correct them. Mr. Froude professes in several places the highest possible admiration for Mr. Carlyle; surely he will regret that he did not act upon that favourite maxim of his, so forcibly illustrated in the fifth of his 'Latter-day Pamphlets '— "Speech is silvern; silence is golden!"

The Soul' and the Phases of Faith' are works of a higher character than those which have engaged our attention; nor is there so much in them that betrays the Oxford education of their author. Their natural and vigorous style, and serious, and even spiritual tone, are calculated to secure them a wide circulation; and to give to both objections and assertions, in the minds of most readers, greater weight than in themselves they possess ; whilst the latter feature suggests the hope that their accomplished writer may yet see the fatal defects of that phase of his faith represented in the Soul,' and how they can be supplied by the peculiar truths of the Scriptures; which he has too hastily, however long the process, rejected as a source of religious knowledge. He himself remarks, as if to encourage such a hope, respecting the first novel opinion' that he embraced-' this, I believe, had a great effect in showing me how little right we have at any time to count on our opinions as final truth, however necessary they may just then be felt to our spiritual life' (Phases, p. 6.) We only wish that our comments may be of any service in showing that the reasons for which he has given up much that he disowns, are at least as unsatisfactory as those for which he formerly held it; and that whilst he has not got beyond the reach of difficulties and objections, of exactly the same kind as those which apply to the truth as it is in Jesus,' there are others which belong peculiarly to that aspect under which he now regards the relations of man to God. This desire would of itself oblige us to use that plainness of speech, which the consideration of the influence of these works on other minds, and the arguments and expressions occasionally used by Mr. Newman, have also enjoined upon us.

We begin with the Phases of Faith,' because although published last, it displays the process through which the mind and 'creed' of the author went, before the thought of constructing a new basis of theology,' in the Natural History of the Soul,' occurred to him. We would earnestly recommend those who wish to know the full worth, or worthlessness, of the most spiritual scheme of doctrine which in late years has been proposed as a substitute for the gospel, to adopt this order. They will be surprised to find that Mr. Newman, notwithstanding the extent to which he has carried his disbelief, admits all the principal axioms on which the argumentative defence of the

Christian religion rests (Soul, pp. 1, 2, 118, &c.)—and practically, all the great truths of that religion also. And if, as is too probable, the reading of the Phases' should drive any halfthinking young men to infidelity, the subsequent perusal of the Soul' may show them how untenable a position they have reached, even by the confession of him who led them there, and thus stimulate them to regain a new and more firm hold of the gospel of Christ.

This History of my Creed' is the record of as determined and complete a destruction of everything save the sentiment of religion in a mind, as we ever read of; and the History of the Soul,' of as desperate an attempt to reconstruct out of that sentiment a system of doctrine. Mr. Newman seems to have acted just as if that artist who discovered a work of one of the great masters covered by some wretched painting of recent date, instead of removing the profane daub with religious care, that he might preserve the original unharmed, had set about it with such eager zeal, that at last there remained nought but a shapeless and almost colourless confusion; and then, in wrath, had scraped the whole from the panel, and laboriously reproduced the subject, modified as his own taste suggested; and had offered that to the world as at least some compensation for what it had lost.

We cannot undertake to notice every one of the multitude of distinct questions in this Phases of Faith,' and in general, for satisfaction on points of sacred criticism and interpretation, we refer to the numerous modern works especially devoted to these subjects; with this single remark, that men whose piety, scholarship, truthfulness, and logic, are at least equal to Mr. Newman's, have arrived at such different results from those stated most confidently here, that a suspense of judgment, till their results and investigations have been examined, is a slight demand to make upon our readers. Our purpose is simply to show that Mr. Newman's arguments do not justify his conclusions, or else justify much wider conclusions, so that he ought to give up what he would be the last to abandon; and that he so conducts his inquiries that he is not a safe guide in the perilous path, along which he offers to lead his readers. The manful way in which he speaks of his brother, and the reasons which led him to dissent from the Established Church, we may mention here as worthy of notice, although they do not come within the scope of our criticism, and with them, all the passages of external history are excluded.

The story is arranged under six well-defined periods; the three last of which form a distinct division, being almost entirely taken up with an account of the inquiries which led Mr. New

man to relinquish the Scriptures. In the former periods his inquiries related principally to doctrines; and at the close of the third, there was scarcely one doctrine of popular theology left to be given up. Before we remark on this early part of his book, there is one general observation which must be made. The question raised in each instance is respecting some doctrine, or form of faith, which had ceased to represent truth to his mind; and yet we find at last, that Mr. New man has given up in intent the whole of the gospel itself, and all its truth. Now, the conclusion goes so much beyond the premises, that our author's logic must have failed him; or else, notwithstanding the spirituality he has manifested in 'the Soul,' and notwithstanding his high cultivation of mind, his early Church training led him so to identify and confound the truths of the gospel with the doctrinal forms under which they have been embodied, that to give up the form was to renounce the truth also. The same want of logic, however, appears in the conclusions drawn from certain difficulties respecting the Bible, in the second division of the book; where. fore we are fain to suppose that this is an error of judgment, which Mr. Newman will gladly correct.

