(3.) ΠΑΥΛΟΥ ΜΙΜΗΤΗΣ. O LORD! when sin's close-marshalled line Thy holy Paul, with soul of flame, Rose on Mars'-hill, a soldier lone; "Not so," He said;-" hush thee, and seek, My seasons sent for thee to speak, And use them as they rise." (4.) MOSES SEEING THE LAND. My death is come, but not decay; The keenness of youth's vigorous day Blest scene! thrice-welcome after toil- O might my lips but press the soil, Its glorious heights, its wealthy plains, They call! but He my steps restrains Ah! now they melt....they are but shades.... O Lord! in store, since Canaan fades But seen, and not possest? (5.) THE PAINS OF MEMORY. WHAT time my heart unfolded its fresh leaves In springtime gay, and scattered flowers around, And sudden-whelming storm ;~ But, ah! my self-will smiled, nor recked the gracious sound. Not without hope, this breast May one day lose its load, and youth yet bloom again. VOL. IV.-July, 1833. E CORRESPONDENCE. The Editor begs to remind his readers that he is not responsible for the opinions TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. MR. EDITOR, The Editor of the Poems of Thomas Little, and of the Memoirs of Captain Rock, the biographer of Sheridan, Lord Byron, and Lord Edward Fitzgerald, the writer of Verses Sentimental, Amatory, Satirical, has appeared at last in a new character—that of a Traveller in search of a Religion. From his former writings I had inferred that he was a person of a somewhat sceptical turn, little disposed to bow to authority, fond of novelty, bold and adventurous in his speculations, the enemy of all restraints upon the actions or speech of men, the advocate of universal liberty—I had almost said of universal licentiousness. In the present work we behold him the devoted admirer and eulogist of antiquity, the uncompromising asserter of the duty of implicit faith, the vilifier of human reason and its conclusions, and the vehement denouncer of its arrogant attempts to intrude within the precincts of sacred truth. While I was perusing the book, I was sometimes inclined to doubt the evidence of my senses. To find the scoffing wit, who had indulged on all occasions in the utmost freedom of thought and language, transformed into a declaimer against the presumptuous spirit of private judgment was, indeed, passing strange. It seems, however, that he did not at once cast off his old habits. Though he now condemns the exercise of private judgment, as presumptuous and sinful, he resolved to be guided by his own judgment in the choice of a religion. Born of Roman Catholic parents, he was bred up in the profession of their faith, but he was not satisfied to receive his religion on their authority alone; he wished it also to rest on the conviction of his understanding. He entered, therefore, upon an investigation of the doctrines of the Romish Church, and the result of the investigation was to confirm him in the belief of their truth. In tracing the steps by which he arrived at this conclusion, we shall, perhaps, be induced to think either that he retained a secret bias in favour of the tenets with which his mind was early imbued, or that his former literary pursuits have not qualified him for the task of estimating the force of evidence. He finds, for instance, among the writings of those who are called the Apostolic Fathers, an epistle purporting to be addressed by the Church of Rome to the Church of Corinth, on the subject of a schism which had broken out in the latter, but generally ascribed to Clement, one of the fellow-labourers of St. Paul, and said to be either the immediate successor of St. Peter in the see of Rome, or the third bishop after him. These are the facts, from which a common reasoner would infer that the apostles appointed overseers or bishops to preserve the purity of doctrine, and to maintain godly discipline in the churches which they founded, that a friendly intercourse was kept up between the Christian churches planted in different parts of the world, and that they were accustomed to ask and to receive counsel from each other in cases of difficulty. But our Traveller, being an uncommon reasoner, elicits from these facts satisfactory proof that the jurisdiction of the see of Peter was, even in that early age, fully acknowledged; and that Clement was a pope-an actual pope-of course invested with all the attributes which popes in later times have as-› sumed to themselves, and exacting from all the churches in Christendom implicit obedience to his decrees. In drawing this conclusion, our author seems freely to have exercised that faculty which, however essential to a poet, is but a sorry qualification for an inquirer after religious truth. This, however, is not the only acknowledgment of the jurisdiction of the see of Peter which our Traveller discovers in the first century. Ignatius, the immediate successor of St. Peter in the see of Antioch, and in that respect, at least, on an equality with Clement, the popethe actual pope-of Rome, addressed an epistle to the church fruÇ προκάθηται ἐν τόπῳ χωρίου Ρωμαίων, that is, if the passage is not corrupt, to the church which presides in a place of the Roman region; but according to the free interpretation given by our Traveller, in his text, to the church which presides over the whole Christian world. He can, as we shall see hereafter, when it suits his purpose, contend stoutly for a strict adherence to the literal meaning of words; it appears that he can also, when it suits his purpose, deviate widely from it. But we proceed to higher matter-to the test of the true disciple of the Church of Rome-the doctrine of transubstantiation. The same Ignatius, speaking of the Docete, who held that Christ was a man in appearance only, not in reality, says, They stay away from the Eucharist and from Prayer, because they will not acknowledge the eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour, that flesh which suffered for our sins. On this passage our author thus comments :-" Now when it is considered that the leading doctrine of the Docete was, that the body assumed by Christ was but apparent, there cannot be a doubt that the particular opinion of the orthodox, to which they opposed themselves, was that which held the presence of Christ's body in the eucharist to be real. It is evident that a figurative or unsubstantial presence, such as protestants maintain, would in no degree have offended their anticorporeal notions; but, on the contrary, indeed, would have fallen in with that wholly spiritual view of Christ's nature which had brought those heretics to deny the possibility of his incarnation." Truly our Traveller arrives at extraordinary conclusions. A figurative presence of Christ's body in the Eucharist would not, he affirms, have offended the anti-corporeal