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REVIEW S.

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We have been completely inundated of late with works on Romanism, so as to be unable to give to many books which we have received on the subject that degree of attention which courtesy seemed to demand. Some of them we have dismissed almost at a glance, which perhaps deserved better treatment, and others we have found to be unworthy of close examination. Yet when we received these pages we applied ourselves to their perusal with avidity. Personal esteem for the author might conduce to this in some degree, but we were influenced far more by our estimate of his qualities as a controversialist. Sincerity, the most important of all, he has proved that he possesses by his sacrifices for the truth's sake. Fairness, the rarest, never seems to cost him an effort. The study of the Romish system has long been familiar to him: this, we believe, is one of the principal causes of his abandonment of that church which bears the same analogy to the church of Rome as the cathedral of St. Paul bears to that of St. Peter. Whoever may be his antagonist, or whatever the theory he opposes, we always find in his polemical writings clearness of perception, gentlemanly habits of thought, and a respectable amount of erudition. We applied ourselves at once therefore to the business, and now, having read the publication, and thus accomplished what

VOL. XV.-FOURTH SERIES.

is often the most difficult part of a reviewer's work, we will present our friends with a brief account of its contents.

We learn from the pamphlet itself that Dr. Feraut, as the spiritual director of a young person who was once a member of Mr. Noel's Bible Class, challenged him to a discussion of the merits of the church of Rome, and expressed a wish that it should be in writing. Mr. Noel accepts the challenge; and as Dr. Feraut announced his intention of printing his replies, Mr. Noel avows his design to print successive letters on the claims of the Romish church, its hierarchy, its worship, its doctrine, its sacraments, and its discipline. This first letter is devoted to an examination of its claims.

Applying himself first to a description of the church as exhibited to us in the apostolic writings, Mr. Noel shows, that Christ loves his whole church and every member of it ;-that he sanctifies them by his word;-that he makes them all at length perfect ;-that he means to have them all at length with him ;— that all their names are written in His book of life;-that all are the "firstborn" of God, heirs of glory, and are therefore believers who have received Christ, and are sanctified by his Spirit ;that all are clothed at last in the righteousness of Christ ;—and that all reach eternal glory in heaven. Thus he gives, as he expresses it, five separate and independent proofs that the church is composed of true believers. "Any one of the five," he observes, "establishes the truth independently of the other four. The church is composed of true believers, because it is a temple built of

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living stones; because it is a flock composed of sheep who follow Christ; because it is a household of servants who hold fast their confidence in Him; and because it is expressly declared to be an assembly of children of God, who are His heirs, and whom Christ will make perfect, and have with Him for ever." Mr. Noel meets the objection derived from certain parables in which bad and good are represented as mingled together, by observing that "the field" is not the church but "the world," and that "the net" is not the church but the doctrine of the gospel, which makes nominal as well as real converts. "Every one who reads these parables with attention," he observes, "can see that the kingdom of heaven means the reign of Christ in the hearts of men. And that our Lord meant to say that in the establishment and progress of His reign, the door of the gospel would be like the net, true and false disciples would be like the ten virgins, believers would be like the merchant, and He himself would be like the sower. But the church is no more the net than it is the merchant, or the sower of the seed."

Having shown that, notwithstanding allegations to the contrary, this church is united-Holy-Catholic-and Apostolic, Mr. Noel turns to the claims of the Romish church. The doctrine of its standards is that "the church of Rome, with its affiliated churches under the pope, together constitute the church of Christ, out of which there is no salvation." The principal text brought forward to sustain this claim, that in the sixteenth of Matthew in which our Lord says, "Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my church," is examined carefully, and the deductions of Romanists from the passage are refuted in terms of which the following is a summary:-" Assuming that Peter is the rock, which has yet to be proved, I have shown you clearly, 1. That the

church is built on other apostles no less than on Feter; that there is no evidence of the primacy of Peter; that Paul was in every way the equal of Peter, if not his superior; and that, therefore, the successors of Peter, if he has any, can inherit no primacy from him. 2. That Peter was never bishop of the church of Rome, and, consequently, that his successors, if he has any, are not to be found in that city. 3. That Peter, as the rock, could have no successor whatsoever. Each of these proofs separately destroys the claim of your church, for if Peter's successors have no primacy, then the Roman pontiffs, as his successors, have it not; or if Peter's successors are not to be found at Rome, then the pope is not his successor, and is not head of the church; or if Peter had, as the rock, no successors, then the pope can not be his successor. But if each proof separately refutes your misapplication of this text, how completely must it be condemned by the combination of them all! Your pontiff has no supremacy in the church of Christ grounded in this passage, because Peter had no supremacy, because Peter was not bishop of the church of Rome, and because Peter, as the rock, had no successors. The pontiff's claim is a thorough fiction. Lastly, I have intimated, what I shall hereafter prove, that your church, contradicting apostolic doctrine and precept, is not built on the rock at all, and instead of being mother and mistress of all churches, forms no part whatever of the church of Christ."

