the teachings of Scripture and the conclusions of reason— were often driven by their hypothesis to imagine distinctions where none really existed, and to refine away the popular breadth and simplicity of the language of the Bible, and thus reduced the religion of Jesus to a mere skeleton of monotheistic philosophy. In both parties, much was assumed, that rested on no solid foundation; in both, there was much of the prejudice that results from imperfect knowledge and confined views. Both, in different ways, were fettered by a one-sided Protestantism, and were not prepared for the only rational alternative-either, on one hand, to sustain the claims of tradition by thorough historical investigation, or, on the other, renouncing external authority in every form, to put the claims of Christianity entirely on its intrinsic worth and its adaptation to the eternal laws of human nature. It is the sign of transition to a better state of things, that elements thus incongruously combined should seem now to be disengaging themselves and passing off into separate spheres ;-that, while the physiologist and the speculative philosopher are left to pursue unrestrained their bold career of research, the historian should proceed in another direction, with equal earnestness, and the same disregard of all doctrinal considerations, to bring the whole of the past into view, and let facts speak for themselves. On this account we cordially hail the manifestation of an historical tendency amongst us, though we may have little sympathy with the views of those who are immediately concerned in exciting it; and the more purely and simply it works, having no other object than the re-production of facts, without which a fair judgment on the past is impossible—the more confident we are, that ultimate good must result from it. It is the effect of these publishing societies, from their very constitution, to secularise learning -to bring within reach of extensive classes of readers a kind of knowledge which has hitherto been accessible to professed students alone; and their influence in this respect on the future direction of opinion, we can at present perhaps scarcely appreciate.-On the general benefit of a familiarity with the history and former literature of our own country, it is unnecessary to enlarge. We see something beyond that, in the interest likely to be awakened by these publications. They direct attention to that crisis in our national development, when society made a great step in advance, and the noblest minds put forth all their energies to realise some cherished ideal of truth and liberty. It is in such crises that we must look for the vital principles of historical knowledge,-as it is with such minds, brave, earnest and athletic, that it is healthful and invigorating to sympathize. We do not expect among the productions of so troubled a period, to find models of taste (though it would be difficult to match, for pure and manly English, some passages of our early Reformers); but their stern and rugged diction inculcates, with a force and majesty of its own, the high lessons of fortitude and principle, and braces the mind for resolute and virtuous action. To the philosophic intellect which is not repelled from these expressions of antique wisdom by mere uncouthness of external form, but can penetrate to their central idea, and watch the pulsations of the vigorous heart within-they yield more valuable results. It is only at times like these, that the spirit of Man is stirred up from its lowest depths, and its most hidden thoughts leap forth, and hasty glimpses are opened into those interior workings of his nature, whence issue the springs of social change that silent under-current of spiritual life—the real vitality of the world-which, in the ordinary condition of civilization, lies concealed beneath an overlying mass of conventionalism. By comparing such periods with each other-when the native man is laid bare, and the heart utters all its truth-and by noting the identity of spirit which pervades them, amid an endless variety of occasion and manifestation-we trace the footsteps of God in the ways of humanity, and detect the deep working of the laws by which his providence is conducted. Unfortunately in the records of such periods, men search rather after precedents for some outward form, some existing dogma or institution, than for the living sources of noble and earnest feeling. They explore them, to prove a title to pre-eminence and exclusive possession, or to fix a stigma of illegitimacy on some rival claimant-not in the spirit of a large and generous catholicity, loving truthfulness and zeal for right in all their forms, and warmly sympathising with every aspiration and effort of the awakened soul after light and liberty. Scattered over the wide tract of human history, we behold springing up at intervals-like fountains in the desert some deeper and stronger ebullitions of spiritual consciousness and energy, when man seems to catch a momentary glance of his exalted destiny, to be inspired with nobler sympathies, and to shape his actions and purposes to higher ends. In these nearer visitations of the eternal Spirit to the human soul, (for such we cannot but regard them,) Society often brings to pass in a few years the result which centuries had been slowly maturing, and makes a vast onward move in the career of civilization. But when this fresh spirit has spent itself in introducing a few bold innovations, in originating new impulses, or throwing out some daring hint or conjecture which must wait for its realization till a distant day, it gradually subsides again under the fixed and uniform tenour of social usage, and flows on, perhaps for ages, quiet and unnoticed in its ancient bed. Now all these spontaneous outbursts of higher moral feeling, leaving behind them effects that create a new era in the world's history— in whatever age or country they