CORRESPONDENCE.

DR. PUSEY ON THE XXXIX ARTICLES.

To the Editor of the Christian Observer.

SIR,-Dr. Pusey, in several letters recently published in the newspapers, defends his subscription to the Articles on the ground that they were a compromise. To a certain extent he justifies Tract No. 90, on the same plea, though there are some things in it which he says he did not approve. His plea, in short, is this, that there were to be thenceforth comprehended within the Church of England two parties, the Puritans on the one side, and the Catholic party on the other; or, as I should prefer to designate them, the zealous Protestants on the one side, and on the other those who still clung to many of those doctrines which were, and still are, peculiar to the Church of Rome.

I maintain that no such compromise was ever meant, and that no such compromise was ever made. The existence of it is a mere hypothesis, invented to support an otherwise baseless fabric. I would by no means insinuate that Dr. Pusey himself, or any other virtuous man of his party, is conscious of the imposition they have practised on themselves; but this does not alter the case. We know how easy it is to assume a fact upon the slightest evidence, even upon a remote analogy, in order to support a favourite theory, and how often upright men, and otherwise men of sound reason too, are the victims of this self-imposed delusion.

The simple truth is, that the Reformers both of Edward VI. and Elizabeth did yield something to the lingering prejudices of those whom Dr. Pusey terms the Catholic party; though I, of course, maintain that the true Protestant is the real Catholic. But what was it they abandoned? In king Edward's days, while the Reformation was only in the bud, during the few ferocious days of Mary, or under the difficulties they had to encounter in the earlier days of Elizabeth, what was it they yielded as a compromise? and how much did they surrender for the sake of peace, or of their own security?

The answer is written in a single word—a word of their own selection -a word which they introduced into our language, and naturalized for the purpose. They gave up the ADIAPHORA, and nothing more. Neither the dungeons of the Fleet, nor the fires of Smithfield, could extort from them one further concession. They would give up the adiaphora, the things that in themselves were purely indifferentmatters of form and dress, and nothing else. About these they would not quarrel; but they held them, and took every occasion of publicly protesting that they held them, as matters of pure indifference, and not for any holiness in the garments themselves, or for any symbolic purpose, but merely, to use their own words again, perhaps a hundred times repeated in still extant documents, " for order and for decency." They may have been wrong; this is a point on which at present I am not concerned to argue. Wise men of later times, however, have quite agreed with them. "I should as soon think," says the great

founder of Methodism, in one of his sermons, which form the standard of appeal for the whole Wesleyan body, "of quarrelling about the position of two straws as about the surplice." Modern Evangelical clergymen thought so too, until the Oxford Tracts, and their abettors, compelled them in self-defence to discontinue the surplice in the pulpit, lest they should be suspected of preaching the Church, and themselves its literal priesthood, instead of Christ and Him crucified.

Will Dr. Pusey, then, or any living Anglo-Catholic, tell us, what no one of them has yet disclosed, on what authority they maintain that the Articles were a compromise, meant to introduce, not all Catholic, that is, Roman Catholic, doctrines, but certainly some or many of them. I deny the existence of any such authority; only I must add, that the testimony of the school of bishop Montague in the seventeenth century, or of Dr. Bull and others in the eighteenth, are of no more weight than that of Dr. Pusey, or Dr. Newman himself, in the nineteenth. Indeed, if they gave us their fair deliberate judgment, I should prefer the verdict of the latter; that judgment of course being founded on substantial evidence. At present, no attempt to produce such evidence has been made. Our Reformers, we may be well assured, did not account the Articles of the Christian faith among the adiaphora; had they done so, our noble army of martyrs would have presented but a lean appearance.-Yours truly,

A STUDENT OF OUR ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY.

THE BURIAL OF MOSES ON THE MOUNT.

To the Editor of the Christian Observer.

SIR,-In Bishop Colenso's attack on the Pentateuch, the Zulu Kaffir's episcopal convert would seem to regard Moses as a mere legendary personage, a creation of the mind of some imaginative Hebrew. Such was not the opinion of those who in former times wished to change the death and miraculous interment of Moses, as recorded in Deuteronomy xxxiv. 5-7, into a translation similar to that of Enoch and Elijah.