The first subject that demands notice (for those of imputed righteousness,' vicarious sacrifice,' and the Trinity, which arose in the period of Mr. Newman's youthful creed,' are only questions respecting the way in which certain truths are held; upon which, so long as the world lasts, from the varieties of natural endowment, education, and metaphysical systems received by individuals, or by society in general, there must needs be differences) the first subject is that of the second coming of our Lord (pp. 34-37). The investigation of all the passages quoted is impossible here; but we assert most confidently, that Mr. Newman has exaggerated the importance of this particular in the teaching of the Apostles. Neither is it ever so stated as to warrant his inevitable deduction,' that we must work for speedy results only' (p. 37). And, what is yet more convincing against him, Mr. Newman has not even in the slightest manner alluded to the following passage, in which his deduction and representation are expressly reproved:- Now we beseech brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter, as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand; let no man deceive you by any means.' (2 Thess. ii. 1-3.)

you,

Mr. Newman has, moreover, involved in this question, by implication at p. 36, and expressly at pp. 204-5-where he enumerates his inevitable deduction' as one of the evils he had

escaped by rejecting the gospel and the Bible-the exhortations respecting not loving the world, which are to be found in the First Epistle of St. John; and has interpreted them in a manner suitable to his purpose here (p. 205), which he shows in The Soul,' p. 181, he knew to be not the true interpretation. Mr. Newman may have acted an eccentric and unprofitable part' (p. 204); and he may have been misled by the Irish clergyman' (p. 37); but he has no right to charge his error to the New Testament, and make it a reason for unbelief.

His Trinitarian difficulties (pp. 13, 46, &c., 83, &c.) arose more out of creeds than out of texts; and as we do not feel in the least inclined to undertake the defence of any creed,' we can only say, with a view to indicate the practical solution of such difficulties, that this question is essentially part of the wide question of philosophy-how God exists?—and absolutely beyond the reach of our thought; but, so far as it has a practical interest for us, admits of this answer-when a man has received forgiveness, and a new life through Jesus Christ, and finds it maintained by the Holy Spirit, he will know that both Son and Spirit are Divine; whilst it is so impossible by any formula of human words to represent, adequately, the relations of the Son and Spirit to the Father, that (as is manifest from the quotations of polemical writers on all sides in this ever-vexed question) almost every different creed ever invented is to be found by fair interpretation in different texts of the New Testament. It is to such subjects that Mr. Newman's maxim, about understanding our own words' (pp. 13, 48) applies; it has nothing whatever to do with the truths which the forms attempt to convey, and which may be apprehended with all sufficient clearness for life, without being put into forms at all.

Respecting the Christian evidences, again (pp. 40, &c., 81, &c., 153, &c.), we cannot say much now. It must be palpable to every one that the evidence of Christianity is that upon which it is received (by all who truly have received it) as living truth; i.e., actual experimental proof that it is true; the conversion of its truth into daily fact. All else is merely corroborative evidence; very needful for defence, and requiring a certain amount of intellectual application to discover and apply it. In 'The Soul' (p. 252, note), Mr. Newman caricatures what we have designated the evidence; and yet, in pp. 118, &c., of the same book, he shows himself fully alive to its reality and force, and actually employs it to forefend his own theology against the attacks of rationalizing philosophers. The secret of his difficulties lies in his confounding the Bible with Christianity, as he had been taught to do by that party in the Church of England amongst whom he first appears; and as the unwise exaggerations which uninstructed

and unspiritual men employ when eulogizing the Scriptures also do. Mr. Newman insists much on the impossibility of poor and half-educated persons investigating historical and literary questions (pp. 155, &c., 200). He seems to forget that a thousand things every day come to such persons confirmatory of their belief in Bible story, the force and value of which none but a man without reason would question.

There are connected with this subject (p. 83) two topics, neither of which seems to require a long answer. 'I was unable to admit the doctrine of "reprobation," as taught in the ninth chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Romans' (p. 75). In reply to which we say, that that doctrine is not taught in that chapter, nor anywhere else in the Scriptures; but is nothing else than a corollary to the logical development of the doctrine of election. The ninth chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Romans contains (we adopt the interpretation of a theologian, whose appointment to the chair of New Testament Exegesis, in the New College, is one of the most hopeful features in that institution) only this, that though God has displaced the Jews from their position of peculiar privilege, by opening the kingdom of heaven to all believers,' neither his truth, nor his justice, nor his honour, are compromised; which is sustained by a rapid citation of examples from the Old Testament. We must do as Mr. Newman's fellow freshman did respecting imputed righteousness' (p. 4), send him back to study the matter for himself,' for he has depended too much on the commentator he has followed.

It is not necessary to enter upon the other subject-eternal punishment (pp. 76, &c.), for Mr. Newman does not touch it. No doubt it is impossible to make out any doctrine of a philosophical eternity in the whole Scriptures (p. 77); and for this very good reason, that there are no human words capable of propounding such a doctrine; and, we may add, also, because the intent of the Bible was not the propounding of such doctrines, but to teach the gospel. Respecting the whole class of passages to which the terrible pictures of the state of the lost belong, Mr. Newman ought to have seen that, in a collection of writings like the Scriptures, not every part is intended to teach even gospel truths, dogmatically; but much to excite appropriate feeling, which would lead all whom that truth concerned, to turn their knowledge of it, whencesoever obtained, and in whatever degree possessed, to living use. It hardly became a scholar like Mr. Newman, to make such account of the almost puerile erudition of that Unitarian book;' and what he says in p. 78 is not to the purpose, for the gospel would still be good tidings,' and salvation from sin a real deliverance, to as many as received it by faith, though all that he says about the vast majority of man