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formity, and sought the mysterious operations of Divine grace through material channels. The Anglo-Catholic spirit in most respects, as might be expected, appears more shadowy and in less power amongst the Bishops connected with the Reformation than amongst those who succeeded. Parker, Whitgift, and Laud represent stages of advancement in this point of view. But from the very foundation of the Reformed Church of England this spirit, in a measure, manifested itself, and in no respect, perhaps, so much as in reverence for early patristic teaching. The divines of this school, drawn towards the Fathers by their venerable antiquity, their sacramental tone, and their reverence for the episcopate, did not miss in them doctrinal tendencies accordant with their own. Even the Calvinistic Anglican of an earlier period could turn to the pages of Augustine and of other Latin fathers, and find there nourishment for belief in Predestination and Salvation by faith. But the Arminian still more easily found his own ideas of Christianity in Chrysostom, Clement of Alexandria, and other Eastern oracles. The Greek Fathers were favourites with the Anglican party of the seventeenth century. Whether the study of that branch of literature was the cause or the effect of the Arminian tendencies of the day-whether a taste for the learning and rhetoric of the great writers of Byzantium and Alexandria paved the way for the adoption of their creed, or sympathies with that creed led to the opening of their long-neglected folios, may admit of question."

It would be unfair to identify the whole Royalist and Episcopalian party with this school, but it is certain that these views were predominant among Charles's adherents. At the outset, with rare exceptions, all who were attached to the Protestant cause were opposed to the Court, and it was only when the Parliament had outstripped the notions of the more moderate and seemed to be tending to Presbyterianism that the Royalist side gained accession from those who were not prepared, in their zeal against Popery, to sacrifice the Episcopalian polity and even the crown itself. At the opening of the long Parliament, the great question underlying every other was, whether England was to be brought again under the yoke, not of the Papacy itself, but of the Papal doctrines and superstitions. Oliver Cromwell indicated the true significance of the conflict then beginning, when, twelve years before, he told the House, which then for the first time listened to that harsh unmusical voice of his, before which all England was afterward to bow, that "He had heard by relation from one Dr. Beard" (his old schoolmaster at Huntingdon)" that Dr. Alabaster had preached flat Popery at Paul's Cross, and that the Bishop of Winchester" (Dr. Neile) "had commanded him, as his Diocesan, he should preach

preach nothing to the contrary. Mainwaring, so justly censured in this house for his sermons, was by the same Bishop's means preferred to a rich living. If these are the steps to Church preferment what are we to expect?" The twelve years that intervened between this speech and the long Parliament, proved the justice of these fears and revealed more fully the evil against which the Christian patriot of that time had to contend. They have often been blamed for their uncharitableness towards Popery, but before they are severely condemned on this score, it is fair to remember that to them Popery was synonymous with despotism and persecution, that it was the name not only of a grand religious error, which in their views was little better than essentially idolatrous, but also of a mighty force which was seeking to destroy all the manhood and independence of the age, to repress free thought by visiting its exercise with the most cruel penalties, to bring the minds of men everywhere into subjection to an arrogant and relentless priesthood. The memory of Alva's cruelties in the Low countries, of the horrible autos-da-fe of the Inquisition in Spain, of the St. Bartholemew's massacre in France, and even of the Smithfield fires in their own country was still fresh. They believed and rightly too, that they were resisting the same enemy, though he took a different name; that Anglo-Catholicism was but a slight improvement upon Popery in dogma and ritual, and that in its intolerant and persecuting spirit it was the same. We live in times when it is fashionable to speak in more measured language of Popery, to believe in its professions of liberality and tolerance, to close our eyes to the evidence even of the facts of our own time, and to regard these Puritans as very unreasonable and bigotted people. The time may come when we, or if not we our children, will learn by bitter experience, that the men of the seventeenth century took a more true and philosophical view, when looking at the fundamental principle, both of Popery and Anglo-Catholicism, they held that it was incompatible with the exercise of true liberty and was therefore to be determinately opposed by all who valued either Protestant truth or English freedom.

Remembering this we shall be less severe on some of the points that have provoked animadversions. It is quite true that the Long Parliament committed some grave blunders, but the marvel is, looking at the previous history, at the provocation of years of a petty, paltry tyranny, of all things the most abhorrent to the English spirit, of the constant falsehood and treachery they experienced at the hands of the King, that their mistakes were so few. We must judge them by comparing their proceedings, not with those of Parliament in peaceful times, but rather with those of revolutionary periods. Fearlessly we assert that

there never was so complete a revolution, accomplished with so little of wanton and needless violence, sullied with so little of mere personal and selfish intrigue, disgraced so little with vindictive measures, to so large an extent free from the memory of blood shed on the scaffold for political crimes. We discuss whether the Parliament ought to have sacrificed Strafford, or Laud, or Charles, the great majority now agreeing that the execution of the first was not only profitable but necessary (a point, however, on which Mr. Stoughton disagrees with us and with most impartial judges of the proceeding,) and that that of the second was a gross blunder, not because his guilt was not really as palpable as that of Strafford, and his participation in the atrocious system of "Thorough" as fully proved, but because his power was gone, and therefore mercy might safely have been exercised, while, on that of Charles, opinions are still divided. These, however, are really the only serious counts in the indictment. There were no cruel massacres or wholesale confiscations, no harryings of hostile districts, no long lists of proscriptions, but, even in victory, singular moderation. were severe against unworthy priests, they were unwisely intent on bringing England into conformity with their own religious notions, they were carried away by their own intense feelings, and would have set up a kind of theocracy; they would have done what some in our modern times have sought to do, though not exactly after their pattern, have made the Church and the State one. Hence their extreme narrowness; their inability to rise to the loftiest ideal of Christian freedom, their many difficulties and their ultimate failure. But the age was not prepared for the noble conception of a "Free Church in a Free State." The power of Christian willinghood was not understood, the rights of conscience were very imperfectly officiated, the spirit fostered by Romanism exerted an influence even on those most opposed to its teachings, and the mistakes of the noble-minded men who guided the great Puritan movement, only provoked a reaction which undid their work, and covered their names with unjust obloquy and reproach.

