half-dozen Schools of Biblical criticism. When we say, therefore, that we are chiefly interested in these rival systems of Metaphysics, because of their theological bearings, we only say, in reality, that our main interest in them begins just at the point where they are earliest clothed with practical power.

Now, as to the quality and degree of the influence exerted upon Faith and Morals, by the Philosophy which underlies Mr. Mansel's Limits of Religious Thought, Mr. Jones adopts in full the whole vocabulary of censure used by the "Pure Reason," "Intuitional" School to which he belongs. He has no patience with the Limitists, as he terms the followers of Hamilton and Mansel. He indicts them for "high crimes and misdemeanors" against the interests of Philosophy and Religion. He charges them with advocating views of the Human Mind which annihilate its hold upon God, either through a faithful Reason or a Reasonable Faith. He arraigns them for presenting a phenomenal, not the real God;-a God who offers to his creaturcs, not Truth in its absolute nature and relations, but merely partial statements of Truth; a God whose moral attributes, as set forth in Revelation, are subjective notions, rather than objective realities; a God utterly inconceivable, and because absolute and infinite, incapable of all distinctions and limitations, without which the Reason cannot affirm his personality. According to these Limitists, we are not only to believe where we can have no possible conception of the thing believed, but where there is a declared chance of delusion. The reasoning of Mansel, it is urged, plunges both the friends and the foes of Religion, into hopeless obscurity; and places the human Intellect, in all its relations to Deity, upon an inclined plane, where there is no logical break that can prevent its descent into sheer scepticism. He represents God to be so completely unknowable and unthinkable as to sweep away the very grounds of belief in His revealed existence. Revelation is carried so far beyond all possible, valid, critical judgment of the mind, as to deprive it of practical power over the mind. The proffered light is made to fall upon a dwarfed, crippled, and sightless orb; and thus is made of no more value than darkness itself.

Now these charges may be wholly or only partly true, though Mr. Mansel, in replying to his assailants, has frequently denied them all. This we shall not attempt to decide. But, surely, we have a right to expect, from those who attack him with so much vehemence, and sound so dreadful an alarm at the dangers which his system threatens, a safer and a better Science upon the great subject of the relations of Reason to Revelation. If we accept our author as a fair representative of the School to which he belongs, this expectation will prove groundless. He warns us against one set of perils, only to lead us into another. To say the least, the pitfalls and chasms in his scheme are quite as numerous and as hazardous as those in the system which he labors to overthrow. It is the old story of Scylla and Charybdis. He gives us a view of Reason which, if it does not degrade Revelation, lifts Reason to a level with it. He clothes Reason in the robe of pride, and puts into its hand the sceptre of universal sovereignty. He tells it to go forth, in its unborrowed strength, and grasp the absolute. He declares the Infinite to be an object of positive knowledge, and the proper material of rational thought; and of the Infinite, then, by necessary consequence, whatever proceeds from it,-Religion, Revelation, Morality,—finds its measure and test in the intelligence that receives it. "Ages of controversy," we are told, "have failed to cry down the spontaneous utterance of the soul," "I have within myself the ultimate standard of Truth." After speaking of mathematical ideas and axioms, as known by us, he tells us, "From this it follows, in this instance, that human knowledge is exhaustive, and so equal to the Deity's knowledge." Again, after reasoning out the matter to his satisfaction, our author does not hesitate to announce the conclusion, that Space and Time must have the necessity of being that God has. They must be as He must be ;" adding, what is undoubtedly true," The devout Religious soul will start, perhaps, at some of the positions stated above." Still again, he lays it down as a fundamental principle, that "sometimes, in the. created spiritual person, and always in the self-existent, the absolute and infinite spiritual person, the subject and object are IDENTICAL ;" i. e., God is the universe, and the universe is God;

God is man, and man is God. But why push the inference? It is Pantheism, pure and simple.

