In using the language of hopefulness with respect to the Judgment, we do not intend in the least degree to give a sanction to the tribunal which adjudicated the appeal. However true it may be, that no judgment there given can alter one jot or one tittle of the Church's doctrine, still, the simple fact that the Court, as at present constituted, is the Court of final appeal on controverted points, is an intolerable scandal. Half-a-dozen law lords chosen by the Lord Chancellor or Prime Minister, may be the most competent tribunal to determine questions of law and equity, because they are not only fully acquainted with law terms, but have had a long experience in hearing such cases; but not one of them may have the slightest acquaintance with theological terms and phrases, and terms and phrases in theology have as definite and peculiar a meaning as those in statute law; which none can properly interpret but those familiar with their usage. The country would not endure for a single day that questions involving real property, settlements, contracts, and such like, should be determined by half-adozen Bishops sitting in judgment. And yet the anomaly of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council sitting on theological questions is equally great. The Council admits this; the very Judgment confesses its unfitness; it is a confessed oversight, that when the old Court of Delegates was abolished, no provision was made for the decision of theological questions. In that Court the two professors of theology and other ecclesiastics had places: in this the ecclesiastical element is virtually eliminated. The presence of the two Archbishops may add dignity to the Court, but it has no weight at all. On one point they dissented. The Lord Chancellor mentioned the fact, but evidently their opposition was entirely disregarded. "The Athanasian Creed," says the Judgment, "declares that they that have done evil shall go into everlasting fire.' Of the meaning of these words 'everlasting fire,' no interpretation is given in the formularies which are referred to in the charge," and so any one may put any interpretation on them that he pleases. This may be the rule in interpreting the words of a statute, but no one can hold that it is a sound rule in theology. If such were the rule, no dogmatic statement of the Church would for a moment stand; the creeds themselves would fall to pieces, and be made to mean anything or nothing, under such a process as this. It is quite time that the Church took some action to get this Court of Final Appeal changed or modified. Surely, the Church Union, or the Church Institute, might do something in this matter. If ever there was an opportunity to agitate the matter, it has now arrived. All parties, except the small one which supports the opinions enunciated in the " Essays and Reviews," are disgusted, 1 The following Resolution, passed by the Church Union, in 1862, quite contains the right principle for the constitution of the Court.

"That the highest Court of Appeal should be the Upper House of Convocation, with the understanding that the Bishops exercise the power of calling to their assistance, as assessors, theologians and laymen learned in the law."

and would readily join to remove the anomaly. For once, the very Record is at one with the Guardian and English Churchman; such another concurrence of opinion may never happen again. It would, indeed, be drawing good out of evil, if this Judgment were made the cause for reconstituting the Court, and for doing away with the monstrous anomaly, that the Court should be a variable body, selected at the caprice of a minister of state, according as he may wish to influence the judgment.

REVIEWS AND NOTICES.

The Forty Days after our Lord's Resurrection. By the Rev. W. HANNA. Edinburgh: Edmonstone and Douglas.

A SHORT time since Mr. Hanna published a work, entitled "The Last Day of our LORD's Passion," which proved a success. Two circumstances combined to render it so. First, the intense interest of the subject, which gives unspeakable value to the least glimmer of new light thrown on any part of its details; and, secondly, the fact that the book presented a harmony of the Gospels, in a terse and readable form. These advantages caused the great defects of the work to be overlooked. But now, unhappily presuming on his unexpected popularity, Mr. Hanna has given us a volume, in which all the evils of his former work are greatly exaggerated, while there are not the same merits to counterbalance them. The events of the Great Forty Days are so few and so marked, that there is little difficulty in combining the records of the Evangelists; while the arrogant presumption which has permitted Mr. Hanna in both works, not only to guess at that which has not been revealed, but to attribute motives to our Divine LORD, for which there is not the slightest warrant, and invent speeches for Him which He never uttered, becomes much more glaringly offensive when dealing with the most mysterious period of His sojourn on earth. Had these liberties with the Sacred text been taken by a man of highly devout and reverent mind, full of exalted conceptions of the majesty of the Incarnate GOD, (as, in fact, S. Bonaventura and others did,) they might have been, if not more profitable, at least less painful to the reader. But the most unpleasant feature of this work, is the lowering and exclusively human tone given to all these supposititious words and thoughts of our LORD. The motives ascribed to Him are for the most part totally inadequate as reasons for His actions, and the Love and Power of Him Who is Very GOD, are brought down to the narrow compass of a man's affections and feelings.

