[British Critic, October 1840.]
Dr. Hawkings’s “Inquiry into the connected Uses of the principal means of attaining Christian Truth,” forms the Bampton Lecture for 1840, and is treated in a way for which the public is well prepared, by the sound and convincing statements of his Dissertation on Unauthoritative Tradition. His intention, he tells us, in this new publication, is, to continue his former work, and that with a view of relieving it of certain exaggerated conclusions which have been drawn from it. He has no wish to enter the lists of debate; but this does not deprive us of his valuable judgment on a number of points of detail, but indirectly connected with his subject, relative to the opinions, writings, and proceedings of other parties, at present in controversy.
Dr. Pusey has published a fourth edition of his Letter to the Bishop of Oxford, to which he has prefixed a Preface, chiefly on the subject of Justification.
We are much gratified by Mr. Holden’s work on Justification (Rivingtons). Its general view of the subject is as satisfactory as its mode of treating it is perspicuous. One passage we are tempted to quote. “Allowing,” he says, “such a necessary connexion between justification and sanctification, it is unreasonable to wrangle about their being two distinct things. Supposing them to have separate marks and characters, and supposing, moreover, the one to be in the order of grace successive to the other, yet if they are invariably united, they may be properly considered as one work.The act of justification by the Deity may be divisible into parts, in their nature and in the order of causality distinguishable; all that is contended for is, that they are never disunited; that they invariably appertain to the same person; that infused sanctification is ever present with those who are justified; and therefore that it truly belongs to the act of grace, which we denominate justification,” p. 39. This view must prevail in the end, except amongst Antinomians.
It is with great satisfaction and gratitude to the author, that we notice Mr. Sewell’s “Christian Morals” (Burns). Of course we do not mean to state our agreement with every sentiment of a work full of matter and ardent in expression, but we do really trust good must come to the Church from an ethical creed so deep and attractive as that which this volume sets before us.
Mr. Poole’s volume on the Life and Times of St. Cyprian (Parker, Oxford), is sufficiently described by its title. It aims, according to the author’s profession in his preface, “to recommend that tone of religion—calm, reverential, implicit, self-sacrificing, and objective—which is well and commonly called Catholic,” a tone, which, great as are its merits, it does not always succeed in exemplifying itself. It is besides a carefully executed defence of Anglicanism against the Church of Rome.
Mr. Beaven’s sound and sensible remarks “On the Intercourse between the Church of England and the Churches in the East” (Rivingtons), are very seasonable at this juncture, and will doubtless have a wide circulation.
Mr. Beaven has also published two pamphlets on “The Doctrine of Holy Scripture, and of the Primitive Church on the subject of religious Celibacy” (Rivingtons), in answer to the author of Ancient Christianity, which are a remarkable proof how much the efforts of enemies are tending to advance the cause of Catholic truth. What may not be expected for that cause in our Church, when a writer so free from what is called crotchetiness as Mr. B. uses the language which we find in these publications?
Mr. King, of Trinity College, Dublin, has published (Grant and Bolton, Dublin) “The Psalter of the B. M. V.” commonly ascribed to St. Bonaventura, with an analysis of the authorities on which its genuineness or spuriousness depends. From this it appears, 1st, that Alban Butler or his editor denies its genuineness, appealing to Fabricius, Bellarmine, Labbe, and Natalis Alexander, of whom no one expresses any doubt concerning it, while Waddingston, to whom some of them refer, affirms it 2. That Sbaralea, Perron, Oudin, and Chemnitz doubt it, from its internal characters. 3. That Manning asserts, though without appearance of reason, that it was placed on an index of prohibited books; and 4. that a papal bull has stamped all St. B.’s works, it inclusive, with approbation.
A new monthly publication has made its appearance in Dublin, called the Irish Ecclesiastical Journal. It aims at “promoting unity among the members of the Church;” its “proprietors are determined to know no party whatever in the Church; they design neither to put down one party nor to exalt another,” but “to promote truth, to defend the doctrine, discipline, and constitution of the United Church, and to make known and uphold the principles of the English Reformation.” To a work conducted with such views and feelings we cordially wish success, and we think it will attain it. Some learned articles have already appeased in it. By the bye, what is meant by the “principles of the English Reformation?”