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Pro-Popery Sophistry.

commented on by the designing, both in and out of Parliament; it was voraciously swallowed by the weak and unreflecting, and the humanity and mildness of the great regenerator of our Constitution were every where panegyrized. Let us examine with what justice. "ONE MONTH ANY SACRIFICE WHATEVER!" So stands our great Statesman's antithesis. If the Protestant succession of the Crown were to be set in opposition to one month of civil war,-the succession must be surrendered:-if the Crown itself,-the Crown must be annihilated: if the religion of the land,—if Christianity, in any shape, could only be purchased by a month of civil war-burn every copy of the Bible! O wise and virtuous forbearance, worthy the admiration of all liberal minds, from the Marquis of Lansdowne to the Edinburgh Reviewer! currency And is it possible that such nonsense as this can obtain and applause? How must the Duke, who well knew the depth of his argument, and suited his plummet to the understanding of his intended. converts, laugh at the dupes of his ingenuity! How must he despise the wretched implements which he could wield with a force so contemptible!

But by whom is this trash exalted to the skies as the perfection of pure humanity? By men who are constantly eulogizing, as the foundaA MONTH," tion of all that is valuable amongst us, a civil war, not of "The cause for which Hampden died in the but of A GENERATION!

field."

I, Mr. Editor, for one, date the freedom of my country from no such epoch; I date it from that period when that Constitution was established, which has lately been so fearfully violated. It is not likely that those who "broke in upon" that Constitution should appreciate it very highly; but I, and not a few of the population of Great Britain, still think that its blessings were CHEAPLY purchased month" of civil war. by more than "

a

That civil war is in itself a great evil, is undeniable. It is destructive, and it is demoralizing. But nothing could give it the importance which the sophist claims for it, except what it can never have; And even were this attribute granted it, it would still remain to be shewn that it is more destructive, and more demoralizing than any other calamity.

PERPETUITY.

Persecution is a greater evil than civil war; if, indeed, it be not only the most aggravated species of it. This our martyred Reformers could easily have avoided by the "sacrifice" of their profession and integrity. They judged not with the Duke of Wellington. They cheerfully gave their own blood, and would not, therefore, have withheld the blood of any, that falsehood might not triumph in the land. Yet were not the Reformers more sanguinary, we conceive, than the Duke of Wellington; nor were they less tender of the destinies of their country.

But, alas! to our cost, the Duke's argument is yet shallower than the preceding observations exhibit it. Was a civil war the alternative? The Duke, in palliating the supineness of Government, avers that NOT A SINGLE ACT HAD EVER TAKEN PLACE WITH WHICH EVEN THE If, then, the law was defective, CIVIL MAGISTRATE COULD interfere.

VOL. XI. NO. X.

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it might have been corrected, and a civil war altogether put out of the question.

But how stand we now? Has the slightest appearance of conciliation been effected? The furious agitators employ, if possible, a bolder tone, insult the Government and its wretched satellites, openly profess that they wrought their victory through intimidation, and exult in the destitution of their fallen enemies, whose act of apostacy, while it gave power to the factious, lost them the confidence and esteem of the respectable and loyal. The views of the Papists are no longer disguised; "emancipation" is no longer the ultimatum; "the plunder of the Church" and the repeal of the Union are now the fierce warcry of that stormy party. And if the Duke of Wellington has saved any wreck of consistency (which, certainly, is problematical), he must tell us, next Parliament, that it is better to give up the Protestant Church in Ireland, and dissolve that union which formerly was said to rest upon the very measure just effected, than to incur the danger of " one month of civil war!"

And will this danger even then be avoided? While such sophistry misguides the people of England, and any thing remains to be taken, the plunderers will not be slow to press their advantages. The bugbear of "a month of civil war" will be regularly exhibited as occasion requires. If we allow ourselves to be frightened with it, we shall have peace indeed-but it will be such a peace as the Romans vouchsafed their conquered foes: "ubi SOLITUDINEM faciunt, PACEM аppellant." A CATHOLIC OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

2 TIMOTHY IV. 10.

SIR,-Having been, from its commencement in 1819, a constant reader of, and, under various signatures, an occasional contributor to the Christian Remembrancer-I feel assured, from this long acquaintance with its excellent and praiseworthy objects, that it will not close its pages against any temperate remarks on a point connected with theology, although they may chance to differ from the opinion of a deservedly popular divine of the present day; and in saying thus much of the Warden of New College, I am only doing him justice. His sermons stand in the first class of pulpit compositions, and are decidedly among the most useful (which is the highest character a sermon can have) that have issued from the modern press. The Christian world has been lately laid under an additional obligation to him by his Paraphrastic Translation of the Apostolical Epistles; and if I venture to call his attention to what appears to me to be on his part an assumption made too hastily, and without sufficient grounds, I beg at the same time to disclaim all intention of wishing to detract from the general excellence of the work, or from the high reputation which its author must reap from it. In his note at the end of the Epistle to Titus, Dr. Shuttleworth states an inference that has been drawn, with regard to the different dispositions of Timothy and Titus, from St. Paul's caution to the former against any injudicious display of impetuosity and eagerness of temper in the exercise of his office,

