prefer that of the profound and accurate Ussher, that the sacred writers were "God's secretaries." We know that an earthly sovereign, employing a secretary, would take care that the message sent, or letter written, should fully and accurately express his meaning. But still he might leave the secretary to write in his own style; and might even leave him to state the occurrence in his own way, only taking care that the truth, and nothing but the truth, were given forth in his name. he might dictate word for word.

Or

An able writer of our own day, in a paper which we believe remains still unpublished, defined his view of Verbal Inspiration in this manner: That the Divine Revelation, as it came from God to man, was perfect and without spot. But that undoubtedly, in course of time, by errors of transcribers, and errors of translators, specks and spots had gathered upon the surface, and these were to be regarded as wholly distinct from the original message.

To this statement, with which we substantially agree, we however desire to add the experience of Dr. Kennicott, who, after a life spent in the critical examination of the text of Scripture, declared that "he had found some grammatical errors, and many variations in the multitudes of manuscripts which he had collated, but not one which in the smallest degree affected any article of faith or practice." We entirely believe in a constant care and a superintending Providence, exerted thus to preserve the word of God. But we see as a matter of fact, that it has not pleased God so to work a continuous miracle, as to exclude the possibility of the slightest variation, or the most insignificant error. And the question now stands thus:-Human hands were employed from the first step to the last. Unless the Great Author had watched, for thousands of years past, over his own work, we should have had a multitude of troublesome questions on points of moment. He has graciously saved us from these, but not from trivial and insignificant blemishes, or we could have had no various readings, nor one incorrect manuscript.

Does this bring us to the same conclusion as that adopted by Dr. Vaughan? Assuredly not. For he asserts, "that matters of science, matters of common history, still more, matters of numeration, of chronicle, and of genealogy, are nowhere in the Bible claimed as proper subjects of Inspiration, strictly so called." And if so, then a large part of the Bible is human, fallible, possibly untrue! We deeply regret that so dangerous a notion of Inspiration as this, should have been put forth from the pulpit of the University of Cambridge.

We take refuge, then, again in archbishop Ussher's simile, or illustration. A sovereign communicating with his subjects through a secretary, will at least take care :—

1. That his secretary shall write nothing in his name, but by his own orders.

2. That what he orders to be written, shall be written there and then, and shall convey his true and real meaning,-neither more nor less.

3. And, consequently, when any of his subjects receive such a communication, they will know that it is truly and really the king's, and is to be believed and obeyed as such.

4. And yet, with all this, there may be a consciousness that the writing, and the words, and the style of the document, are in some measure the secretary's own. The two parties-the dictating sovereign, and the secretary-may both be in the mind's eye of the recipient; but neither interfering with the other. And even if a word or two seem strange, the reader will say to himself, "I am certain that the king approved of the whole before he allowed it to go forth in his name, and I accept it unhesitatingly as from him."

Now this, which is a fair representation of a human proceeding, is far more true when the sovereign is the King of kings. What God purposes, He will certainly perform.

And this circumstance makes the Divine fact, not weaker, but stronger, than any human fact could be. If we should be sure on receiving a letter, written in the queen's name, by her accredited secretary, that we had really the queen's mind, a thousand times more sure are we, when we take up the Bible, that we have the mind of God, transmitted to us by His command; and most assuredly conveying to us His will and His injunctions. And yet, with this, we also accept the opening verses of St. Luke's Gospel, in their full and obvious meaning.

We desire, however, not to forget, that we have no right, nor has any man a right, to dogmatize as to the manner of Inspiration. The fact of that Inspiration is fully declared in Holy Scripture, and it is with the utmost danger to our souls that we cherish the least doubt of it. But precisely in what way the Holy Spirit of God moved those whom He chose to be His secretaries, or to what extent they were carried out of themselves, or made mere channels for the conveyance of the words of another, it is not given us to understand. All that really concerns us is clear, and beyond a doubt; namely, that " All Scripture (all that is written in that Book) is given by inspiration of God;" and that the writers "spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." "The precise mode," says archdeacon Pratt, "in which this power operated on the inspired writers, is not told us; and probably, were it revealed to us, it would be beyond our comprehension."*

"Scripture and Science not at Variance." p. 76.

[NOTE. Our readers will see from Mr. Birks's letter, upon another page, that his meaning has been on some points misunderstood. The review of bishop Colenso's book was of necessity written in haste, for we felt it of great importance that the month should not pass over without taking some notice of so dangerous a volume; consequently several statements are less accurately expressed than we could now have wished.: The apparent discrepancy of the angels seen at the sepulchre resolves itself into what Doddridge, and others after him, have shown to be in all probability the fact that the women paid two visits to the tomb, and that Matthew and Mark relate the one, Luke and John the other. The illustration from the. various dates for such an event as the raising of king Charles's standard at Nottingham, is merely an extension of Paley's. argument, that, under apparent contradiction in lesser points, there may still be substantial truth; and is an answer to the bishop of Natal so far as this,-that, were any, or even all his objections true, still they would by no means warrant his conclusion, that the books of Moses are not substantially a veracious history.

:

There is another passage in the review which, on consideration, we feel is liable to objection, and which we desire to withdraw; namely that on page 922-" The second (the human element) apprises us that, mingled with its divine attribute of truth, there will always be the human attribute of errability, and even of trivial error. This would not of necessity follow, nor do we admit that it has followed in point of fact. But we propose in our next number to lay before our readers a fuller statement of the whole question of verbal Inspiration, and, in connection with it, of the Human element.EDITOR.]

