before the judgment-seat of reason,' that he published his Philosophical Introduction.'

We are not disposed to concur in the fearful charges of hypocrisy which are brought against Hermes by his Romish adversary, the Father Perrone, for having continued during so long a time to discharge the duties of a priest, and to fill the office of professor of theology at a Catholic University, while yet he was doubting the existence of a God. All men who are continually exercising their reasoning faculties, are more or less assailed by doubts; and there is no ground for supposing that Hermes regarded these doubts otherwise than as temptations, and earnestly strove to overcome them. That he adopted a wrong method of doing so, which led him to spend the best years of his life in disquiet and perplexity, does not affect his sincerity, or justify the charge of hypocrisy. And having overcome his doubts:

"Thus I have now,-thanks be to my God, whom I have found,— attained the conviction which I so much desired and sought. I am become certain, that there is a God, that I shall be, and live for ever; I am become certain, that Christianity is divine revelation, and that Catholicism is true Christianity.*-Therefore I now wish with my whole heart,—and what should I be, if I did not wish ?—that all men should gain the same conviction, and be united with me, through the same faith, and the same hope, in the One God, and the One Catholic Church of His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ."

It is not necessary for our purpose, that we should institute a critical examination of the Hermesian system. It will suffice to mention that the author,-by means of series of derivations, which bear a considerable resemblance to the Kantian philosophy, -discovers three different grades or states of the reasoning faculties; viz. the state of holding an idea to be reality (das Fürwirklichhalten); the state of being resolved (die Entschiedenheit); and the state of conviction (die Ueberzeugung). We need not pursue our inquiries any further; it will be sufficiently obvious that this system is opposed to true Christian philosophy, when we consider that there is no place in it for one most necessary grace of the Christian character, namely faith. It is true that Hermes speaks enough of faith; but he is obliged to give a new definition of it, and to make it identical with one or

Father Perrone rather unfairly falsifies the sense of this passage, in order to make it appear that Hermes during the whole of this portion of his life was at heart an infidel, and had entirely lost all knowledge and belief of God: "E cosi finalmente," (which is not the meaning of the German nun')—“ grazie al mio Dio, ch' io ho ritrovato !"-(the Italian implies a previous total loss, which the German word does not)" io sono arrivato al convincimento;" on which he makes the following comment: "Lo star vent'anni e più prima di ritrovare il suo Dio, che è quanto dire, non sapere di Dio, nè credere in Dio per vent'anni e più.” -Annali, &c. p. 345.

6

the other of these states of mind which we have named: one or the other, for it does not seem quite clear, with which of the three he is desirous of identifying it. Faith,' he tells us, all ' other theologians have defined to be, the holding a thing to be 'true upon the authority of another, of God or of a man; but the distinctive words, "upon the authority of another" are 'incorrect. And in another place he says, "If we would define 'faith so as to exclude every kind of superstition, we must call 'it a being resolved or convinced respecting the truth of something ' recognised.'

Thus we see that the starting point of Hermes, and consequently the whole structure, is essentially rationalism. Rationalism and faith are necessarily irreconcilable with each other: faith in the common acceptation of the term, is, as described by Hermes, deference to the authority of a superior intelligence; while rationalism, on the contrary, is the holding a thing to be true or false upon the decision or the conviction of our own unaided reason. It is in vain that Hermes would persuade us, that when once reason has discovered the truth of the Christian revelation, it is then bound to believe the particular doctrines revealed, even should they be unreasonable. It is a mockery to give to reason the power of deciding on the truth or falsehood of a revelation, unless it is according to the reasonableness of its contents that the decision is to be made. The order of thinking in each individual mind would not be: I am convinced of the reasonableness of the revelation, and therefore I will believe its contents to be true;' -but, I am convinced of the reasonableness of the contents, and therefore I will believe the truth of the revelation.' In his own case, however, Hermes endeavoured to follow the opposite course; with how little success is apparent in his posthumous work, the Christ-Katholische Dogmatik,' which professes to be a defence of the doctrines of the Church of Rome, setting out from the conviction previously obtained, of the truth of the Christian revelation. As he only doubted in order to be able to believe, so now he seems to remember but too well, that it was only by doubting that his belief was obtained.

Hermes was neither a thinker nor a writer of the first order: but he was heart and soul in his system; he toiled at it day and night; and he had a wonderful faculty of inspiring his hearers with a sort of enthusiasm for the cause he advocated. It was, in fact, very evident that he was thoroughly in earnest, and that is, in many cases, the secret of success. In the year 1807 he became professor of dogmatic theology at the academy of Münster in Westphalia; and from the year 1820 until his death, which took place in 1831, he filled the same office in the

newly-founded university of Bonn. During this period he instilled his principles into a great number of admiring pupils, and it is said that in 1835 his system had been adopted in every Catholic university of Germany. He died in honour and renown, and his obsequies were celebrated amid universal sympathy, not only at Bonn, but also at Münster, which he had quitted eleven years before.

Up to the period of his death, and even for some years afterwards, the success of his teaching appears to have created no extraordinary alarm at Rome, or among the Romish party of Catholic Germany. But in September, 1835, a papal breve' was unexpectedly published, totally condemning the system of Hermes, and requiring all ecclesiastical authorities not only to discard his works from the seminaries of learning, but also to warn their flocks against feeding on such poisonous pastures.'