Respecting the promise of "the keys of the kingdom of heaven," Mr. Noel writes thus:-"As the kingdom is opened to the pardoned, and shut against the unpardoned, these words obviously mean, I will enable you to declare who are pardoned or unpardoned. But this power was given likewise to all the apostles. (John xx. 22, 23.) They did not, therefore, confer any primacy

upon Peter or his pretended successors, | ignorance; it is opposed to the doctrine They do not mention successors, and all and discipline of Christ's apostles; and pretence of succession, founded on those yet it calls itself the one, holy, catholic words, and all assumption of authority and apostolic church of Christ. Aniby any such pretended successors found- mated by the most gigantic ambition, it ed on them, is usurpation. The power has already made potentates and parof the keys depended exclusively upon liaments bend their knees to its proud inspiration. As inspired men the tiara, and aims at nothing less than the apostles could pronounce with certainty subjugation of the whole world. Three what characters God would forgive or tortured texts, like racked prisoners in condemn, and by the nature of the case its ecclesiastical dungeons, have been the power must terminate with the forced by it to support usurpations inspiration on which it rested. In which their plain and natural meaning other words, neither Peter nor any condemns. Thus sanctioned, it calls other apostle could convey this power itself the church of Christ, and with a of the keys to any other men, since they hardihood which eclipses the daring of could not convey the inspiration with all other usurpers, it has raised its unwhich the power was identified." authorized precepts to an equality with the laws of God, proclaiming that whoever disobeys them is guilty of mortal sin.

Having subsequently shown that the church of Rome is neither the church of Christ, nor any second universal church appointed and owned by Him, Mr. Noel asks, “What is it then?" To this question he replies, "It is the mixed multitude of a city swarming with soldiers, spies, and sbirri, where the use of the bible is prohibited to the common people, and where civil and religious liberty is denied. It is a church the members of which so hate each other, that the bishop would be immediately expelled, amidst revolutionary uproar, from the city which he misgoverns, if the church were not coerced by a French garrison. 2. It has become, by the bold pretensions of its clergy, 'the mother and mistress' of many corrupt churches, which it has subjected to its dominion, and with which it forms what it erroneously terms the Roman catholic church. 3. This Roman catholic church, composed of the church of Rome and its adherents, is a church whose members have murdered one another by thousands in bloody wars. I have shown it to be unholy from its centre to its circumference; its catholicity has been won by force and fraud acting upon mediaval

By this proud claim to be the one true church, it denies the rights of the church of Christ; whom it vilifies as an impostor, whose crown it has trampled in the dust, whose throne it has usurped, upon whose members in all evangelical churches it has heaped its invectives, and to whom it has been through ages an imperious rival and a deadly foe."

These are views with which English Christians ought to familiarize themselves: if they are not acquainted with them already they should make themselves masters of the subject without delay. We shall not repent having given so long a notice of so small a book, if we should learn that in consequence of it, our readers in great numbers purchase and peruse the series of which it is a commencement. Mr. Noel may be trusted. He thoroughly understands the subject, and he perceives its importance. A man in his position has immense advantages too in treating with Romanists, over men who are fettered by articles of human device, or chargeable with unscriptural practices. His sword is "the sword of the Spirit,"

and he wields it with the skill of one who has long been accustomed to the exercise. We are thankful for that providential dispensation which has called him to this engagement, and we hope that wherever our opinion is valued this notice will have its legitimate effect. We are not afraid of baptized believers emigrating to Rome; but we are afraid of houses on the road thither, in which they may be induced to sojourn, and where their children will be prepared for a transfer of their allegiance to "the mother and mistress of all churches."