2 Timothy iv. 10.

and from the absence of this caution in his Epistle to the latter; and he then continues,–

In accordance with this supposition we may observe, that the Second Epistle to Timothy affords us a painful ground for conjecturing, that however numerous "Come to me with in other respects may have been the excellencies of Titus's character, firmness and moral courage were not the most prominent of them. all speed," says the Apostle, in that moment of his temporal affliction, "for Demas has left me, having attached himself to this present life, and is gone to Thessalonica; Crescens to Galatia; Titus to Dalmatia." This juxta-position of his name with that of Demas undoubtedly appears to involve him in some degree in the censure attaching to the tergiversation of the former. Of both we may venture, however, to hope, that their fault was rather the consequence of momentary infirmity than of deliberate ingratitude; and that, like the repentant disciples of their Divine Master, they subsequently expiated their short-lived desertion by the sincerity of their contrition, and by their increased zeal in the execution of the duties of their ministry.

That this hope is well grounded, as regards Demas, may readily be believed; for in the following year we find him again with St. Paul when he wrote to the Colossians, in which Epistle Demas is mentioned as sending his salutations to them; so that, as Dr. Lightfoot remarks, "his failing was but as Peter's denial of his master, repented of and "But Demas with may recovered. greater safety be left to the stigma that has been, by common consent, affixed on him; it is for Titus that every Scripture reader must be chiefly interested, -him whom St. Paul styles "his own son after the common faith." Now the tendency, although not the intention, of the first part of the above note, respecting the tempers of the two Bishops, when taken in connexion with the last part, is to lower Titus by the comparison. What authority is there for this? He was with St. Paul at Antioch, before the council of Jerusalem; and he would not have been deputed by the church at Antioch to accompany Paul and Barnabas to consult the Apostles and Elders at Jerusalem, concerning the circumcision of the Jewish converts, if his character had not stood high for piety and zeal. He returned to Antioch, and must have accompanied Paul to Corinth, and there helped him in the conversion of the inhabitants of that city, as He was with him at Ephesus, appears from 2 Corinthians viii. 23. and appears for the most part to have been one of his constant comSt. Paul's instructions to him are panions and fellow - labourers. undoubtedly much shorter than those to Timothy; but Macknight, whose suggestion about the tempers of these two Bishops Dr. S. adopts, gives what may surely be deemed a far more plausible reason for this, than that the one was deficient in a quality in which the other abounded.

From the Apostle's so earnestly commanding Titus in Crete, and Timothy in Ephesus, to oppose these errors, it is probable that the judaizing teachers were more numerous and successful in Ephesus and Crete, than in other places. However, as Titus was a Gentile convert, whose interest it was to maintain the freedom of the Gentiles from the law of Moses, and a teacher of long standing in the faith, the Apostle was not so full in his directions and exhortations to him as to Timothy; neither did he recommend to him meekness, lenity, and patience in teaching, as he did to Timothy, but rather sharpness.

From this I should gather, 1st, not that the zeal of Titus was less constant or efficient than that of Timothy, but that he, being, as

