We shall now offer our readers an example of the manner in which the body of the argument is conducted. 'In order to comprehend the history of the Irish grand jury laws, it will not be amiss to cast a rapid glance over the principal statutes, which have, in their turn, been enacted, condemned, and repealed.' This our readers perceive is a plain statement, and seems to promise a dry and not very eloquent detail. Observe, however, how unexpectedly and vivaciously the author handles this unpromising topic. 'This phantasmagoria of acts of parliament will appear, it is apprehended, exceedingly dull: but the stupid exhibition is rendered necessary by the arguments which it may suggest. We may wander amidst these catacombs of departed statutes, without any reverence towards the mighty dead. No Sybil leads the way through Elysian fields, but all within view is barrenness and desolation; "A mighty maze, and all without a plan." "The rapid succession of these abortive and short-lived statutes, resembles the passing figures in Holbein's Triumphs of Death; and the first couple in the ghostly train might be allowed to address their followers in the spectral chorus of Luigi Alamanni, "Morti siam come vedete, Così morti vedrem voi ; -p. 10. We will now present our readers with some very just and sober remarks which Mr. Rice makes on the oath which a grand juryman takes not to reveal the counsels of hiniself or fellow-jurors,-of which oath Mr. Rice entirely disapproves. Why should gravel or pavement become subjects of mystery; and cutting hills and building bridges esoteric doctrines? Whatever the initiated may profess, the faith of the multitude cannot believe that these hidden conclaves are exclusively for the spiritual worship of the Egyptian idol; more particularly, as they find themselves the victims to be sacrificed, and the rewards of their industry, the offerings on the unhallowed altar.' There has been many analogies struck out between the worship of the Egyptians and the proceedings of grand juries: nefas illic fœtum jugulare capellæ, Carnibus humanis vesci licet. Juv. SAT. XV. p. 37. The result of this impolitic oath is, as Mr. Rice states, a melancholy one. 'Many individuals, from the utter impossibility of performing the obligations of this encouragement, are induced to shrink from the contest altogether. The retreat of individuals, thus timidly virtuous, may be condemned; but the system, which produces it, is still more worthy of con. * Chorus in the celebrated Mascherata Il Carro della Morte.' demnation. "Boni, nescio quomodo, tardiores sunt, et principiis rerum neglectis ad extremum ipsa denique necessitate excitantur; ita ut nonnunquam cunctatione ac tarditate dum otium volunt etiam sine dignitate retinere, ipsi utrumque amittant." ."* It requires a combination of high spirit, and of unbending resolution, to enter the torrent, and to struggle against its waves. Those characters are invaluable, Who, placed in scenes, where strong temptations try, 'The Barony of Lower Connelloe, in itself, &c. &c.'-pp. 39, 40. We entreat our readers to observe and admire the natural and easy transition from a grand juror's conscience to oratory and poetry, and from oratory and poetry back again to the Barony of Lower Connelloe. The horrors of grand jury jobbing, ás explained in the forcible language which Mr. Rice borrows from the ancients and moderns, have made our hair stand an end; and we lament to see that he is of opinion that grand juries are not capable of performing the additional duties which a reform would produce; and this opinion he states after the following manner : 'An attempt to concentrate, within a limited sphere, important and increasing duties, is absurd. It could only be warranted by supposing, that a constant, and a varying quantity, could continually bear towards each other the same ratio. It is an attempt to realize the promises of the bottle conjurer; and, like the mechanical condensation of air, is only calculated to elicit fire by the experiment.'-p. 43. Of the present state of the law, Mr. Rice informs us that its provisions are less numerous than its faults; ης ραον ην αριθμησαι τους οδονίας η τους δακτυλους—p. 112. which seems to mean, (for Mr. Rice takes a wicked pleasure in reducing us to our guesses,) that it is easier to count teeth than fingers; and this perspicuous and valuable quotation is, he tells us, from Lysias. ap. Dem. Phal. de Eloe. § 270. The remedy which Mr. Rice has for all these evils is to take the management of the roads out of the hands of these local jobbers, and to create a Board of Controul for the General Superintendance of the Highways of Ireland. If such a Board should be established, Mr. Rice's claims to a seat at it cannot, we think, be overlooked; but if his pursuits or his profession should form any objection to his taking one of those offices, the case of Dr. Johnson and the Royal Academy immediately occurs to us as a precedent for conferring an honorary reward upon Mr. Rice,-he may, with great propriety, (now that he has ceased to illustrate Trinity College, Cambridge,) be elected Professor of Ancient and Modern Literature to the Turnpike Board.' *Cic. Orat. pro. Sixt.' ART. ART. X. Reliquiae Sacrae, sive Autorum fere jam perditorum secundi tertiique Saeculi Fragmenta quae supersunt. Ad Codices MSS. recensuit, notisque illustravit Martinus Josephus Routh, S. T. P. Collegii S. Magdalenae Præses. Oxonii. 1814. Voll. I. et II. AMONG the various questions of theology which relate to objects of secondary importance, scarcely any one has been debated with more zeal than that concerning the due proportion of authority to be assigned to the Fathers of the Christian church, who haye been immoderately extolled or depreciated by controvertists, according as their writings have seemed to support or contradict some favourite dogma. Considering the question without prejudice or predilection, we may safely assume, as the true state of the case, that the primitive Fathers were men eminent for their piety and zeal, but occasionally deficient in learning and judgment; that they may be relied upon in general for their statements of facts, but not always for the constructions which they put upon them; that they are faithful reporters of the opinions of the Christian church, but not always the most judicious interpreters of Scripture. So much both parties may reciprocally demand and concede; and more than this we do not think necessary for the purposes of any real lover of truth. The allegorical interpreter of Scripture may be zealous to establish the infallibility of the Fathers, as a strong hold for his own fanciful notions; the Socinian may reject their testimony altogether, because he finds in their writings expressions which he cannot misconstrue nor elude; but the sober inquirer will be careful not to confound errors of judgment with a wilful perversion of facts; nor to reject the relations of the Fathers, because he cannot approve of their interpretations. Whatever opinion may be entertained of the style or good sense of the early writers of the Christian church, this, at least, must be admitted :---That they are credible witnesses as to what was the Apostolical doctrine and discipline.