this severe reprimand should fall, and that he alone among them all seems to be held up to succeeding generations, as one at least "who was to be blamed;"-to be blamed for what? for narrow-minded exclusiveness, for fearing to go against the prejudices of the people, and walking in the dissimulation of his own mind, and “not uprightly, according to the truth of the Gospel.”* Who does not here recognise the elements of popery? for popery is nothing more than Christianity accommodating itself to the natural man, and entering into an unholy alliance with those evil propensities of our nature which vital Christianity was sent to subdue. We repeat, that it is strange that man should have built up immutability on so unstable a foundation. That God should have selected Peter, the first to declare his unqualified belief in his Son, to be likewise the first to lay the foundation stone of his church,1 against which the gates of hell should not prevail, was in exact conformity with the + See Note G.

* See Note F.

The foundation which the Apostle, as an architect, laid, is one, our Lord Jesus Christ. Upon this foundation the Church of Christ is built.-St. Jerome's Commentary

on the Gospel of St. Matthew.

p. 297.

See Bishop Hopkins,

1

F

whole scheme of the Gospel; for as its doctrines were to owe nothing to the wisdom of man, the fisherman and publican were the first chosen to propagate them; and as its stability was to owe nothing to the power of man, the mean things of this world were chosen to confound the mighty, and the strength of God was to be made perfect in the weakness of man. Thus, however fallible we may be in ourselves, if, like Peter, our faith is founded on a rock, that rock being Christ,1 then, though the enemy of mankind may be permitted to assail us with trials and temptations, yet will he have no power finally to prevail against us; and if, like St. Peter, assisted by God's holy Spirit, we honestly and zealously fight the good fight, and keep the faith, then may we confidently hope that the keys of the kingdom of heaven2 may likewise

1 For the rock (says St. Augustine) was Christ; upon which foundation Peter himself also was built; and again, St. Augustine says, the rock is not from Peter, but Peter from the rock; as Christ is not from Christian, but Christian from Christ.-See Bishop Hopkins, pp. 314, 315.

2 The phrase, 66 Keys of the kingdom of heaven," which is manifestly a figure, is explained in a somewhat different manner by Tertullian, in different parts of his works. Thus, in one passage he says, “What key had the doctors of the

be mercifully placed in our hands, ensuring to us an entrance for ourselves and for those whom we may have been instrumental in loosing from the bondage of Satan, by preaching to them (like St. Peter) The Christ, the Son of the living God, as Him to whom alone we should go-as Him who alone has the words of everlasting life.

law, but the interpretation of the law?" But in another place he says, "If thou dost still think that heaven is closed against thee, remember that the Lord gave the keys of it here to Peter, and through him, he left them to the church, which keys every one here, being interrogated, and making a good confession, shall carry with him."-See Bishop Hopkins, p. 91.

Of Origen Bishop Hopkins says, that his views, in the main, seem to be the same as those of Tertullian, that the keys of the kingdom were granted alike to every spiritual Christian.

PART II.

"There is nothing, the absolute ground of which is not a mystery

"The life we seek after is a mystery; but so, both in itself and in its origin, is the life we have."-COLERIDGE.

"Toutes les fois qu'une proposition est inconcevable, il faut en suspendre le jugement: et ne pas la nier à cette marque, mais en examiner le contraire: et si on le trouve manifestement faux, on peut hardiment affirmer la première, tout incompréhensible qu'elle est: appliquons cette règle à notre sujet."-Pensées de Pascal.

In the foregoing pages we have attempted, by drawing out and enlarging on the subjects before us, to make apparent to your mental vision things which, as we started by saying, you could not see, because you would not bestow upon them the attention and observation they required. The discoveries of science have opened a new world before us; where the natural eye once saw nothing, and therefore

fancied that nothing was to be seen, the powers of the microscope have revealed to us space teeming with life, active buoyant existence, and have proved to us that the void was only in our own imagination. Where our natural eye could distinguish nothing beyond our limited horizon, the telescope has called, as it were, into life thousands of celestial bodies, of the existence of which the natural eye would have remained for ever in ignorance. Patient investigation, unprejudiced enquiry, is the microscope which, applied to the mind, enables it to discover, not chimeras of the imagination, but existing realities; and faith is the telescope which, applied to the mental eye, searches those things which the natural man receiveth not, "neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." Faith is the telescope which fulfils the prophetic declaration, for by it we are enabled" to see the land that is very far off."

We have confined ourselves to the delineation of those characters in the Gospel that assimilate most with human nature in the ordinary walks of life. We have not ventured to ascend to the summit of that "exceeding high mountain," where He, whose history the