent ad absurdum?'"

An imputed righteousness flowing from the perfect obedience and propitiatory sacrifice of Christ, and accepted by faith on