is pleasant to the feelings of Protestants to be called heretics? Matters cannot "be accommodated between the Roman Catholic Church and Protestants, so long as the former adheres to her exclusive tenets.

Mr.

Our fears are not lessened by the positive tone of Mr. Butler's work, by his telling us, "that the number of the Roman Catholic subjects of his Britannic Majesty exceeds the number of any other denomination of his Majesty's Christian subjects throughout his empire," or by his delivering over Southey to the secular arm of these "eight millions :" "there is not one of them," says he, "who does not read your book with every feeling of insulted integrity." If our Roman Catholic fellow-subjects are so determined, so united, so numerous, and their indignation is so apt to kindle, it is time for Protestants to take care for their own safety.

We believe whoever will be at the pains to scrutinize Mr. Southey's narrative, will find him a more faithful historian than he appears to be. We have been often surprised at the animation and accuracy with which, in few and well chosen words, he has described complicated events and abstruse tenets. It is not the history, but the tone and spirit of the author, his loyal attachment to the constitution as it is, which have provoked the Roman Catholics to attack his book with strictures, which, we trust we have contributed to shew, are not warranted by the truth. He must expect further, and perhaps more unmeasured hostility from another and opposite quarter. But we trust he will consider these attacks, by which the church of England herself has always been assailed, as so much praise ;-proofs, in fact, that he has taken the middle course between two extremes of error. Let him not waste his strength in vindication, unless it be to produce the large mass of documents and authorities from which he has made his digest. We doubt not that it is in his power to justify his statements to the satisfaction of the public, and in doing this justice to himself, he will render an important service to the Protestant cause. For the present, Mr. Southey will find defenders enough; and if he cannot avoid a feeling of irritation, let him, for his own sake, beware of showing it; for his opponents would rejoice, if, by exasperating him, they could put him off his guard.

He may be assured that "the Book of the Church" is calculated to do good. We have regarded it throughout rather as an ecclesiastical than a theological work, as historical than as doctrinal, because we think in fairness it ought to be so regarded. In another edition, however, we trust the author will give a careful revision to all parts of it; and if we might recommend, especially Dd

VOL. I. NO. II.

to the account of the Calvinists, their controversy with the Arminians, and the tenets and discipline of Presbyterians. In these portions, there are to be found some expressions which do not accurately convey, at least to some divines, the meaning which we are persuaded they were intended to deliver, and are unquestionably open to misapprehension. In the use of Scriptural phrases, or direct quotations from the Bible, the utmost caution should be observed; and in the want of this caution is to be detected the progress of a pen less accustomed to theological discussion than to literary composition.

A Free Inquiry into the Miraculous Powers which are supposed to have subsisted in the Christian Church from the earliest Ages through several successive Centuries. To which is added, a Letter from Rome, shewing an exact Conformity between Popery and Paganism; or the Religion of the present Romans derived from that of their heathen Ancestors. By CONYERS MIDDLETON, D.D. Principal Librarian of the University of Cambridge. 8vo. pp. 402. 12s. Sherwood.

1825.

THE Volume before us contains several Tracts, which were published by the late Dr. Conyers Middleton, between the years 1740 and 1750; arranged not according to the order of their publication, but so as to give to the "Free Inquiry" the character of the principal subject matter of the work. These dissertations made no small stir at the time of their appearance in the Roman Catholic as well as in the Protestant Church; and brought down upon their author a host of enemies from both communities. Their re-appearance at the present moment is not an event that was to be desired; but as it has taken place, we feel that we cannot, in a case of this kind, avail ourselves of a privilege which we assert, of not being obliged to notice new editions unless new matter is introduced into them. We may be accused of needlessly stepping out of our path, or perhaps of imprudence in assisting to revive a controversy which blazed with much fury for some time, and, having exhausted itself, has for some years lain, if not extinguished, at least in embers. The controverted point, however, was of no ephemeral interest; and the reprint of the writings which discussed it, will doubtless be received by many in the present day as a new work, to which the circumstances of the times will attach as great, if not a greater importance, than they at first acquired. In order, as it

would seem, to give to the book a circulation which novelty might best secure it, especially among readers who either do not recollect, or took no heed of the former controversy, all intimation is omitted in the title-page, or by way of advertisement, that Dr. Middleton is not now alive, and ready to enter the list with any disputant that may be inclined to break a lance.

With a view to counteract some of the ill effects which we cannot but apprehend from the advantage which Dr. Middleton's line of argument may be supposed to give, not only to the Roman Catholic, but to the Free-thinker, we shall treat the work as if it were really new; and shutting our eyes upon the many pamphlets pro and con, which it has called forth, give an honest judgment on the point at issue.

We must be excused for beginning with animadversion, because one great error into which Dr. Middleton has evidently fallen at the outset, is common to many other writers, as well as to many who are not writers,-and should be avoided.