notions of the Docete. What, when we say that Christ's body is figuratively present in the Eucharist, do not the very words imply the reality of his body? You tell us, the Docete would say that the bread in the Eucharist is the representation of Christ's body; but we deny that he had a body; by participating in the rite I should virtually yield the very point in dispute. Our Traveller candidly admits that, but for the reference to the Docete, the precise opinion of Ignatius, on the subject of the Eucharist, might have been doubtful; whether that reference proves him to have been a believer in the corporeal presence, I leave to the judgment of the reader. But there is no end of our inquirer's discoveries in the apostolic age. After the martyrdom of Ignatius, his followers carefully collected the few bones which the wild beasts had spared, and having deposited them in a box or coffin, carried them to Antioch, where the faithful observed an annual solemnity in memory of his martyrdom. Here then, we are told, is a proof that the practice of venerating the relics of saints, as it at present exists in the church of Rome, can be traced back to the first century. Let us compare the premises with the conclusion. The friends of Ignatius deposited in a coffin his bones, which they had carefully collected on the spot, and respecting the identity of which they could not be mistaken; ergo, they sanctioned the practice of establishing depôts of relics, in which are exhibited to the gaping and credulous multitude pieces of the true cross, thorns tinged with the blood which flowed from the temples of our blessed Lord, the leg of one saint, the tooth of another. The Christians of Antioch met annually at the tomb of Ignatius and performed a religious service, in order to perpetuate the memory of his martyrdom and to animate their own courage in times when their religious profession exposed them to constant danger: ergo, they sanctioned the doctrine that, by making pilgrimages to the shrines of saints, and venerating their pretended relics, the pilgrims can procure a remission of the pains of purgatory. A custom reasonable in itself, and especially adapted to the circumstances of the early Christians, is abused to the purposes of the greatest superstition; and by the legerdemain of our Traveller, the abuse is substituted for the lawful use. The same Ignatius exhorted the churches to which he addressed his epistles, to hold fast by the traditions of the Apostles; thus, according to our Traveller, "sanctioning that twofold rule of faith, the unwritten as well as the written Word, which, by all good Protestants, is repudiated as one of the falsest of the false doctrines of popery.' Here, again, I cannot sufficiently admire the close connexion between his premises and his conclusion. Ignatius enjoined the churches to hold fast by the traditions of the Apostles; ergo, he enjoined them to hold fast by the doctrines, in support of which the church of Rome appeals to unwritten tradition. Good Protestants certainly reject those doctrines; but do they, therefore, slight the holy father's exhortation? On the contrary, their language is, "shew us an apostolic tradition, and we promise to hold fast by it; we pride ourselves in holding fast by the tradition of the apostles-by the rule of faith delivered by them to the churches which they founded, and contained in scripture." From Ignatius our inquirer proceeds to wander in a sort of drowsy reverie (I quote his own words) through the inspired fancies, as they were thought at the time, of the pious Hermas, whom he quietly assumes, as if a doubt had never existed on the subject, to be the Hermas mentioned by St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans. It is not unworthy of remark, that he puts forth as an authority on points of doctrine, a work which he himself compares to a fairy tale. In this work, however, he finds the following passage: "The first thing we have to do, is to observe the commandments of God. If, afterwards, man wishes to add thereunto any good work, (aliquid boni in the Latin,) such as fasting, he will receive the greater recompense (majorem dignitatem in the Latin.)" "Here," our traveller exclaims, "we have satisfaction to God by good works." Where? Fasting is called a good work; when practised in a spirit of humility, as a means to a moral end, it certainly is a good work, acceptable in the sight of God through the merits of Christ, and, therefore, having the promise of a recompense. But where does Hermas say, that a man by fasting can make satisfaction to God? With this specimen of the hardihood with which our traveller jumps to a conclusion, I shall close my present letter. He has discovered a pope, relics of saints, apostolical traditions, a corporeal eucharist, and satisfaction to God by good works-all in the first century. Of the last two, I find no trace whatever; with respect to the first three, I find a bishop, not in the modern acceptation of the word, a Pope of Rome; I find that the bones of Ignatius were collected and deposited in a coffin, not exhibited to the people as objects of veneration. I find mention of apostolic traditions, but have yet to learn that the Romish traditions are apostolic. I am, Mr. Editor, your obedient servant, PHILALETHES CANTABRIGIENSIS. VINDICATION OF THE EARLY PARISIAN GREEK PRESS. (Continued from p. 662, Vol. III.) BUT Mr. Greswell furnishes still stronger ground than any of the quotations we have yet seen for our denying that Stephanus had the ❝vicious complaisance" which Mr. Porson ascribes to him, and that he would be ready to adopt readings, "whether from MSS. or from printed copies." Mr. G. distinctly records the fact, which at once. confutes those who depend on the number of the MSS. of the margin, and presume to assert that "Stephanus's boast was utterly false," when he declared that the text of his O mirificam was, every letter of it, taken from the royal MSS. At p. 332, Mr. G. records an interview of Robert with the Sorbonne when he lays his folio before them. This leads to the important information of the number of the MSS. that he had received from the royal library; and Mr. Greswell thus tells us that they amounted to fifteen :: "They demand, however, that the original copy or MS. shall be laid before them. Robert answers that it was impossible; that the original was not one MS. merely, but fifteen; which had been already carried back to the royal library, whence he had been indulged with the use of them." And Mr. G. quotes unexceptionable authority for his statement-what Robert himself published in his Responsio, p. 37. Our Traveller here indulges in great laxity both of quotation and interpretation. The passage is in Similitude v., section 3. |