Macknight calls him in another place, an older and more experienced minister than Timothy, possessed his zeal more "according to knowledge," more tempered with the wisdom of the serpent, than a younger and less tried minister might be supposed to do; and, 2dly, that the fact of Timothy having been a Jew, and though not circumcised in his infancy because his father was a Gentile, yet having been made, after his conversion to the Christian faith, to undergo that rite, by St. Paul, in order to promote the cause of the Gospel,-this fact might render it desirable for St. Paul to be more urgent and full in his directions to him to withstand patiently and meekly the advocates of circumcision, than to Titus, who, however bold in the defence of his Christian liberty from the Levitical rites, was, in the enjoyment of it, less likely to commit himself and the sacred cause intrusted to him, by an excess of warmth. But I fear I must not expect Dr. S. to concur in this view for he proceeds, as we have seen, in no ambiguous terms, to charge Titus with being wanting in a quality, which, in that age especially, was indispensably necessary to a successful discharge of the ministerial office:-and on what grounds? St. Paul, while a prisoner at Rome, writes to Timothy, and directs him to hasten to him: "for Demas has left me, having attached himself to this present life, and is gone to Thessalonica; Crescens to Galatia; Titus to Dalmatia.” "Titus to Dalmatia!" This is the gravamen of the charge against Titus, that he went to Dalmatia while St. Paul was a prisoner at Rome: it matters not for what purpose he went, nor whether he went by St. Paul's command or permission, it is sufficient that Demas is expressly said to have left him, either through anxiety for his worldly concerns, according to the authorised version; or from a love of this present life, as Dr. S. has it; and therefore Titus, for whose departure no reason is given, must be condemned likewise; and the case admits of no doubt, because they are mentioned in the same sentence. Thus because the same act is true of all, all must necessarily have been led to it by the same, or an equally discreditable, motive. Surely, if the text does not plainly charge Titus with an unauthorised desertion of his spiritual father, and if there is nothing in his history, alluded to as it is, rather than detailed, in the Acts and the Epistles, to call for this accusation, we should be acting a safer part in supposing that Titus went to Dalmatia as a preacher of the Gospel, either by an express call of the Holy Spirit, or by the direction of St. Paul himself; and it is observable, that the great Apostle was not at this time situated as when he made his first defence before Nero or his Prefect, when "no man stood with him, but all men forsook him;" for his second Epistle to Timothy concludes thus: "Eubulus greeteth thee, and Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia, and all the brethren." It would be interesting to know what was the opinion of many of our forefathers in the ministry on this mention of Titus; of those "that have left a name behind them, that their praises might be reported." But my own collection of books is very small, and a country living does not afford great facility for consulting the libraries of the learned. I shall not, however, hesitate to communicate what may be gathered on this subject from the few commentators I have; because it does not appear to me to be a light thing, the affixing a stigma, even in the charitable

manner that Dr. S. has done it, on the character of a man whose name stands at the head of an Epistle in the canon of Scripture, and who was one of the first Bishops in the Christian Church.

That Titus was in Rome with Paul during his second imprisonment, is certain from 2 Timothy iv. 10, where the Apostle informed Timothy that Titus was one of those who had fled from the city through fear, and had gone into Dalmatia; but whether with or without his approbation, the Apostle doth not expressly say.-Macknight.

This at first seems strong against Titus; and although the Scotch annotator shrinks a little from his censure at the end, yet if he had said no more, we must have concluded that he and Dr. S. were of one mind on the subject. But a more kindly spirit possessed him at another time, for elsewhere we read:

The Apostle does not say, either of Crescens or of Titus, that their departure, like the departure of Demas, was owing to their love of the present world. We may therefore in charity suppose, that the one went into Galatia, and the other into Dalmatia, by the Apostle's order, or at least with his permission.— Macknight.

This is only a fair inference; where the absence of one of a party is specifically accounted for, and that not in a way honourable to him, and the absence of the others is mentioned simply and unconnectedly with his, we must surely travel out of our way in order to bring ourselves to account for their absence in a similar manner.

Pole, in his Synopsis on this text, says, "Evangelii indubie causâ.” As for Crescens, though he be gone into Gallia, yet that is not for any such worldly end (as that for which Demas had left him), but to preach the Gospel there; and so Titus is gone another way to Dalmatia.—Hammond.

Crescens to Galatia; Titus to Dalmatia; these two not deserting St. Paul as Demas did, but going thither for the promotion of the Gospel.—Whitby.

And whereas he cannot travel up and down to the Churches to preach to them, as he had done, he visiteth divers of them with his Epistles; and first he writeth the Epistle to the Galatians, and sendeth it by Crescens, as may be conceived from 2 Timothy iv. 10. For though Demas and Crescens and Titus, their departure from Paul be reckoned altogether in that verse, yet the reason of their departure cannot be judged to have been alike; for however Demas started upon some carnal respect, yet Crescens and Titus are not so branded, nor will the eminent piety of the latter suffer us to have any such opinion of him; and the judging of him doth also help us to judge of Crescens, who is joined with him.-Lightfoot.

Thus, even on the supposition of Macknight being against the favourable construction of the conduct of Titus, there is a majority in his favour; and in weighing Macknight's testimony on a subject like this, we cannot forget who he was, nor the office which an episcopalian believes Titus to have held in the Christian Church. Let us give, however, all the weight we will to such names as Lightfoot, Pole, Hammond, and Whitby, a plain reader of Scripture may well answer this question,-Does the tenth verse of the fourth chapter of the second Epistle to Timothy afford a premise sufficiently strong from which to draw Dr. Shuttleworth's conclusion? I think not; and am, moreover, of opinion, that even if the ground be neutral, it ought not to have been occupied by an unfriendly criticism.

Rectory.