to Dr. Williams, which for temper, wit, acuteness, fairness, and sound learning is well nigh a perfect specimen of what Christian controversy ought to be, is led to announce, in language which none who have read it will forget, the opinion which a long and deep acquaintance with German theology has led him to form on the value of rationalistic criticism. All the schools, then, of theological opinion amongst us are opposed to the Essayists. On the one side stand in their way the recent growth of higher views of the authority of the Church and a juster value of all the great dogmas of the Catholic faith; on the other, the fact that the special points assailed by them are those which are the dearest to the school which has been least affected by the Church movement, such as the doctrines of original sin, justification by faith, and, above all, that of the Atonement. It may be that He whose attribute it is to bring good out of evil may, through this assault upon the common doctrines of the faith, draw together minds which have hitherto been far too widely separated, and heal divisions in which is at this moment the main danger of the Church of this country. The thunder-cloud, which, with its electric presence, has stirred up into unusual activity these buzzing interruptors of our peace, may thus burst upon our land in a refreshing shower of precious and invigorating influences.

Here we gladly leave the Essayists and their Essays; but before we conclude we wish to say a very few words on that momentous subject of inspiration, on which, as we said at first, is the brunt of their whole attack. It is a favourite mode of assault with all who wish to lower the authority of inspiration to require those who believe in it to define with exactness wherein it consists: Where,' they ask, is your own theory of inspiration ?—either admit ours, or substitute another. This finding fault with what is proposed, and yet proposing no substitute, is the very helplessness of a miserable

6

obstructiveness.' Now this we entirely deny. We maintain that this craving for 'a theory of inspiration' is itself a part of the disease we have to treat. In this sense of the word, Holy Scripture has never laid down any theory of inspiration; the Church has never propounded one; and there are plain and we think sufficient reasons for this reticence. A doctrine concerning inspiration indeed that Word does contain, and that doctrine the Church Catholic received at first, and according to her office has guarded ever since. But this doctrine which Holy Scripture distinctly asserts concerning itself, which the Church has always repeated, and which has satisfied believers of the deepest thought and of the most commanding powers of reason, is really inconsistent with any such theory of inspiration as the sceptic desires. For what does Holy Scripture claim to be? The Word of God, 'The oracles of God'—Oeóπvevσtos*—God-breathed; and what must this imply? Surely that there is a mighty and mysterious presence of God in this His Word. This is why there is so great a difficulty in saying in all cases whether, when 'the Word of God' is spoken of in its pages, it is the Incarnate Word or the written Word which is designed. For as the Incarnate Word, the divine Aóyos, the Word who was in the beginning with God, is to all created being, even, it seems, to the angelic hierarchy, in whom it exists in its highest and purest form, the coming forth of the unapproachable glory of the Everlasting Father, so the written Word is the manifestation to man of the selfsame hidden glory of the Father. Thus there is a divine presence in the Word; and even as in the Word Incarnate there is a true union of the divinity with the manhood, both natures being uncommingled, though both eternally united in the person of the Son, even so in the written Word there are present evermore the human element and the divine, each acting according to the perfect

* 2 Tim. iii. 16.

law of its own nature, neither interfering with the other. The Divinity, restraining or enlarging its communications, as is required for the perfectness of God's revelation of Himself, never annihilating Humanity, nor ever giving possible place for the entrance into the Revelation which is the proper subject of the divine acting, of that infirmity, error, or corruption, which are natural to man save in so far as the presence of the Higher Power holds him up and keeps him free from their dominion.

So much God's Word declares: so much the Church has received: so much every faithful man believes. But, if curiosity seeks for further insight, or captiousness begins to question, or unbelief to stumble,-if the flesh asks to have the dividing line between the operation of the Divine and the Human in the inspired Word marked sharply out so as to meet all objections and answer all questions; if it asks, that is to say, for such a perfect 'theory of inspiration' as the Rationalist craves, the answer must be the same as if the same temper sought to criticise the great doctrine of the Incarnation itself; namely, that no perfect theory is possible unless we could first fathom the infinite and reduce to definite proportions the hidden nature of the unfathomable Godhead. So that the fact, that in this great gift of the written Word there is that which defies the philosophic skill which would have a perfect theory for everything, so far from being a presumption against its truth, is an argument for it. So far as we can conceive, a written revelation must for man be communicated through man, whilst it must, for its knowledge of much, for the certain accuracy of all, the revelation, depend upon God as the revealer. There must, therefore, be combined in it the action of the two natures; and, if the two natures are both present and both in action, it must be beyond our power to have a perfect theory for that which is thus the united action of two powers,-seeing that of the

higher of those powers we know only what has been revealed to us, and as to its law and mode in combining its action with the lower nature (which we do know), since nothing has been revealed to us, we can know nothing.

The spirit which raises these difficulties, and prompts the asking of these questions, is the very spirit which, working with the subtilty of the scholastic temper, framed and fashioned for the Sacrament of the Eucharist the unwarranted and dangerous logical hypothesis of transubstantiation. In that Sacrament, as in the written Word, the early Church believed simply, with ourselves, that God was present. But questions arose. How was He present? what were the limits of the presence, its mode, its consequences? where was it possible to draw the sharp line between the elemental matter and the presence of Deity? Unhappily, a large portion of the Church listened to the tempting whisper, that by logical definition it might satisfy questions which piety never would have asked, and reverential wisdom never would have endeavoured to answer. The sad result ought to be a lesson to us here; and to teach us that we are surrounded by mysteries of God's presence and working, which reveal themselves sufficiently to satisfy a humble faith of their undoubted reality; but which are impenetrable barriers against that proud curiosity which evermore leads men on to seek to be as gods, knowing good and evil.

Geog

§ Hawaiian Itband. (1862)

184

THE SANDWICH ISLANDS.*

(July 1862.)

.

THE wide extent, over which that peculiar race which has been called the Malayo-Polynesian is spread, forms one singular fact concerning those picturesque islands which gem the bosom of the great Pacific Ocean. Instead of their insular position, scattered as those islands are through a vast expanse of waters, parting adjacent peoples into distinctlymarked tribes, a most unusual similarity may be traced through the whole mass. Disjoined and widely separated,' says Prichard, these insular tracts are found to contain races of inhabitants more nearly connected with each other, and at the same time much more widely scattered, than any of the families of men who occupy the continuous lands of Asia and Africa.'t Close observation has apparently established the fact that three separate tribes of the great human family inhabit this wide district of the globe: 'the dark-coloured, lank-haired prognathous-headed Australians,' the 'crisp-haired Pelagian negroes,' and the ' Malayo-Polynesians,' who form the nobler stock in all these islands.

The Sandwich Islands, as in honour of his patron they were named by Captain Cook; the Hawaiian Islands, as they are now commonly called; the Hawaii Nei-United Hawaii -as since the reign of the great island-conqueror Kaméhaméha I. they are termed by their own people-exhibit

1. 'Hawaii: the Past, Present, and Future of its Island-Kingdom: an Historical Account of the Sandwich Islands.' By Manley Hopkins, Hawaiian Consul-General; with a Preface by the Bishop of Oxford. London, 1862.

2. History of the Hawaiian or Sandwich Islands. By James Jackson Jarvis. Boston, 1847.

·

3. The Island World of the Pacific.' By the Rev. H. T. Cheever. Glasgow.

4. Life in the Sandwich Islands.' By the Rev. H. T. Cheever.

London, 1851.

History of Man,' p. 326.