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MIRACLES may be viewed in various aspects. They may be regarded simply as miracles-the production, that is, of results by other means than the ordinary laws of nature. They may be viewed as attesting the supernatural authority of him who performs them. They may be viewed as bearing witness to the disposition of the worker, according as they are beneficent or otherwise. They may be viewed in the light of the influence they exert on the mind of the beholder. They may in some instances be regarded as parabolic; as in the case of the withered fig-tree, and, perhaps, the cleansed lepers, and the restored demoniacs. Dr. Cumming in the work before us regards them in another light; and seeks in this exposition of them to bring them before us in this other aspect. He views them as being all of a typical nature, and as all typifying the same fact-the complete final restoration of nature to its

pristine condition. In his own words, he seeks "to set forth as fully as possible the redemptive character of the miracles of our Lord;" "to show that they were not mere feats of power or proofs of divine beneficence, but installations of the future age-specimens on a smaller scale of what will be realized when the predictions of the two last chapters the Apocalypse shall have become of actualized in full and lasting fact." In corroboration of this view he asserts "that the miracles of our Lord were not simply acts of power, or expressions of beneficence, but that they were earnests, forelights, pledges of the grand and universal emancipation that will yet dawn upon the world." And he further affirms, that "no act of Jesus was finished when it was done; but it was significative of a greater act yet to be;" "whatever Jesus did, especially, was significant of something brighter and better that Jesus will do."

We have given the Doctor's own words, that there may be no misapprehension of his theory. The same statements are made in different parts of his lectures; but unfortunately Dr.Cumming does not think it necessary to advance any authority for this explanation of Christ's miracles, and as we are not aware that there is conveyed to us in the scripture that records them any intimation that this is the correct mode of their interpretation, we find it somewhat difficult to bring our minds to coincide with the arrangement. understand how the miracles Christ wrought, evidencing a heart grieving over the consequences of man's sin, manifesting amazing compassion for the sinner, and testifying of infinite wisdom and power, suggest to us, as a probability, that He will bring about the complete restoration of a fallen world. But this is by no means what Dr. Cumming says or means. He regards them, and each and all of them,

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as intended specifically to convey the one truth, that this restoration is to be effected; and though in many cases unquestionably the possibility of such significance holds, in other instances it requires, we think, all the Doctor's ingenuity and rhetorical ability to draw it out and make it plain. We confess that in the miracles of turning water into wine, of feeding the five and the three thousand, of the draught of fishes, and of the withered fig-tree, the relation to this truth is not self-evident to our minds; and in the case of Christ's hushing the tempest and bringing the ship immediately to land, we will present our readers with the author's own explanation. "When he walked upon the yielding waves, and beckoned to the obedient winds, and the former slumbered at his feet like gentle babes, and the latter came to him like his own hired servants, he then showed that he was creation's Lord, about to retune creation's tangled strings, and bring it back again like an Æolian harp, to its ancient order and perfection when God's Spirit shall sweep over it, and bring out glorious and inexhaustible melody." All this may be true; but we still doubt whether it was the intention of Christ to teach it when he performed the miracle. Dr. Cumming, however, states it; and his faith in the significance of miracles goes even further, for we afterwards find him saying, in reference to the expression, "He delivered him to his mother," in the narration of the raising the widow's son from death-"there may be in this-and I am sure that there is in it-a type and foretaste of that which shall be at the grand resurrection of the pious dead,” “when every restored son shall be delivered to the rejoicing mother, and the joy that was felt in the house at Nain shall only be a dim, dim forelight of that intenser joy that shall be felt in the heavenly home," &c. Now either Dr. Cumming's views

of what constitutes a type are very vague, or the Bible, to our minds, if it teaches this may be made to teach anything else: ingenuity is required and little beside.

Dr. Cumming in this theory of interpretation supplies us with a criterion of the divine origin of miracles; and this he does in so many words, and repeatedly. "All true heavenly miracles have this one grand feature: they have a redemptive character; they go to counteract and reverse the effects of the fall." Now is this criterion the result of independent and sufficiently extensive induction; or is it a hasty generalization thrown out to support his hypothesis? obviously the latter; for its effect must be to set aside the vast majority of the Old Testament miracles. Where, for instance, is the redemptive character of Moses' leprous hand, of the plagues of Egypt, of the sun and moon standing still, of the earthquake engulfing Koran Dathan, and Abiram, of the sun going, back on the dial of Ahaz,—of a host of others? But passing by this, he says, "If we try every miracle performed by our Lord by this test we shall find it stand." Is this so? We acknowledge we wondered how this should be made to appear in the case of the withered fig-tree; and this is the solution we found. "The selection of this tree, even by its sacrifice and destruction, to convey a new lesson to mankind, is an instalment and foreshadow of that glorious epoch when nature shall hear the last trump, and rise from her degradation and her ruin, and become the mighty lesson-book from which a vast and redeemed population shall learn new and glorious lessons of the goodness, and mercy, and beneficence of God." Is this sufficient? does this constitute a redemptive character? we are at a loss then to know what miracle is not redemptive. Our author, however, in another lecture supplies us with

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