The well-known commentator Thomas Scott writes," Nothing can be considered more directly opposite to Scripture than the tradition, sanctioned by several ancient Christian writers, and apparently favoured by some moderns, that Moses did not die, but went to heaven alive, as Enoch and Elijah did."

We can assign probable reasons for the mistaken sanction given by these ancient Christian writers to a tradition necessarily erroneous, because it contradicted the plain declaration of Holy Writ. They must have felt that the narrative of the Transfiguration required them to believe that Moses was as truly present there in a real living body as were the Lord Jesus and Elijah. They could not bring themselves to believe that the body of the great lawgiver returned again to the grave after such a resurrection from the dust as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will experience in the morning of the resurrection, when they will be raised from the grave to die no more, and after having shared with Elijah the marvellous honour of standing before Jesus in the glory of the Transfiguration.

But if Moses, having been raised from the dust, and placed with Elijah on the mount, was translated, when the Transfiguration had ceased, into heaven, with his companion the Tishbite, never again to taste death, would not this trench too closely on the great prerogative and privilege of the Messiah, to be the "first-born from the dead, and the first-fruits of them that slept ?" Perhaps it may be Would it not then be better to set aside the narrative in Deuteronomy of the death and miraculous interment of Moses, which, of course, could not have been written by himself, and believe that, like Enoch and Elijah, he was translated alive into heaven? We say, no; and venture to think that any thing is better than flatly to contradict the word of God.

If it is to be accepted as a truth that, because Moses did not write the thirty-fourth chapter of Deuteronomy, therefore the Most High had nothing to do with furnishing to the children of Israel the information contained in that chapter, would it not seem almost to follow, that what was not written by Moses may, if we think it better to do so, be rejected or amended, as being destitute of the Divine sanction to its authenticity and truth? This would give all the liberty in dealing with the books of Joshua and Judges that the Essayists and Reviewers, and the South African bishop, can desire.

But where is the necessity for contradicting the narrative in the Pentateuch, and substituting a translation into the heavenly region for death and a secret and mysterious interment in a valley of Moab? Does not the Scripture itself, as it were, offer to lead us by the hand, if only we will be teachable and submissive? There are two recorded miracles: one, the miraculous burial of Moses; the other, his miraculous appearance on the mount of Transfiguration. No believer in Holy Writ will deny that, when the Most High secretly interred Moses, probably through the ministry of angels, He did so with a prescient determination to place him in his living body on the mount with Elijah. Is it not, then, a scripturally reasonable and probable opinion to suppose a third miracle between the two,-viz., that God willed the preservation of the corpse of Moses from the worm and corruption unto the hour of the Transfiguration, when there was a temporary reunion of the spirit with the body for an especial Divine purpose.

The narrative of his death is not unfavourable to this view. While we read of the dying hours of Isaac and Jacob, that these two patriarchs were enfeebled with decrepitude, and their eyes dim that they could not see, it is recorded of the great legislator, at the close of the book of Deuteronomy-" And Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died: his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated." It is thus plain that, at the very moment of his decease, he possessed sufficient brightness of eye, and vigour of bodily frame, to fit him to stand on the mount with Elijah in the presence of Jesus.

But how can we bring ourselves to believe that the body of Moses returned again from such a glorious scene to his secret grave? By teachably following what seems to be the almost unmistakable guidance of Holy Writ. We may not unreasonably conclude, that as it was with the Lord, so it was with the two who shared in that brief

and temporary manifestation of glory. He returned straightway to the place which he had so very recently left to ascend the mountain, rejoined his disciples, and resumed his daily ministerial work. In like manner, we may believe that Elijah was again conveyed to his former abode in the heavenly region; and that a second painless separation of the spirit of Moses from the body took place, the former immediately rejoining the waiting spirits of the just in Paradise, and the latter being conveyed to its secret grave in the valley of Moab, where, if no longer required for any other special Divine purpose, we may suppose that at length it submitted to the great sentence→→ Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return."

