Night Musings, the Minstrel of the Dales, the Haunted Glen, 1. The Prophet of Galilee. 2. The Martyrs, the Dreams, and other Poems. By the Rev. W. A. Newman, M.A. The Patriarchal Age: or, the History and Religion of Mankind, The Pilgrimage: How God was found of him that sought Him not; or, Rationalism in the Bud, the Blade, and the Ear. The Churchman in Scotland; or, the Scottish Crusade Literary Extracts; from English and other Works; Collected during Half a Century: together with Original Matter. By John Poynder, Esq. The Vision of Peace; or, Thoughts in Verse on the Late Se- Elements of the British Constitution: Combining a Compre- The Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Down, Connor, and Dromore. Scenes and Thoughts in Europe. By an American Christian Examples. By the Rev. Alfred Williams, M.A. THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND Quarterly Review. JULY, MDCCCXLVII. ART. I.-The Constitution of the Church of the Future. A Practical Explanation of the Correspondence with the Right Honourable William Gladstone, on the German Church, Episcopacy, and Jerusalem. By C. C. J. BUNSEN, D.P., D.C.L. Longmans. 1847. THIS is a book which certainly belongs to history, if not from its intrinsic importance, yet from the importance of the circumstances which have given occasion for it. The correspondence to which it refers arose out of one of the most remarkable ecclesiastical occurrences of modern times—viz., the concurrence of Episcopal England and Presbyterian Prussia in the appointment of a bishop for Jerusalem, which bishop is to be alternately nominated by these Episcopal and Presbyterian Churches, but is to receive Episcopal consecration in England, each Church having already had the opportunity of exercising its choice. The book, moreover, is the production of one who stands high in the confidence of the King of Prussia, as Mr. Gladstone occupied an important post in the administration of our public affairs when the correspondence took place; and, in this point of view, their opinions are entitled to greater weight than those of private individuals. Nor is either party a novice in questions concerning the Church, the latter especially having published a very able work on "The State in its Relations with the Church." When works like these are published by men who occupy influential stations in the world, we are often let into the VOL. XXII.B secret springs and motives of actions which would not otherwise appear, or might be ascribed to other causes; and these actions may exercise a great influence on future events-may become germs of new life and centres of large movements— growing wider and wider in their circles and embracing a vast circumference in their orbits. And in both these distinguished men there is so much appearance of candour that we feel assured of discovering the true motives for their conduct in the reasons they openly assign, and that they are willing to trust to these as its sufficient justification: while their sincerity is accompanied with so much of true charity towards others, and becoming diffidence of themselves, that we feel at ease in dissenting from them, as it leads not to any apprehension of issuing in controversial asperity. We may respect and love the men, even though we should be directly at issue with them, and that on principles which they as well as we may regard as being of vital and fundamental importance. In speaking of his own correspondence with Mr. Gladstone the chevalier says "The confession is made with that frankness and freedom with which public affairs are always discussed in England, and with that joyful assurance of an impartial hearing which does so much to enlarge the heart, and on which, in this nation, amidst all diversities of opinion, an honest man may always reckon" (xxv). And, when speaking of the doctrine of apostolic succession as maintained by Mr. Gladstone, he says "I certainly cannot regard this in a different light from many similar points in English life--namely, as the insular idiosyncrasy in declaring and embodying a Catholic truth, and as the national expression of a Catholic principle" (xlv). We are thus sure of best pleasing the author by discussing the contents of his volume with all "frankness and freedom," and if we in our turn regard some of the points maintained therein as the Prussian "idiosyncrasy in declaring and embodying a Catholic truth," we have his own example and warrant for the proceeding. It cannot, we think, be denied that those national characteristics which distinguish one race of mankind from another, and which have tended so greatly to form and modify their social and political institutions, are inherent, and that they have therefore exercised a considerable influence upon their forms of worship and ecclesiastical polity. But other causes of difference have also been in operation, and the various forms of Church government, with their consequent varieties of ritual which we at present behold, were not always and originally of choice, but were often forced upon them by necessity. Yet it often happens that things which have been forced upon us, or which were the only things we could do at the beginning, become by use so agreeable that we regard them as excellent, and speak of them as preferable, and to be universally adopted. It has been said of vice that there is danger in growing familiar with it, as we first endure, then pity, then embrace; and much more is it true of things which are not directly evil but only imperfect or defective-we may tolerate the defects until we become attached to them, and even convert them into objects of admiration. The English Church was fortunate in being able to retain episcopacy at the Reformation, and we will not allow our partiality for this mode of Church government-which was the only form of government recognized throughout Christendom before the Reformation— we will not allow our partiality for an order which prevailed over all the Catholic Church to be regarded as an insular idiosyncrasy. But the German Church was not equally fortunate, and was constrained to content itself with the Presbyterian form, defective in bishops who had previously held the highest rank in the universal Church. We lament their deficiency, but we do not deny that they are still a Church; yet we will not allow them to boast of their want as though it were an excellence, and any pretensions of this kind we may very fairly call idiosyncrasy-it is blindness to a defect which every other eye discerns. But it must also be borne in mind that the different countries which succeeded in shaking off the bondage of Rome were found, at the time of the Reformation, in circumstances widely differing from each other, and had to pass through very different courses, and experienced trials of various kinds in struggling for emancipation: some countries escaped from the conflict with little more than the life of the Church: all were obliged to leave some good things behind, because they were inseparable from the pollutions of idolatry; and none can be regarded as having been kept scathless in that dire and desperate contest. The issues at stake were the life or death of the Church, and those who survived had to deplore the defilement or the loss of some portion of the heavenly panoply, and of those ministries and endowments which God at first bestowed, and without which the Church is unfurnished for her present warfare-unprovided with the appointed means for attaining her future perfection. All the first reformers would gladly have retained the episcopal and clerical orders in the Church and the polity dependent upon these institutions; but they must be separated from the corruptions and abuses which |