-That having heard and conversed with the Apostles, or with their nearest followers, they were better able to judge of the intent and meaning of many parts of their writings than we can be.-That having been selected by the Apostles themselves, as in the instances of Clement and Polycarp, to preside over certain churches, they were necessarily faithful guardians and teachers of the true Apostolical faith. It follows then, that their writings, and those of their immediate disciples, are the best sources to which we can apply, in order to ascertain the original constitution of the Christian church, its doctrines and practice. M 4 It that the It is undoubtedly true, as our church expresses it, Scriptures contain all things that are necessary to salvation; that the doctrines of Christianity are, in the first instance, to be sought for in the New Testament. But it was to be expected, in the natural order of things, that, after the decease of the Apostles, questions would arise in the church, as to the precise meaning of some of their expressions, and the nature of some of their institutions, which none would be so competent to resolve as those, who had been their immediate disciples and followers. We are bound, therefore, to regard with peculiar respect all that we can ascertain to have been said or written by them, and not to condemn precipitately any of their opinions which may happen to differ from our own. That they are, in many instances, injudicious interpreters of Scripture, we have already allowed; but it does not appear why this should detract from the value of their testimony, as witnesses in matters of fact, especially when it is borne in an oblique and apparently unintentional manner. Not that we would concede, to its full extent, even the charge of their incompetency as expositors of the Scripture; they have not wanted able defenders to resist this imputation, some of whom have gone so far as to assert, that the Fathers in general understood the New Testament better than later commentators. And it should be observed, that the greater part of their errors and misapprehensions of the sacred text, which have been raked together and displayed with so much parade by Whitby and others, relate to the Old Testament, in the study of which they were misled by the faulty and inaccurate version vulgarly attributed to the Seventy Interpreters. Of those which concern the New Testament, a few only are laid to the charge of the early Fathers; the rest having been collected from the Post-Nicene writers, a race of men much inferior to their predecessors, whether we regard their learning, their style, or, what is of greater importance, their benevolence and charity: we would willingly exchange a great part of their writings for the works of Melito, or the Apologies of Quadratus and Aristides. But even were we to allow the charge which is urged against them, of misinterpreting, and (unintentionally) perverting certain texts, they may still be unexceptionable witnesses to the doctrines of the Christian church in their own times; and this is all that even the most orthodox need contend for. It must be remembered, that the consent of the early believers in any particular doctrine, although it affords a strong presumption in favour of its truth, is still but a collateral proof of it. The doctrine itself must, after all, stand or * *Les Pères ont mesprisé la langue Hebraique, et d'apprendre des Juifs : ils ont trop faict d'estat des septante Interpretes.'-Scaligerana. fall fall by the words of Scripture. By ascertaining, however, from other sources, what were the notions entertained by the immediate disciples of the Apostles, and propagated, in succession, to their followers, we are enabled to determine, with a degree of probability little short of certainty, in what sense some parts of the Apostolical writings are to be understood.* It is no hard matter,' says Dr. Sherlock, for witty men to put very perverse senses on Scripture to favour their heretical doctrines, and to defend them with such sophistry as shall easily impose upon unlearned and unthinking men: and the best way in this case is, to have recourse to the ancient faith of the Christian church; to learn from thence how these articles were understood and professed by them: for we cannot but think, that those who conversed with the Apostles, and" not only received the Scriptures, but the sense and interpretation of them from the Apostles, or apostolical men, understood the true Christian faith much better than those at a further remove.' 'In summa,' says Tertullian, si constat id verius quod prius, id prius quod et ab initio, ab initio quod ab Apostolis, pariter utique constabit, id esse ab Apostolis traditum, quod apud ecclesias Apostolicas fuerit sacrosanctum.+ Cicero, an academic father, and therefore an unexceptionable witness, has an observation which is singularly applicable to the case in question. Auctoribus quidem uti optimis possumus-et primum quidem omni antiquitate; quae, quo propius aberat ab ortu et divina progenie, hoc melius ea fortasse, quae vera erant, cernebat.' This argument indeed has appeared so forcible to some who would gladly get rid of those authorities, that, in order to elude it, they have had recourse to the most unreasonable suppositions. Ignatius, for example, who was contemporary with St. John, and probably his hearer, and therefore, one might suppose, a tolerably competent judge of the Christian faith and doctrine, has this remarkable passage in one of his epistles. Χριστὸς—εἷς ἰατρός ἐστι, σαρκικὸς καὶ πνευματικὸς, γεννητὸς καὶ ἀγέννητος, ἐν σαρκὶ γενόμενος Os. This testimony, which is referred to by Athanasius, is a stumbling block in the way of those who contend for the primitiveness of unitarian doctrines, which, not being able to surmount it, * It was very disingenuous in Whitby to represent the advocates of the Nicene doctrines as grounding them upon the Fathers alone, in opposition to those who drew their faith from the Scriptures; whereas we profess to establish our notion from the New Testament, as interpreted according to the plain meaning of the words and the sense of the primitive church. Our argument is surely a fair one we say that such a doctrine is contained in the Scriptures-you say that it is not. Who shall decide the question? What better mode can we devise, than to ascertain what the sentiments of the Apostles and their immediate followers were upon this point? Now these we clearly discover to be the same that we ourselves entertain. The inference is plain. § P. 61. ed. Voss. they |