occur, in Greece or Palestine, in Asia or Europe-are related to each other by close affinities, and are probably but different parts of one great connected plan of human progression, dependant on some comprehensive law that has yet to be unfolded by the sagacity and thoughtfulness of future generations. The freer, holier and more heavenly the spirit which accompanies them, the less they are encumbered by arbitrary restrictions of dogma and form, and the more disinterested and elevated the mind which is the immediate vehicle of them, the more complete must be the revelation of Deity. And if we assign to Christianity a place by itself among these visible manifestations of a higher presence, it is not that we regard it as differing from them in kind, or proceeding from another source, but as immeasurably surpassing them all in the transforming efficacy of its spiritual influence, and marked by the circumstances of its origin and history with the most evident characters of an universal religion. It has been the misfortune of Christianity itself and every subsequent revival of its power, that men have sought in them not the inward life of faith and love, but a rule and a system to confine and enfeeble its spirit. Next to the original movement of Christianity, the Reformation is the event of most importance to us in the spiritual development of humanity; not so much for what it has actually accomplished, as for what it suggests, and in its necessary consequences involves: and the history of the Reformation in our own country is of course peculiarly entitled to regard. It is no trivial advantage of a familiar acquaintance with the great crises of social progress, that it fixes the attention on the permanent manifestations of human nature, and dissipates the fond illusion which enthusiastic minds are so prone to indulge, that they have hit on some new solution of the mystery of the Universe, unparalleled in the records of the past. Researches in the field of man's spiritual nature can hardly carry us beyond a more perfect knowledge of its laws of development; and this is to be obtained, not merely by studying the individual, but by a careful analysis and comparison of the grand organic facts of history. So long as the data of speculation are limited to the superficial phenomena of humanity, we must expect that the very same combinations of ideas will again and again be produced, with the same unsatisfactory result. And facts abundantly justify that expectation. Beneath the dazzling personifications of Gnosticism we discover the fundamental ideas of more recent systems. Hemsterhuis used to say, he found all that was clear and certain in the modern metaphysics anticipated by the ancients.* Seasons of high religious excitement, when the restraints of usage and reverence are broken through, call out in all their strength the speculative tendencies of the mind. During our own civil wars, and under Cromwell, endless varieties of wild and enthusiastic opinion were produced; and in the enumeration which Hornius † has given of them from contemporary writers, we can trace the germ of some theories which have since been expanded by the German Neologists. Such speculations have no worth as materials for a positive system of objective truth; but *In Metaphysicâ quæ vera certaque sint, et in quibus firme consistere possis, apud veteres se reperisse omnia dicebat.'-Ruhnken. Elog. Hemsterh. P. 14. + Historia Ecclesiastica, pp. 612-631. As he appears to have taken his statements from Edwards's Gangræna, some allowance must of course be made for exaggeration. they are at once curious and instructive, as phenomena illustrating the natural history of the human mind; and, if it were possible to reduce their continual re-appearance at different periods to any uniform law, (as has been attempted by Victor Cousin in his History of Philosophy,) an approach might be made towards a rational psychology of speculative opinion. Among the collateral benefits of this historical tendency, we must not overlook its leading different parties to understand their position and mutual relation, the significance of the names they bear, and the worth of the questions that are at issue between them. Nothing is a surer sign of spiritual feebleness, than a dull acquiescence in what is, without knowing why it is. In the latter part of the last century, and far into the present, the Church coldly defended its institutions and formularies, as something that was good for society on the whole; the Evangelical party felt there was a deep deficiency somewhere, and sought to supply it with more earnestness of purpose and warmth of feeling than clearness of intelligence; and the Unitarians, at that time certainly the most inquisitive, if not the most active, of all parties, were busy in framing out of the New Testament a doctrinal system that should harmonise with the philosophy which Priestley had disseminated amongst them. Each party worked exclusively on its own ground, and paid little heed, except on a few doctrinal points, to the movements of its contemporaries; while all seemed alike devoid of any vivid consciousness of their relation to the past, and unaware of the tendencies which it had transmitted to them. But a great change has come over the spirit of the religious world; and we heartily rejoice at it, though some bigotry may accompany its earliest operation. Parties may dislike, but they no longer despise, each other. They feel their own historical importance, and are determined to assert it. They will no longer be deluded by mere names, without understanding what they mean. If they call themselves Catholics, Reformers, Nonconformists-they wish to show that they have a reason for it; and they interrogate the past earnestly and laboriously, to furnish them with proofs of the strength of their claims and the excellence of their It matters little, that each party over-estimates its cause. |