And was that servile obedience unto the letter of the commandment to continue until the manifestation of those 'sons of God,' who 'worship God in spirit, and glory in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in any thing outward in the flesh?' Rom. ii. 28. Phil. iii. 3. Even we ourselves, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit (Rom. viii. 23. James į. 18), sigh often for, what in patient perseverance we must wait for-the redemption of the mortal body which still withholds us from what is eventually to be the glory of the children of God. Was it, again, because of the transgressions-(1) to restrain them, lest haply all flesh had once more corrupted his way upon the earth; Gen. vi. 12: (2) to make them known and felt by the transgressors of Law (ch. ii. 18. Rom. ii. 27. vii. 9), and so to convict the whole world of being unquestionably guilty before God; Rom. iii. 19-that the holy and just and good' Law or Economy of Moses was given, as a connecting link between the Divine Promise made to Abraham, and that new and spiritual service in which it was to be realized unto them who, like him, should believe? ver. 22. It is for our Justification; Rom. iv. 25. v. 15. 18-(1) to set forth the abundance of the grace, and of the free gift of righteousness,' which is offered to those who will accept of it on the prescribed terms of Repentance and Faith; and so (2) to further the great work of Man's final Redemption both in body and soul (Rom. viii. 23. Phil. iii. 21), by causing God's method of Justification, designed as it is for all men, to be felt and appreciated and brought home to all; Rom. iii. 22-that, even in our stronghold of Salvation, we still are prisoners of Hope' (Zech. ix. 12. Rom. viii. 24, 25, Gal. v. 5. 1 Thess. v. 8. Tit. iii. 7. James v. 7, 8. 2 Pet. iii. 14, 15); we have not yet attained the end of our faith, nor are we already perfect in love; but we have need of patience, and of using all diligence both to make our own calling and election sure, and to let our Christian light so shine before men, as that others also shall be led after our example to glorify our Father which is in Heaven." The concluding verse of this passage is the most obscure portion of it. We have the following interpretation: "20. Now a Mediator, as the very name implies, belongs not to one party only, and God is but one party-we must then look for another, and (as we might naturally expect it to be) a yet more highly favoured party between whom, and the God of their fathers, Moses and the people baptized into Moses' should intervene. This the Apostle should have added, for the complete elucidation of his argument—and here too, like St. Peter and like St. Stephen (Acts iii. 22, 23. vii. 37), he might have noticed the express testimony which Moses had borne to Christ; and argued, as in Heb. iii. 5, 'Moses verily was faithful in all God's Household, as a servant; but Christ, as a Son, over His own Household-but, as his manner was, he merely glances at the additional argument for a tertium genus to follow the Dispensation of the Law, which the mention of Moses as a mediator had incidentally suggested to him; and then returns, as from a digression in vv. 19, 20, to ask: Is it to be inferred, then, from the direct opposition in which (in ver. 18) I have set Law against Promise, that the Law is in any sense against the Promises of God? Far be it from me to assert this of two Covenants (the Patriarchal and Mosaic) which, each in its own peculiar operation and order, are like from God. I have told you what gave the Law its incidental introduction into, and purely intermediate and subservient place in, the development of 'the eternal purpose which God hath given effect unto in Christ Jesus, our Lord'—(see Eph. iii. 11, and compare note on Rom. v. 20)—and now I tell you that that great revealed mystery, whereby God may still be just, and yet forgive the sinner (Rom. iii. 21. 26), has nothing to do with the principle of LAW; it was planned before the Mosaic Covenant (which was framed upon that principle) was given, and takes no account of any atoning works that on our own part we have done; Luke x. 29. xviii. 9. Tit. iii. 5. It is of the goodness only, the pure 'philanthropy of God our Saviour,' that we find ourselves released from all that debt,' which our conscience (inwardly 'consenting unto the Law of God, that it is good') tells us that no amount of service, that we could pay, might ever have availed to blot out as redeemed. And so, that which (as being at Law our Adversary) God has to exhibit against us, virtually in our own handwriting, yet as it were engrossed in formal codes of Law (Col. ii. 14), really makes not against, but for, the just operation of the Promise in favour of the man that worketh not, but believeth on Him that freely forgiveth the ungodly;' Rom. iv. 5. This it was, in fact, for which this ancillary Covenant was given-this the higher purpose of God's Providence, which it was intended and well adapted to subserve ―to move men, from the Letter that killeth,' to flee for refuge to 'the Spirit that giveth Life."" 6 Our quotations have extended to such a length that we must now reluctantly refrain from proceeding further. We cannot but regard this Commentary as a very valuable addition to our existing works on the exegesis of Scripture. Dr. Peile is an independent thinker, and is deeply versed in the knowledge of the sacred volume, and in full possession of all the qualifications necessary to constitute him an able interpreter of the Scriptures. His diligence in collecting the opinions of preceding writers has enabled him to bring a large amount of the collected wisdom of former ages to bear on his subject. On the whole we have been much impressed by the general soundness and learning of his Commentary, and its largeness and liberality of view; and we certainly are of opinion that it deserves to occupy a place in the library of every student of the original text of Scripture, and that it will afford very material aid to all who may be enabled to consult it. Mr. Gladstone, the "Church" Press, and " Religious Liberty." 337 ART. VII.