feel his positive faith, bis sure confidence that the Bible was the word of God, more indestructible, than in Arnold's hands. He was conscious that, whilst Arnold interpreted Scripture as a scholar, an antiquarian, and an historian, and that in the spirit and with the development of modern science, he had also placed the supernatural inspiration of the sacred writers on an imperishable historical basis, a basis that would be proof against any attack which the most refined modern learning could direct against it. Those only who are fully aware of the importance of harmonizing the progress of knowledge with Christianity, or rather, of asserting, amidst every possible form of civilization, the objective truths of Christianity and its life-giving power, can duly appreciate the value of the confidence inspired by the firm faith of a man, at once liberal, unprejudiced, and, in the estimation of even the most worldly men, possessed of high historical ability.

II. But I have not yet mentioned the greatest merit of Arnold's Exegesis; it took a still higher range. It was not confined to a mere reproduction of a faithful image of the words and deeds recorded in the Bible, such as they were spoken, done, and understood at the times when they severally occurred. It is a great matter to perceive what Christianity was, such as it was felt and understood to be by the hearers of the Apostles. But the Christian prophet and interpreter had in his eyes a still more exalted office. God's dealings with any particular generation of men are but the application of the eternal truths of His Providence to their particular circumstances, and the form of that application has at different times greatly varied. Here it was that Arnold's most characteristic eminence lay. He seemed to me to possess the true água, the very spiritual gift, of yros, having an insight not only into the actual form of the religion of any single age, but into the meaning and substance of God's moral government generally; a vision of the eternal principles by which it is guided; and such a profound understanding of their application, as to be able to set forth God's manifold wisdom, as manifested at divers times, and under circumstances of the most opposite kind; nay, still more, to reconcile with His unchangeable attributes those passages in Holy Writ at which infidels had scoffed, and which pious men had read in reverential silence. Thus, he vindicated God's command to Abraham to sacrifice his son, and to the Jews to exterminate the nations of Canaan, by explaining the principles on which these commands were given, and their reference to the moral

state of those to whom they were addressed; thereby educing light out of darkness, unravelling the thread of God's religious education of the human race, from its earliest infancy down to the fulness of times, and holding up God's marvellous counsels to the devout wonder and meditation of the thoughtful believer. As I said at first, Arnold has rather pointed out the path, than followed it to any extent himself; the student will find in his writings the principles of his method rather than its development. They are scattered, more or less, throughout all his writings, but more especially in the Appendix to vol. ii. of the Sermons, the Preface to the third, the Notes to the fourth, and the Two Sermons on Prophecy a. These last furnish to the student a very instructive instance of his method; for, whilst he will recognise there the double sense of Prophecy, and much besides that was held by the old commentators, he will also perceive how different an import they assume, as treated by Arnold; and how his wide and elevated view could find in Prophecy a firm foundation for a Christian's hope and faith, without their being coupled with that extravagance with which the study of the Prophecies has been so often united. His Sermons, also, generally exhibit very striking illustrations of his faculty to discern general truth under particular circumstances, and his power to apply it in a very altered, nay, often opposite form to cases of a different nature; thus making God's word an ever-living oracle, furnishing to every age those precise rules, principles, and laws of conduct which its actual circumstances may require.

I must not forget to add, that his principles of interpretation were of slow and matured growth; he arrived at them gradually, and, in some instances, even reluctantly; and one of the most elaborate of his early sermons, which he had intended to have preached before the University, was in defence of what is called the verbal inspiration of Scripture. But, since I became acquainted with him, I have never known him to maintain anything but what I have here tried to set forth. It is very possible that much of what I have here said may appear to many to be exaggerated; but I know not how else to express adequately my firm confidence that the more the principles which guided Arnold's interpretation of Scripture are studied in his writings, the more will their power to throw light on the depths of God's wisdom be appreciated. Yours, ever,

B. PRICE.

To these may be added the posthumous volume of "Sermons, mostly on Interpretation of Scripture."

3. Lastly, his letters will have already shown how early he had conceived the idea of the work, to which he chiefly looked forward, as that of his old age, on Christian Politics, or Church and State. But it is only a wider survey of his general views that will show how completely this was the centre round which were gathered not only all his writings, but all his thoughts and actions on social subjects, and which gave him a distinct position amongst English divines, not only of the present, but of almost all preceding generations. We must remember how the Greek science, :T, of which the English word "politics," or even political science, is so inadequate a translation—society in its connexion with the highest welfare of men-exhibited to him the great problem which every educated man was called upon to solve. We must conceive how lofty were the aspirations which he entertained of what Christianity was intended to effect, and what, if rightly applied, it might yet effect, far beyond anything which has yet been seen, or is ordinarily conceived, for the moral and social restoration of the world. We must enter into the keen sense of the startling difficulty which he felt to be presented by its comparative failure. "The influence of Christianity no doubt has made itself felt in all those countries which have professed it; but ought not its effects," he urged, "to have been far more perceptible than they are, now that nearly eighteen hundred years have elapsed since the kingdom of God was first proclaimed? Is it, in fact, the kingdom of God in which we are now living? Are we at this hour living under the law or under grace?" Everything, in short, which he thought or said on this subject, was in answer to what he used to call "the very question of questions;" the question which occurs in the earliest of all his works, and which he continued to ask of himself and of others as long as he lived. "Why, amongst us in this very country, is the mighty work of raising up God's kingdom stopped; the work of bringing every thought and word and deed to the obedience of Christ?" (Serm. vol. i. p. 115.)