As a specimen of the cool manner in which Mr. Hanna gives us his explanations of the deepest mysteries, he says, speaking of the unknown reason which prevented Mary and others from recognizing our LORD, that it seems the best way to account for this, to suppose "that the Resurrection Body of our LORD had passed through a stage or two in its transition from the natural to the spiritual body." And when

such suppositions as these are given in language of the utmost familiarity, (and most doubtful grammar,) when such expressions as, "No, says the SAVIOUR,"-"Our LORD might have had in His eye the words of Peter," it may well be supposed that this is by no means an agreeable book to read.

But it has more serious evils. In his earlier work Mr. Hanna had little occasion to touch on doctrinal points. It is far otherwise when he treats of the period in which our LORD founded His Church, and established her inviolable constitutions. It was not to be expected that a Scotch Presbyterian should understand or accept these doctrines in their fulness; but hardly either would it be expected that the blindest self-sufficiency could imagine it possible, in a few illogical words, to stamp as fallacy that which has been the faith of the Church in all ages. The manner in which Mr. Hanna disposes of the Great Commission, would be ludicrous were the subject less solemn. The power of the Keys conveyed to the Eleven, with the awful gift of the HOLY GHOST, he affirms to be entirely in the hands of any individual man, woman, or child, who has an opportunity of conveying to another the knowledge of the Gospel of CHRIST. He sums up his argument thus:

"Wherever the Gospel of the grace of GoD is preached, not generally, but pointedly to an individual, and he is entreated and encouraged to take hold of peace, to accept of pardon, to trust in the mercy of JESUS, to believe in the forgiving Love of GOD, there is that office of remitting in the Name of JESUS undertaken and discharged."

He

We have freely blamed Mr. Hanna's book, and are glad therefore to bear testimony to those portions of it which are worthy of praise. has carefully and successfully elucidated the details of the different appearances of our LORD after His Resurrection, and has pointed out some circumstances which might escape less attentive readers. As for instance, where he seems clearly to prove, that the twenty-fourth chapter of the Gospel of S. Luke, down to the forty-fourth verse, relates to the Day of the Resurrection; while from the forty-fourth to the fortyseventh, it speaks of what occurred on the Day of the Ascension, which at first sight no one would suppose to be the case.

Infant Baptism practised in the Jewish Church, in the Times of the Apostles, and in all Ages of the Christian Church, &c. By W. W. ENGLISH, M.A., Curate of Bampton Aston, Oxon. Printed by J. Shayler, Witney.

THIS pamphlet, in order to be useful for general purposes, would require entire reconstruction. Merely stripping it of local allusions, would not give it the clearness and conciseness which it needs. Much of the argument is historically good; but it is not written with sufficient decision; and in its definition of "Regeneration and " Conversion," (page 23,) it is especially confused. The author would do well to read an article in the December Number of the Ecclesiastic, on "Mr. Aitken's Theory of Justification," in order to clear his own views. We think that there is room for a Tract on "Infant Baptism;" but it hould be definite and concise, or it would be worse than useless. A book by Mr. English, which we reviewed a short time back, seemed to

give promise of better things; but that from the nature of its subjectmatter, was metaphysical rather than dogmatic, which corresponds, no doubt, to the character of the writer's mind.

1. The Daily Service Hymnal.

Rivingtons.

Edited by the Rev. JAMES SKInner.

2. The Book of Praise. Longman.

WE always take up a new Hymnal with interest, feeling sure that we shall find something to learn from each succeeding effort. We cannot, however, recommend either of these two for use in Church. The chief feature of Mr. Skinner's collection is, that he borrows from Mr. Neale's "Easter Hymns," and Dr. Wordsworth's "Holy Year," which have appeared since "Hymns Ancient and Modern" were published, and also from Mr. Isaac Williams' Hymns from the Parisian Breviary, which (we think wisely) were very scantily used by Mr. Skinner's predecessors. We are glad to see, however, that Mr. Skinner does not give a hymn for every day, or every Sunday in the year, as his title seems to suggest. Upon the whole, however, we cannot think that this Hymnal is as good as "Hymns Ancient and Modern," although it is much dearer. What the previous Hymnal needed might, in our judgment, have been supplied in an appendix of thirty or forty hymns, and at the same time have afforded a much richer selection than the present volume does. The few original hymns that we have noticed, seem to be by no means up to the mark. The only Minor Festivals that have really original hymns provided for them-on what principle we cannot understand-are those of SS. Augustine and Leonard.