—1. A Letter to the Right Rev. William Skinner, D.D., Reprinted from the Morning Chronicle 4. Remarks on the above. WHENEVER the history, whether ecclesiastical or civil, of the nineteenth century shall come to be written, we apprehend that no single feature will afford greater subject for comment than the marvellous facility with which men of the highest eminence, both in religion and politics, have deliberately turned their backs upon their former opinions; have deliberately, themselves, done their best to show that the principles by which they were formerly guided were in the highest degree erroneous and unsound. From Archdeacon Manning down to Dr. Newman, on the one hand; from Sir Robert Peel down to Sir Fitzroy Kelly, on the other, we find scarcely any thing but the most palpable and avowed change of opinion, the most notorious desertion of heretofore stronglymaintained principles. Now we are not imputing this as, necessarily, a fault in the case of these persons, or of any others who have pursued a similar line of conduct. It is all very well to talk about "consistency;" to say that we must be stern and inflexible adherents to "principle;" but there is no doubt whatever that as, on the one hand, the double-minded man will be unstable in all his ways, as he that wavereth will be like a wave of the sea, driven by the wind and tossed, so, on the other hand, a blind adherence to an opinion which may formerly have been held in the most perfect sincerity and good faith, adherence simply from the fact of its having been formerly held, will very frequently, from the force of circumstances, degenerate into the very extreme of obstinate bigotry. VOL. XVII. NO. XXXIV.—JULY, 1852. A man is not necessarily "inconsistent" because he changes his opinions; but if, circumstances remaining the same, that man, of his own accord, turns his back on his former convictions, then is he justly, beyond all doubt, liable to the charge of vacillation and want of principle. To give two illustrations of our meaning. Few persons, we imagine, will be found now, after Mr. Disraeli's financial statement, who will impute "inconsistency" to the late Sir Robert Peel, with respect to the commercial policy he advocated since 1846, although, undoubtedly, such policy was a decided instance of change of opinion. Neither, we apprehend, will many be found who will call Colonel Sibthorp a "consistent" man, simply because he inflexibly maintains his former opinion with respect to the Crystal Palace and the Great Exhibition. And so our ground of complaint against such men as Archdeacon Manning and Dr. Newman, is, not simply that they have changed their views with respect to the Anglican Church-but that they have changed them, circumstances remaining precisely the same; that they have changed them without a shadow of real reason, without a single fact having occurred which can, in the smallest degree, justify that which can, in our opinion, be justified under no circumstances whatever, viz. secession from the English Church. If they were ever really sincere in their adherence to the principles of that Church, as embodied in the Book of Common Prayer; then, inasmuch as those principles, inasmuch as that Prayer Book, remain altogether unalteredinasmuch as their adherence was the result, not of mere youthful, but of mature and deliberate conviction, then are they clearly liable to the charge of the grossest inconsistency, to use no harsher term, in deserting those principles as they have deserted them. Of course we are not speaking here of their joining the Romish communion, but simply of leaving the English Church. And so with respect to another case, of much interest at the present moment. We hold that no imputation of "inconsist ency can justly lie against any person who opposes now the grant to Maynooth, even though that person may have ever so strongly supported Sir Robert Peel's measure in 1845. Leaving out of the question all reference to the doctrines taught at Maynooth, which must be, beyond all doubt, those of the Romish Church, in their entirety, no one can deny this position-that the grant in question was intended for men who would not hold a divided allegiance-for men who would not repudiate the lawful authority of their rightful Sovereign-for men who would train up the flocks committed to their charge in habits of peaceable obedience to the law. Inasmuch, then, as it is perfectly notorious that the heads of the Romish Church in Ireland are doing pre cisely the reverse of all this; inasmuch as they are openly preaching a crusade, both in Parliament and out of it, against obedience to the law, as well as against that Established Church which they so solemnly promised, in 1829, never to molest or disturb, it is surely time for English statesmen to retrace their steps on this point; to refuse to assist Irish Romanists, in the infatuated course they now think fit to follow. We have been led into this train of reflections by a perusal of the pamphlet which stands at the head of this paper-a pamphlet which opens up an instance, we do not say, at present, of "inconsistency," but certainly of change of opinion on the part of its author, as remarkable, in every respect, as any of those to which we have just referred. In our opinion, indeed, it is far more remarkable than any of these. Perhaps no man ever occupied a higher position than Mr. Gladstone at one time occupied, among English Churchmen. With a private character on which no one has ever presumed to animadvert; eminently grave, thoughtful, religious, in his cast of mind; a man of the highest intellectual endowments; Mr. Gladstone was once universally regarded, except by a discerning few, as emphatically the champion of the English Church. His great work, "The Relations of Church and State," stamped him at once as the exponent of the noblest principles in agreement alike with Scripture and antiquity, on that important subject. Such Mr. Gladstone was. We say confidently that, at the period of his election. by the University of Oxford, in 1847, a man could scarcely Occupy a higher position among English Churchmen than Mr. Gladstone occupied. But how different is the case now. strange conduct on the question of admitting Jews to Parliament, first opened the eyes of many of his former supporters. Still, though grievously shaken in their convictions, many refused to believe that their heretofore champion had altogether forsaken them. Then came the "Papal Aggression." After Mr. Gladstone's conduct on that occasion-after his remarkable speech on "The Ecclesiastical Titles Bill"-men could hold out no longer. Their eyes were then opened with a vengeance. They were forced to acknowledge, with shame and confusion of face, that they could no longer follow the standard of their former leader. But even then one thing was yet wanting; and that, by his letter to Bishop Skinner, Mr. Gladstone has himself supplied. In that letter he has deliberately retracted every iota of his former opinions; has deliberately unwritten nearly every word of his former greatest work; has avowed himself the supporter of views and principles, which, if carried out in their entirety, ought to lead, if they are sound views, to a speedy and summary dissolution of the con His |