6

The papalbreve' takes a very plain and intelligible view of the whole matter. It very properly avoids singling out particular passages, or heretical statements in the writings of Hermes; and contents itself with a sweeping condemnation of the whole system, on the broad ground, that the author has rashly departed from, and even haughtily despised and condemned, the royal road, which universal tradition and the holy Fathers have pointed out, in the exposition and defence of the ' verities of faith; and that he has paved a dark way to errors of every kind, in making positive doubt the basis of all theolo'gical inquiry; and in establishing the principle, that reason is the chief rule, and the only means, by which man can arrive at the knowledge of supernatural truths.'

Here we find the Church exercising her legitimate conservative office, resisting innovation, and boldly opposing the introduction of a fatal rationalism. Unimportant indeed, as the history of German Protestantism shows, is the prevalence of errors, even of fatal heresies, on isolated points, compared with the entrance of a wrong method of arriving at the truth, an erroneous rule of faith. And yet this is the momentous question, which more and more is absorbing all others; which under one form or another is appearing and reappearing, year after year, in every Christian country. It is no longer on isolated points of doctrine that men are disputing; they are doubting whether there be a doctrine? It is no longer whether they are holding the true faith that they are asking, but what is faith? Two views on this subject, and two only, are possible; the one is, that faith is the conviction of the individual mind; the other is, that faith is a deference to authority, the authority of God embodied in His Church. Mystify mankind with as many phrases as we will, it is to one or the other of these definitions

that we must at last return. Conceal it from others and from ourselves, defer the day of choosing our side as long as we may, it is to a division upon this question that we must ultimately come. And even now the division is taking place; all minor differences are falling away; Catholics and Protestants, Churchmen and dissenters, it is according to our views upon this subject, that even now we are ranging ourselves upon the field of battle.

The rulers of the Church of Rome have therefore taken their position upon a wise and a just ground, and deserve the gratitude not only of the members of her communion, but of all sincere Christians. We shall not be suspected of imagining that her doctrines are free from errors; but, assuredly, it were better that one-half of the Christian world should hold them as they are, than that they should resort to human reason to prepare a new creed for them. We have already adverted to the example of Lutheranism: Germany never boasted a theologian who was more orthodox in his adherence to every article of her professed creed, or more eager in its support, than Wolff'; and yet he was the real founder of the whole system of the neology now prevailing, with all its blasphemy and unbelief. It is true that Lutheranism had no means of resistance: there was a Church only in name, totally devoid of any real energy or substantial power; and the puny opposition of the temporal rulers, who had made themselves petty popes, served but to hasten the progress of the invading philosophy. Again, and this was even more important, the leaders of the Reformation, in asserting the right of private judgment in the interpretation of Scripture, had established a principle, the consequences of which, sooner or later, were sure to appear and to prevail. The rapidity with which philosophy, when once it showed itself upon the theological arena, carried every thing before it, and became all in all to the German Protestant divines, is the best proof of the inconsistency of which Luther was guilty, when he made human reason supremely capable of judging one set of divine truths, and at the same time asserted it to be utterly powerless, and incapable of taking cognizance of another.

The Church of Rome, on the contrary, has no such difficulties to contend with. Whether the supremacy of her patriarchal ruler is usurped and illegal, or not; it is a real substantial power, and admirably adapted to its purpose. So likewise, in resisting the introduction of a new rule of faith, she is guilty of no inconsistency; admitting that she has herself innovated and permitted additions to the faith; still she has, in principle, adhered to one rule, the royal road which she commends; she has never authorized the use of private judgment; and we are never more disposed to indulge in sanguine hopes for her advance to greater

purity, than when we behold her, as in the case before us, wielding her enormous power with energy and wisdom, and opposing the progress of that false philosophy, which puts on the appearance of an angel of light, only that it may lead those whom it seduces, into darkness and perplexity. If ever Germany regains the character of a religious and a believing people, assuredly it will be owing to the efforts of the Church of Rome, unacknowledged, disowned though they may be by the majority of the nation.

The papalbreve' appeared, and fell like a thunderbolt among the German Catholic professors; but they had learned their new system too well to resign, without a struggle, their individual convictions in deference to the authority of the Head of their Church. They could not, however, openly resist that authority; and they resorted, therefore, to the excuse, which has invariably been adopted by every party, which has incurred the censure of the Pope, and is not disposed to yield implicit submission. They declared their entire concurrence in the opinions expressed in the breve ;' they looked with abhorrence upon every attempt to introduce dangerous novelties into the doctrines of the Church; they would willingly abjure any heresies which might be contained in the Hermesian writings; but, they denied the fact that there were any; they protested that their system was in the strictest accordance with the Catholic doctrine; the Pope, they said, had been deceived by false translations and garbled extracts, and they appealed from the Pope ill-informed to the Pope better informed.'

Here was abundant matter for another new controversy, or rather for the revival of a very old one. The nature and the extent of the infallibility which is to be ascribed to the Pope, have always been favourite topics with those whose opinions have been condemned by him; and the Hermesians eagerly seized upon this question, and commenced a controversy which is still raging with unabated violence. In doing so, they showed considerable skill; they diverted the public attention from the real point at issue, where they had the worst of the argument, and engaged it in a much more popular question, in which they had decidedly the best. They concealed the fact that the papal 'breve' had purposely abstained from stigmatizing particular passages in the writings of Hermes as heretical; and had rather condemned the tendency of the whole system as anti-catholic and fatal; and they pretended to believe that the Pope was actually ignorant of the real nature of their contents. And in order to strengthen the inference which they drew from this statement, they resorted to the distinctio juris et facti,' an argument which was especially rendered notorious by the Jansenists in the seventeenth century. They had, in truth, an easy