This work he approached at four different times: 1. in a sketch drawn up in 1827; 2. in two fragments in 1833, 34; 3. in a series of Letters to Chevalier Bunsen, 1839; 4. in an historical fragment, 1838-1841. These have all been since published in the "Fragment on the Church."

The great cause of this hindrance to the triumph of Christianity, he believed to lie (to adopt his own distinction) in the corruption not of the Religion of Christ, but of the Church of Christ. The former he felt had on the whole done its work— "its truths," he said, "are to be sought in the Scriptures alone, and are the same at all times and in all countries." But "the Church, which is not a revelation concerning the eternal and unchangeable God, but an institution to enable changeable man to apprehend the unchangeable," had, he maintained, been virtually destroyed; and thus, "Christianity being intended to remedy the intensity of the evil of the Fall by its Religion, and the universality of the evil by its Church, has succeeded in the first, because its religion has been retained as God gave it, but has failed in the second, because its Church has been greatly corrupted." (Serm. vol. iv. Pref. p. xliv.)

66

What he meant by this corruption, and why he thought it fatal to the full development of Christianity, will best appear by explaining his idea of the Church, both with regard to its true end, and its true nature. Its end he maintained to be "the putting down of moral evil." "And if this idea," he asks, seem strange to any one, let him consider whether he will not find this notion of Christianity everywhere prominent in the Scriptures, and whether the most peculiar ordinances of the Christian Religion are not founded upon it; or again, if it seem natural to him, let him ask himself whether he has well considered the legitimate consequences of such a definition, and whether, in fact, it is not practically forgotten?" Its true nature he believed to be not an institution of the clergy, but a living society of all Christians. "When I hear men talk of the Church," he used to say, "I cannot help recalling how Abbé Sièyes replied to the question, 'What is the Tiers Etat?' by saying 'La nation moins la noblesse et le clergé;' and so I, if I were asked, What are the laity? would answer, the Church minus the Clergy." "This," he said, "is the view taken of the Church in the New Testament; can it be said that it is the view held amongst ourselves, and if not, is not the difference incalculable ?" It was as frustrating the union of all Christians, in accomplishing what he believed to be the true end en

joined by their common Master, that he felt so strongly against the desire for uniformity of opinion or worship, which he used to denounce under the name of sectarianism; it was as annihilating what he believed to be the Apostolical idea of a Church, that he felt so strongly against that principle of separation be tween the clergy and laity, which he used to denounce under the name of priesteraft. "As far as the principle on which Archbishop Laud and his followers acted went to reactuate the idea of the Church, as a co-ordinate and living power by virtue of Christ's institution and express promise, I go along with them; but I soon discover that by the Church they meant the elergy, the hierarchy exclusively, and there I fly off from them at a tangent. For it is this very interpretation of the Church that, according to my conviction, constituted the first and fundamental apostacy." Such was the motto from Coleridge's Remains which he selected as the full expression of his own views, and it was as realizing this idea that he turned eagerly to all mstitutions, which seemed likely to impress on all Christians the moral, as distinct from the ceremonial, character of their religion, the equal responsibility and power which they possessed, not "as friends or honorary members" of the Church, but as its most essential parts.

Such (to make intelligible, by a few instances, what in general language must be obscure) was his desire to revive the order of deacons, as a link between the clergy and laity,—his defence of the union of laymen with clerical synods, of clergy with the oivil legislature,-his belief that an authoritative permission to administer the Eucharist, as well as Baptism, might be beneficially granted to civil or military officers, in congregations where it was impossible to procure the presence of clergy,-his wish for the restoration of Church discipline, "which never Gan and never ought to be restored, till the Church puts an end to the usurpation of her powers by the clergy; and which, though it must be vain when opposed to public opinion, yet, when it is the expression of that opinion, can achieve anything." (Norm. vol. iv. pp. liii. 416.) Such was his suggestion of the Lovival of many "good practices, which belong to the true Church no less than to the corrupt Church, and would there be