They

The "Broad Church" of Cromwell was a noble one for the times, a marvellous conception, but its failure, even under his guidance, shows how impossible it would be to realize it. Wide, too, as were its boundaries, they would require to be extended, if perfect justice is to be done to all sections of the community. The Church which embraces 90 per cent. of the community, seems to be less oppressive than that which comprehends only 50 per cent., but it is still inequitable, and the burden is, perhaps, felt to be all the heavier by the few who are still placed beyond its pale. Lord Amberley is theoreti

cally right when he says that the State-Church can only rest upon a proper basis when it includes in its clergy all the varieties of belief or unbelief, that are to be found among those who are taxed for its support, but if he could establish this point he would find he had only plunged into fresh difficulties. Mr. Stoughton gives a graphic picture of Cromwell's polity, but we think we have found a more excellent way even than his "Broad Church," and that is the perfect independence of the Christian Church of all relations to the governments of earth. This is the moral forced upon us by this, as by other records of Church history, where we find that the troubles of the Church have arisen mainly from the mistake as to the position she ought to occupy.

THE GIFT OF TONGUES.

THE introduction of the Gospel and its rapid spread in the world were aided, to a very great extent, by the marvellous and supernatural phenomena by which it was accompanied. These are described as "signs and wonders," that is to say, as significant and symbolical in their character, startling, and sometimes alarming in their immediate effects. Among the most prominent of these was what is commonly called, "the gift of tongues." The importance of this strange phenomenon, or new power, was pointed out immediately by Peter, who explained to the crowd on the day of Pentecost, that it was the direct fulfilment of one of the most striking of all the prophecies that were confessedly Messianic. "This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel." On a subsequent occasion, it was accepted by him as an indisputable proof, that Cornelius and his household had received the Holy Ghost. It was apparently the only immediate sign, in fact, either granted or looked for, that the Holy Ghost had been received, not only in Jerusalem* and Cæsarea, but also in Ephesus and Corinth, § and in all probability, in Samaria; it was the first outward and visible sign of the presence and power of the Spirit of God. And, whilst Peter seized upon it as the proof that the prophecies of the past had received their fulfilment in Jesus of Nazareth, whom God had raised up, and who was "by the right hand of God" exalted; Paul devotes so large a space, and assigns so

Acts ii. 4. + Acts x. 46. Acts xix. 6. § 1 Cor. xiv. || Acts 8. 17 18.

prominent a position to his discourse upon the charisma or gift, as to warrant the conclusion that he not only aimed at fencing it round, because it had been abused, but that he looked upon the phenomenon itself as one of very great importance, in relation to the welfare and prosperity of the Church.

Yet, by almost universal consent, this singular and important "wonder and sign" has been suffered to fall into the shade, and the question is rarely asked, or answered with thoughtfulness and care, What was this gift of tongues? One reason for this is no doubt to be fouud in the fact, that it is accepted as a settled and unquestionable conclusion, that the gift simply consisted in the supernatural ability to preach the Gospel in foreign languages; whilst many are altogether unaware of the serious, if not insuperable, difficulties which such a theory has to encounter. And another, and perhaps no less cogent reason, is that one of the only two admissible answers, is so bound up with the name of Irving, that a vague dread of Irvingism creates an invincible prejudice against an interpretation which has gained so unenviable a notoriety, and leads many by a natural reaction, to cling the more tenaciously to a theory, which presents the best safeguard against any such outbursts of fanaticism.

From very early times many different opinions have been held by theological writers, as to the precise character of the phenomenon in question. The great majority have assumed, without reserve, that it was supernatural and miraculous; but there have been, at all events, a few who have attempted to explain it by the operation of certain well-known natural laws. The former, again, have differed widely from one another. The theory generally received has been the one already mentioned, viz., that the gift was bestowed to enable the early Christians to preach the Gospel in the different languages and dialects of the earth. But some have supposed that the miracle was wrought upon the hearer, and not upon the speaker; so that whilst the latter was not conscious of speaking in any language but his own, the words fell upon the listener's ear in the language ordinarily spoken by himself. And others again have regarded the phenomenon as consisting in something entirely distinct from the ability to preach in the dialects of other men, and, in fact, as having no connection with the languages of the earth at all.

Of those who reject the miraculous theory, a few endeavour to explain the whole affair, as nothing more than an extraordinary example of somnambulism, mesmerism, or electro-biology. The speaker was en rapport with his hearers, who shared his thoughts, and seemed to hear him speaking in his own tongue. Others suppose that the "speaking with tongues" consisted only

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