Admiral Rodney had a dog which used to refuse food for two or three days on every occasion when his master left his home to go to sea.1 A northern capital has preserved in bronze an effigy of a dog who could not be persuaded to leave his master's grave in a well-known churchyard, and for whom sympathetic strangers made a kennel and brought food. And from the animal creation we ascend upwards to noble mourners and sufferers among men and women, until from their griefs and martyrdoms we may form some faint and imperfect notion of the grounds for applying to the highest of all creatures the language of the prophet: 'Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto My sorrow.' And yet, again, it is possible that those may be right who imagine that without the permission of evil no test of the truth of their allegiance to the Creator-at least no test visible to created understandings-could have been devised for creatures endowed with conscious intelligence and will. In the profoundly difficult question concerning the addition of the 'Filioque' to the Nicene Creed, Mr. Owen inclines, towards the Eastern side of the discussion. He is perhaps less pronounced in favour of the Orientals than Mr. Ffoulkes or the late Dr. Neale, and he might perhaps maintain that he has not said much more than Bishop Pearson in his famous treatise on the Apostles' Creed. We are far from thinking that such a view as that which Mr. Owen here supports is anywise a divagation beyond the bounds of lawful liberty. Still we should recommend a student of the matter to consult the remarkable letter of Dr. Pusey to Dr. Liddon on this question concerning the double procession of the Holy Spirit. We the more feel bound to recommend this course, inasmuch as this last contribution to dogmatic theology by that saintly teacher by no means displays an extreme or partizan-like treatment of the subject. On another theme the present writer has a slight divergence of sentiment from Mr. Owen. It concerns the question, What place is to be assigned to St. Augustine as a teacher? We say as a teacher, because we have not space to go into the consideration of his character as a man, though, just en passant, we may observe that Mr. Lecky seems to have been led into injustice by not realizing the keen sense of sin which was felt by the great Bishop of Hippo. The language in which Augustine, for example, deplores in the Confessions his juvenile theft of some pears suggests the meaning which 1 Stated in Lord Stanhope's History of England between the Peace of Aix and that of Utrecht. we ought, in fairness, to assign to his comment on morè serious breaches of the moral law.1 But to turn to him as a teacher. We are deeply conscious in this respect of his wonderful range and versatility. The Confessions is a book which in itself is the parent of a vast amount of intellectual and spiritual introspection; not always, indeed, conducted with like honesty and judgment. The De Civitate Dei is one of the baptisms of a department of heathen lore which the patristic Church so frequently achieved. His exegesis, if uncritical and not always consistent, is yet replete with spiritual insight. His letters are often valuable tractates. Both Dr. Pusey and Archbishop Trench place him at the head of instructors (by example) for the youthful preacher, and in Spain a proverbial distich refers to the universal use in the pulpit of that wondrous store-house. As a controversialist he smote both pagan presumption and Donatistic spiritual pride and exclusiveness; and single sentences, couched in his felicitous expressions, have often formed the key-note for an entire meditation. Of his contributions to dogmatic theology, as contained in the Creeds, it must for the moment suffice to mention again the De Vera Religione, the De Doctrina Christiana, the Enchiridion, and the De Trinitate. But was St. Augustine equally wise, equally successful in the famous contest against Pelagius? Yes and more so,' rejoin a host of thinkers. So speak not only Calvin and the descendants of Calvin down to Mr. Spurgeon in our own day, but likewise Mabillon, Tillemont, and all the Jansenists. But the recalcitrants are also numerous and formidable. In southern Gaul there existed thinkers, contemporary with Augustine, who were not prepared to accept all his positions. That some of these were inclined to Pelagianism, or at least to semi-Pelagianism, is true; but this cannot be said of all.3 In a later day, at the commencement of the Reformation epoch, we find Erasmus publishing that remarkable preface 1 For this suggestion, and for much of what immediately follows, the writer must express his indebtedness to a departed friend, the most learned member of the Scottish presbyterate, the late Rev. George Hay Forbes, of Burntisland, in Fife. " Ni sermon sin Agostino.' Thus Englished by Mr. Ford in his Handbook for Spain: There is no olla without bacon, nor a sermon without a quotation from St. Augustine' (Preface, section i. London :. Murray, 1845). We can, we think, herein claim some support from the present Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History, the Rev. Canon Bright. See his volume of Church History. to his edition of the works of St. Hilary of Poitiers which won such hearty admiration from-it must be owned-the questionable judgment of Gibbon. Now Erasmus expressly states it, as a general impression in his age, that St. Augustine, warring with all his strength against Pelagius, had assigned less to the free agency of man than was generally accepted in the sixteenth century. And when we descend to Calvin, after granting all that may be said respecting the many grave and serious differences between Augustinianism and Calvinism proper, yet can we hold that the Bishop of Hippo is in no wise responsible for some of the extravagances of the Genevese Reformer? Or turn to Jansenism. We know its courage, its unworldliness, its sanctification of intellect, its protests against one side—a dangerous side-of casuistry; yet are we prepared to assert that in questions of theosophy the Jansenists were entirely in the right, the Jesuits entirely in the wrong? Such would not, the present writer ventures to