Opposition to received opinions is frequently supposed to be demonstrative of intellectual superiority; yet it is not any certain proof either of judgment or of fortitude. As, on the one hand, it is by no means necessary that he who concurs with the majority should be mean and servile; so on the other, he who sets himself up against general consent, does not always evince extraordinary strength of mind, acuteness of discrimination, or energy of principle. Dissent may be esteemed a mark of independence; but independence is not confined to either side of a controversy, for a writer may be as totally unbiassed by all external influence, and as devoid of all interested motives, while he is advocating what he conscientiously believes, on one side as on the other. Independence, moreover, is not in all cases to be praised. Vanity may give birth to it, and infidelity may be its offspring. It may imply an undue self-conceit, and a want of proper consideration for the judgment of others. With authors more real fortitude is sometimes required to assent to the common persuasion, than to differ from it; for the epithets credulous, prejudiced, bigoted, are seldom heaped on the objector; whereas he is sure to be called liberal, courageous, free from the shackles of authority, and nobly regardless of consequences in the search after truth. These being our sentiments, we, of course, are not prepossessed in favour of any theological writer by a parade of boldness in following the impulse of his own conceptions at the expense of whatever may seem to obstruct his career. At the same time we do not wish to be understood as censuring all "free inquiry" into the grounds of our religious faith and ecclesiastical institutions; for we are well assured, that

from every such inquiry, if it be conducted in a humble spirit and with due caution, the cause of sacred truth must derive support and confirmation. But we do disapprove of such a tone of defiance, and recklesness of consequences, as we meet with at first opening Dr. Middleton's book; because they may, as we think, do incalculable mischief.

"As to the writers," says Dr. M., "who have hitherto declared themselves against this opinion signified here in short by Mr. Locke, and explained at large by myself, they have shewn a great eagerness indeed to distinguish their zeal, but a very little knowledge of the question which they have undertaken to discuss: urged by the hopes of those honours, which they had seen others acquire, by former attacks upon me; and like true soldiers of the militant church, prepared to fight for every establishment that offers such pay and rewards to its defenders. Who, from a blind deference to authority, think the credibility of a witness sufficient to evince the certainty of all facts indifferently, whether natural or supernatural, probable or improbable; and knowing no distinction between faith and credulity, take a facility of believing to be the surest mark of a sound Christian." Preface, p. iv.

We might quote more passages written in the same spirit, for which it is no excuse to say, that it was excited by previous controversy. Our second objection is founded on the following declaration.

"But to speak my mind freely on the subject of consequences, I am not so scrupulous perhaps in my regard to them, as many of my profession are apt to be: my nature is frank and open, and warmly disposed, not only to seek, but to speak what I take to be true, which disposition has been greatly confirmed by the situation into which Providence has thrown me. For I was never trained to pace in the trammels of the church, nor tempted, by the sweets of its preferments, to sacrifice the philosophic freedom of a studious, to the servile restraints of an ambitious life: I persuade myself that the life and faculties of man, at the best but short and limited, cannot be employed more rationally or more laudably than in the search of knowledge, and especially of that sort which relates to our duty, and conduces to our happiness. In these inquiries, therefore, wherever I perceive any glimmering of truth before me, I readily pursue and endeavour to trace it to its source, without any reserve or caution of pushing the discovery too far, or opening too great a glare of it to the public." Preface, p. v.

Now this were all well, supposing that Dr. Middleton could have infallibly determined what is the truth; but if he chanced, like other men, to be sometimes deceived, then surely some evil might ensue from so precipitate a course.

Having thus ventured to find fault with the exordium, we will

endeavour to do justice to the contents of the work before us, assigning our own reasons, when we cannot agree with the author.

The volume consists of a " Preface," an "Introductory Discourse," "a Postscript," " an Inquiry into the miraculous Powers assumed by the Romish Church," "a Prefatory Discourse to the Letter from Rome," and, lastly," the Letter from Rome" itself. In the Preface Dr. Middleton briefly touches upon the arguments brought forward to refute his system, which system we give in his own words.

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My opinion in short is this, that in those first efforts of planting the Gospel, after our Lord's ascension, the extraordinary gifts which he had promised were poured out in the fullest measure on the apostles, and those other disciples whom he had ordained to be the primary instruments of that great work; in order to enable them more easily to overrule the inveterate prejudices both of the Jews and Gentiles, and to bear up against the discouraging shocks of popular rage and persecution, which they were taught to expect in this noviciate of their ministry. But in process of time, when they had laid a foundation sufficient to sustain the great fabric designed to be erected upon it, and by invincible courage, had conquered the first and principal difficulties, and planted churches in all the chief cities of the Roman empire, and settled a regular ministry to succeed them in the government of the same, it may reasonably be presumed, that as the benefit of miraculous powers began to be less and less wanted, in proportion to the increase of those churches, so the use and exercise of them began gradually to decline; and as soon as Christianity had gained an establishment in every quarter of the known world, that they were finally withdrawn, and the Gospel left to make the rest of its way by its own genuine strength, and the natural force of those divine graces, with which it was so richly stored." P. xxii.

In the pursuance of the design of the work, the reader is assured,

"That he will find none of those arts which are commonly employed by disputants, either to perplex a good cause, or to palliate a bad one; no subtle refinements, forced constructions, or evasive distinctions; but plain reasoning, grounded on plain facts, and published with an honest and disinterested view, to free the minds of men from an inveterate imposture, which, through a long succession of ages, has disgraced the religion of the Gospel, and tyrannized over the reason and the senses of the Christian world. In pursuit of which end, I have shown," says Dr. M., "by many indisputable facts, that the ancient fathers, by whose authority that delusion was originally imposed, and has ever since been supported, were extremely credulous and superstitious; possessed with strong prejudices and an enthusiastic zeal in favour, not only of Chris