DR. MANNING ON THE TEMPORAL POWER OF THE

VICAR OF JESUS CHRIST.

The Temporal Power of the Vicar of Jesus Christ. By Henry Edward Manning, D.D. 2nd Edition; with a Preface. London: Burns and Lambert. 1862.

It is astonishing to notice the force and the power of the conjunctions in the English tongue. An old divine, in his Commentary on Scripture, bursts forth in raptures at the sight of one of them. Here," says he, "is a little word-this but; let us stop awhile and tap this little 'but,' and see if we cannot draw a hogshead of good matter from it." To come down to our times, Victor Hugo illustrates the extensive powers of an

other conjunction, by declaring, "IF it had not rained on the night of the 17th to the 18th of June, 1815, the future of Europe would have been changed. A few drops of water, more or less, caused the fall of Napoleon." In a similar strain does Dr. Manning qualify the defence which he has put forth in behalf of the temporal power of the Papacy, by the comprehensive qualification, "Ir what I have already said be true"-unmindful of Shakspeare's warning,-"IF! talk'st thou to me of ifs? Thou art a traitor."

Considering the singular style of the arguments which he has adduced in defence of the temporal sovereignty of Rome, he has done well in frankly owning at the outset, "that they are as unintelligible to those who are without, as the supernatural element in the doctrine of the Holy Eucharist." Accepting this declaration respecting our own want of discernment, as being poor miserable outsiders, we are nevertheless constrained to examine some of his facts by the light of history, and to show that his inferences will not bear the test of an impartial investigation. Nay, we are prepared to go a step farther, by declaring, according to our weak powers, that if language is to be accepted in its plain and obvious sense, in order to be in accord with the learned doctor, it will be necessary to carry out the idea suggested by Lady Mary Wortley Montague, of excluding all the negatives from the Decalogue, for the purpose of bringing the morals of her contemporaries into harmony with the Divine command.

Dr. Manning commences his venturesome task by undertaking to show, "1st, That the temporal power of the Pope is ordained of God; 2nd, That the temporal power of the Pope has been the root, and the productive and sustaining principle, of Christian Europe; and 3rd, That the dissolution of the temporal power of the Pope would bring with it the dissolution of Christian Europe." On this foundation, as may be imagined, he has raised an imposing superstructure. It is certainly somewhat contradictory to his theory as to the temporal power being divine, to find that he traces it to "popular election," except on the ancient maxim, Vox populi, vox Dei. To be sure, it is not the same as "the popular election" of the 19th century, but he affirms that it sprung from the lawfully expressed and spontaneous wish of the people. Speaking of the 5th and 6th centuries, he observes:

"The Temporal Power of the Pontiffs was the political necessity of saving an abandoned people from sufferings by war, by famine, by pestilence, for which the world has no parallel either for intensity or duration. . . . . This election was not the hasty and turbulent act of an intimidated and menaced population, drilled and driven to poll-booths in a crisis of excitement, and with the precipitate violence of a revolution and an invasion at their back; but the calm, prolonged, spon

taneous, and deliberate action of many successive generations, all conspiring for ages in the one ardent desire to shelter themselves and their children under the sovereignty of the Roman Pontiffs."

Hence he concludes, though the logic is not very apparent, that

"The sovereignty of the Pontiffs cannot be dissolved by the popular vote, like the sovereignties of France and England. It may be lawful and justifiable to be weary of Stuarts or Capets; but it cannot be either lawful or sinless to be weary of the Vicar of Jesus Christ. With us a revolution might be a just impatience of unlawful acts; with the subjects of the Vicar of Christ it must be a tædium de Deo."

Seen from the Ultramontane point of view, the Papal government has been, during the last twelve centuries, the best, the wisest, the purest, the most perfect, the most liberal, and the most beloved which the world has yet known. Dr. Manning can scarcely find words sufficiently strong to express the intensity of his admiration for the marvellous manner in which it has fulfilled its mission, of not only "creating Christian Europe," but of having so long "sustained it upon the never-failing principles of justice and liberty." He confidently challenges a comparison for it with all other lay governments; asserts that "there never was a Pontiff who made one offensive war;" and attains the climax of historical rhapsody by affirming, that "the Roman State is, in its very essence, the freest and most republican, and the most popular in Christian Europe." The form of government being so paradisaical, it is natural to conclude that the chiefs have been, with some trifling exceptions, the most perfect beings that have ever existed. Hence he says: "The worst that can be said is this, that in that line of two hundred and fifty Supreme Pontiffs, there have been a few who have descended to the level of temporal sovereigns." If we refer not to Exeter Hall authorities of the nineteenth century, which are most unjustly decried by Romanists, and their sympathizers in our Church, but to approved Roman Catholic historians, such as Cardinal Baronius, Genebard, Liutprand, Platina, Petrarch, or the canonized St. Bridget, we find them equally at a loss for words sufficiently strong to describe the reverse of Dr. Manning's highly-coloured tableau. "For nearly one hundred and fifty years," says one of the above-mentioned authors, "about fifty popes, from John VIII. to Leo IX., deserted wholly the virtue of their predecessors, being apostate, rather than apostolical." Another describes the popes of the middle ages as monstrous and infamous in their lives, dissolute in their manners, and wicked and villainous in all things." A third, speaking of the state of Rome, declares, "whatever of impiety and abandoned manners exists, or has existed in the whole world from pole to pole, all this you may see here,