But if we have not much praise to give to Mr. Skinner's "Hymnal," the other with its presumptuous title, claiming to be placed side by side with the Book of Common Prayer, is, we are sorry to say, entitled to none. The chief principles employed in its compilation are the fixing hymns for every Sunday in the year, and a large employment of modern hymns, to which the name of the author is always appended, and the exclusion of all those fine Catholic hymns, which apostrophise the Cross, or other emblems of the LORD's Passion.

A Charge to the Clergy of the Diocese and Province of Calcutta. By G. E. L. COTTON, D.D., Bishop of Calcutta. Macmillan.

THIS is a very eclectic production, and does not sound quite like the voice of a Father of the Church. Nevertheless there is much that is interesting, showing both the statistics of the Church, and something also of the religious condition of the native population. The Bishop himself is an advanced Liberal, of the Bishop of London's school; but he has had some of his views materially modified by experience. Thus he says, "I never appreciated so keenly the meaning of 'One Baptism for the remission of sins,' as I have done since I came to India." He has also a striking passage on another point, which is a stumblingblock to some of his friends.

"But as in the case of the baptismal service, so in that of the Athanasian Creed, there is much to be learned from coming to India. One who resides

:

in the midst of a heathen nation begins to realise the state of things in which the apostles wrote those passages of which the baptismal service is a faithful echo, and in which the primitive bishops and fathers of the Church drew up their confessions of faith. For the errors rebuked in the Athanasian Creed resulted from tendencies common to the human mind everywhere, and especially prevalent in this country. We cannot too strongly impress on those who recoil from its definitions and distinctions, that its object was not to limit but to widen the pale of the Church, which various heretical sects were attempting to contract. It contains no theory of the Divine Nature, but contradicts certain false opinions about it, and states the revealed truths of the Trinity and Incarnation, without any attempt to explain them. It especially censures four errors: the heresy of Arius, who' divided the substance' of the Godhead by teaching that the FATHER was the supreme, and the Son an inferior Deity of Sabellius, who 'confounded the Persons,' by supposing that the FATHER took our nature as the Man CHRIST JESUS, and after dying for our salvation operates on our hearts as the HOLY GHOST: of Nestorius, who so completely separated our LORD's divinity and humanity as to teach that He is not one but two CHRISTS: and of Apollinaris, who asserted that He was not perfect Man, with a reasonable (or rational) soul, but a Being in whom the Godhead supplied the place of the human intellect. Now these four tendencies correspond to four forms or error which are in full activity among us here. The chief cause of the horror with which Arianism was regarded by the fathers of Nicæa, was that it led directly back to the polytheism from which Constantine had just delivered the Roman empire. Had it prevailed, Christianity would have been degraded into the worship of three Gods, the FATHER, the SON, and the HOLY GHOST, with the FATHER as the LORD and Ruler of the other two. Arianism, therefore, so far as it was polytheistic, resembled the religion of the common people of this country. The theory of Sabellius, fatal to the truths of CHRIST's mediation and atonement, arose from that bare and unsympathising monotheism, which has since been erected by Mahomet into a rival and hindrance to the Gospel. The foremost of Indian sects, in public spirit and intelligence, inherit from their Persian ancestors the doctrine of two co-ordinate independent principles, Ormuzd and Ahriman, Good and Evil, with the first of which Spirit, and with the other Matter is immediately connected. From a tendency to this very same error, Nestorius separated altogether CHRIST'S divine from His human nature, although such a view leads to the denial that this world is redeemed from evil, and that man's body, as well as his soul and spirit, must be consecrated to God's service. The creed of many among the educated classes of India, and of not a few, I fear, in Europe, is the theory of pantheism, which quenches in us the love of God, since we cannot feel affection for One who has no personal attributes, and which is at last fatal to morality, by teaching that evil is only an inferior stage of good, 'good in the making,' as some one has expressed it, so that the two are in fact identical, each having alike its origin in GOD. From pantheistic sympathies Apollinaris, the precursor of Eutyches, was led to merge CHRIST'S manhood in His Godhead, and to deny that He had a human soul. Now if we remember, that all these heresies sprang from tendencies which have given birth to separate religions of widely extended influence, in the midst of which we in India are living, we may surely pause before we expunge from the records of our Church an ancient protest against the application of these tendencies to Christianity, since, whenever the educated classes of this country generally embrace the Gospel, there will be need of watchfulness, lest its simplicity be perverted by the revival of errors which all had their origin in Eastern philosophy."-Pp. 38-41.

The Bishop advocates a Quinquennial Synod of the whole Anglican Church, also the employment of Sisters of Charity-not however of the Catholic model-in India.