believe, be the verdict of a disciple of Hooker and of Butler. Such was not the verdict of Samuel Johnson, a representative man for his day, as Erasmus for an earlier date. Hence while we can fully understand the reasonableness of Mr. Owen when he suggests that Bishop Bull and Thorndike have underrated the value of the theological literature on predestination; and have, through such lack of appreciation, somewhat diminished their own unction and general effectiveness, we ask whether it is not possible that a slightly deeper shade of hesitation than is exhibited in the volume before us concerning certain decisions of Augustine may not be lawful and even desirable; whether there are not in his anti-Pelagian treatises propositions to which it were wise (for the sake of the youthful student) to append to the side of the page the warning that on these points even our greatest doctor of the West is at moments to be cautè legendus. 3. It is possible that further study of the work before us may reveal some topics of difference that have escaped our notice. Possibly 'sentiment' and 'Ritualism' might fairly ask for more ungrudging concession to their claims than our author seems disposed to make. But it is a duty as well as a pleasure to return to the expression of gratitude and sympathy. Yet, just because Mr. Owen's volume gives us so much that we cannot readily find elsewhere, especially if we are to confine our attention to English authors, we should like to see an extra chapter in addition to the present amount of introductory matter. It is becoming the fashion for assailants of such a form of Anglicanism as is exhibited-let us say in Sir William Palmer's Treatise on the Church-to assert that it is unhistorical. Now we by no means assert that Mr. Owen has not given many valuable hints concerning the way in which this charge ought to be met; but we do not find in his book a chapter expressly devoted to the subject. A few remarks of our own may perhaps tend to elucidate the sort of assistance of which we should be glad. When this assertion is made-and frequently it is nothing but an assertion-the speaker or writer may mean one of two very different things. He may mean that Christianity, take what form of it you will, is essentially an unhistoric religion. He may point to such papers as those recently contributed by Mr. Mivart to the Nineteenth Century, and ask whether such concessions as that gifted essayist makes concerning Judaism do not go far to imperil the historic claims of the religion which has sprung out of Judaism. Or he may mean that he considers what is commonly called High Church Anglicanism to be unhistoric, and that though he (the speaker) is not a Roman Catholic, he is inclined to grant in this respect a position to Rome which he will not allow to Lambeth. To criticize the first-named of these two positions would require a separate article. On the second let thus much be said. Placed side by side with the position of modern Dissent, Rome does by comparison become historical; and we can readily understand the assertion of our contemporary the Guardian when, in a recent leader upon Mormonism,' it suggested that the historic element in the Roman system had probably saved Rome's humbler adherents from becoming victims to those hallucinations of Joe Smith and his followers which have allured, to their souls' peril, so many a votary of Welsh Dissent. But when it is implied that Anglicanism has difficulties in connexion with history, and that modern Romanism has none, we are compelled to remind such speculators that the greatest living student of Church history, Ignatius von Döllinger, has been compelled to break with Vaticanism on the avowed ground of its unhistoric character, and that when Dr. (not then as yet Cardinal) Newman proceeded in his letter to the Duke of Norfolk to comment on this charge, he did not venture on a direct counter-issue. He maintained—and we are not blind to the subtlety and ingenuity of the plea that history was only one of the loci 1 See Guardian, August 3, 1887. theologici, and that not only in regard to the decrees of the Vatican Council, but to many other decisions of the Church in various ages, the evidence from the historic side must be allowed to fall short of proof. Still we admit that a tu quoque, though it has in cases of this sort a real force of its own, is not enough; and that is why we desire to see Mr. Owen (or some other students stimulated by his example) consider this subject from our Anglican point of view. But if the author of the volume before us is unwilling or unable to attend to our request, we shall not forget that we cannot reasonably expect everything from one source. Non omnia possumus omnes still holds good in every domain of toil, and we shall not allow the lack of anything for which we seek, to make us forget our gratitude for the real benefits which we have received from our author's devout, long-continued, and honourable exertions. That they may be more appreciated than they have been, and that younger successors may not only inherit but add to their valuable results, is our earnest hope and prayer. ART. X. INGRAM'S HISTORY OF THE UNION. A History of the Legislative Union of Great Britain and Ireland. By T. DUNBAR INGRAM. (London, 1887.) THE history of the Irish Parliament for its eighteen years of nominal independence has this peculiar and pathetic interest, that it is a history not of achievement but of developmentof development again and again thwarted, again and again renewed, until at last, with its passion for true existence still unsatisfied, the Irish nation was forced bodily into the frame of a larger political organism, there to work such effects as might have been expected. England, in 1782, renounced, at the bidding of the volunteers, all control over Irish legislation, except such as lay in the veto of the Sovereign of the two countries. Not even the commercial unity of the empire was preserved. But much was preserved which, if all else was abandoned, had better have been abandoned too. That Ireland could remain a portion of the British dominions if governed by an executive responsible to its own and not to the British Parliament— |