If any still find it difficult to receive the idea of the return of the body of Moses from the glory of the Transfiguration to what they regard as the humiliation of a second interment, they will do well to remember that the Lord and Master in that glory descended from that mount to daily hunger, thirst, and weariness, to the contradiction of sinners, to the agony in Gethsemane, to shame and spitting, to the bloody Roman scourge, and to the ignominious cross between two common malefactors on Calvary.

We are told (Luke ix. 31), that Moses and Elias talked with Jesus on the mount concerning "the decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem." And surely there is nothing far-fetched or ultra-imaginative in the supposition that the three spake, on such an occasion, of the brazen serpent, the passover lamb, and the annual day of the atonement, with its appointed sacrificial rites. And if it had seemed good to the Holy Ghost to reveal to the Church the substance of that memorable conversation, such evidence would probably have been furnished of the truth of the doctrine of expiatory sacrifice and atonement, and of the reality of the Divine appointment of Moses to the office of lawgiver, and of his receiving direct inspiration from God in the execution of that office, as even the Essayists and Reviewers, with their warmest admirers, would shrink from assailing. Y. Z.

To the Editor of the Christian Observer.

SIR, I happened this morning to look into the April number of a periodical bearing the date of April, 1859, four years ago. Perhaps you may think the following extract not undeserving of notice at the present time:

"In the Life of Christ,' by Professor Sepp of Munich, now in course of publication, are some statistics respecting the Jews, which may interest our readers.

"Jewish marriage is more fruitful than Christian in the proportion of 28 to 25, showing that the blessing pronounced upon Abraham still continues in force. Estimating the present number of Jews at 8,000,000, it amounts to one per cent. of all the population of the earth. The mortality amongst them, compared with that amongst other people, is as 34 to 46, thus making the average duration of life about 13 longer. The number of infants still-born is in 100,000 as 89 to 143. The proportion of suicides is still more in their favour. Of 100,000 children, there are living amongst Christians in the 14th

year, only 44.5; amongst the Jews 50, or half: in the 60th year, among the former, 12; among the latter, 20. The usual proportion of boys to girls is as 105 to 100; with the Jews, 112 to 100.

"To all epidemic diseases the Jewish race shows little susceptibility. They rarely suffer from pestilence, typhus, or dropsy. Their exemption from the plague, and other wide-wasting diseases, in the middle ages often subjected them to popular suspicion, and drew upon them the rage of the populace. From the more recent ravages of the cholera they have suffered little. But they are much predisposed to diseases of the skin, and to those complaints which spring from meagre fare. Unable to perform severe physical labour, they endure firmly misery and suffering; they avoid strife, and delight in domestic life.

"That the Jew has in him noble elements of character, his history shows; nor can the Christian forget that Christ and the Apostles were of Jewish lineage. May the time be hastened when the promises to that race shall be fulfilled.""

March 19, 1863.

A SUBSCRIBER.

NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.

The Pentateuch, in its relation to the other Scriptures, and to the Scheme of Christianity. A Sermon preached before the University of Oxford, on Sunday, November 16, 1862. By the Rev. Edward Garbett, M.A., Select Preacher, Boyle Lecturer, and Incumbent of St. Bartholomew's, Gray's Inn Road. London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co.

The Bible: its Form and Substance. Three Sermons, preached before the University of Oxford. By Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D., Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History, and Canon of Christ Church. J. H. and J. Parker.

It has been the constant aim of modern Rationalism, alike on the Continent and here at home, to create an impression that the inspiration claimed for the Holy Scriptures is a doctrine of no real moment, and that we can only escape the insuperable difficulties which the advance of science and the results of enlightened Biblical criticism have forced upon us by abandoning it without scruple, and with it the long-cherished idea of an infallible record. The new school of thought first repudiates the authority and trustworthiness of the historical Scriptures, and then tries to persuade us that Christianity is independent of such support, and indeed will be all the better without it. Mr. Garbett takes this opinion, as it has been developed in its latest form by Bishop Colenso, and proves that it is not only illogical, but destructive of the very foundations of Christianity, and irreconcileable with the facts of its entire history. His position is briefly this: -That the Pentateuch, which has been so unceremoniously disposed of by the bishop, is, in its entirety and its details, so inextricably bound up with the New Testament, and its facts and statements and