This author sometimes writes with ability, force, and discrimination, but oftener, without a due comprehension of the inevitable bearings of his logic. He writes as a defender of truth, in its highest interests and applications, and such we believe him to aspire to be. But unless he shall be led to revise his reasonings, to renounce some articles of his creed, and to alter his tone of self-sufficiency in discussing the most perplexed and perplexing themes which can engage the human mind, he will become one of those damaging defenders, from whom Religion, in her relations to Philosophy, will pray to be delivered.

In the second part of his Book, the author exposes and refutes, with much acuteness and force, some of the errors of Herbert Spencer's "First Principles." But, as this work has been so recently examined in these pages, we need not extend our notice to this branch of his labors.

ART. VI.-BISHOP POTTER'S PASTORAL LETTER AND ITS CAUSES.

(1.) Rev. Dr. A. H. Vinton's Speech before the Christian Union Association, May 14, 1865.

(2.) Rev. Dr. Vermilye, in the New York Observer, Nov. 16th, 1865.

(3.) Report of the American Christian Commission, at Cleveland, Ohio, Sept. 27th, 1865.

In a previous Number of this Review, we took occasion to examine, with some care, the Pastoral Letter lately issued by the Rt. Rev. the Bishop of New York, the immediate causes or occasions which called for it, and the attacks at once made upon the Bishop and his Pastoral, in way of reply to it. To what was then said upon this aspect of the subject, we have nothing now to add. It is evident, however, that this late outbreak of radicalism among us is not the real evil to be remedied. It is an index, an unmistakeable symptom, or manifestation. The real trouble to be removed is far more deeply seated. We can prevent, in the future, the recurrence of these external disorders and irregularities, for we have the munitions of positive Law, wherewith to defend the Church from foes without and foes within; and those munitions are all that we need to that end.

It is, however, with the primary causes of these disorders that, as Churchmen, and thoughtful men, we are now most concerned. The great question, which lies back of all other questions on this subject, is, What is the Church? or, more strictly, What is the Form and Order of the Church? and then, What is the true basis of Unity in the Church? It is on this aspect of the subject that we propose now to offer a few considerations. The papers placed at the head of our pages, will form the subject of our reflections. The Speech of the Rev. Dr. Vinton, to which we first call the reader's atten

tion, embodies so completely the fundamental error on this subject of Church Organization, that we will first examine it somewhat minutely, and in several of its natural bearings and connections. He is reported to have spoken as follows:

"The early history of the Church had terminated in producing one, united, Christian organization, and the result was, slumber and death. On awaking again to religious consciousness, variety recommenced, with the glorious Reformation. He went back to the Saviour's prayer for Unity. What sort of Unity was there prayed for ?" Thou in Me, and I in Thee," the sort of Unity that existed between God the Father, and Christ Himself. That was not an organic Unity, it did not mean identity of form. That prayer was from the Human Mediator to the Divine Father, so that there was no Unity of form, or of Nature (though in another point of view there was, of course, the substratum of a common nature between God the Father and God the Son). But in the interpretation of that prayer, it was evident that the only Unity intended, was a Unity of heart, of mind, of purpose. We were positively hedged in to just that conclusion, that a moral, spiritual, internal, vital, but not organic Unity, was all that was intended by our Lord, and that was precisely such a Unity as already exists, binding all Evangelical denominations together in one. All truly regenerate souls partook of this life, and this Unity. Besides that one text, there was no where else in Scripture any warrant for the notion of an organic Unity. The Unity which we already enjoy is the only Unity contemplated in the Bible."

Dr. Vinton also illustrated his theory of "Unity" from Nature. "Vegetable life," he said, was "one principle; but there was infinite diversity, from the spear of grass to the California cedar, and all independent of one another." So also, in a Sermon published a while since, by the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, the preacher advanced the same identical theory of Unity, and made use of the very same illustrations.

Now, with superficial and unthinking minds, an illustration is always better than an argument. But the objection to the illustration in this case is, that it is no illustration at all. It may illustrate Dr. Vinton's notion, and Henry Ward Beecher's notion of Church Unity, but that notion is not the Scriptural and true notion.

Let us stop for a moment, and see where this theory of Unity had its origin. At the time of the Reformation, when the reaction against the usurpations and corruptions of Popery began and rushed to the opposite extreme, when Rome hurled