tations of the passages under examination, which have been adopted by the more remarkable among the Fathers. It would be difficult, therefore, to find a more apt illustration of the opposite methods of interpretation of Scripture-the Catholic and the Protestant-than may be drawn from a comparison of these works. The subject itself is one whose importance to both sides it is impossible to exaggerate; "one which," to use the words of the Bishop of Salisbury, "we may safely assert to be the foundation of the whole system the Church of Rome; as indeed the great controversialist, Bellarmine, explicitly declares that the whole of Christianity depends upon it,"* and to the consideration of which, if to that of any controversy by which Christians are divided, we may expect every resource of criticism to be devoted by the advocates of the rival opinions regarding it.

of

And, first, although it may strike an uninterested observer as extraordinary, considering the respective opinions of the parties as to the function of Sacred Scripture in deciding questions of faith, that the Protestant advocate should, in a few pages, dispose of the whole mass of scriptural evidence to which the writers upon the Catholic side have each devoted several hundred laborious pages, yet we do not mean to dwell upon this seeming anomaly. A lengthened discussion of the texts of Scripture on which the controversy turns, would, of course, be out of place, and, indeed, entirely impracticable, in a sermon addressed to a mixed congregation. But it is perfectly possible, nevertheless, for a writer, even in the space of a few pages, at least, to indicate the principles of interpretation by which he is guided, quite as completely as in a lengthened treatise; and we purpose to judge the Bishop of Salisbury by the principles upon which he decides the sense of Scripture in this particular instance, rather than by what he has actually written in defence of his interpretation. Now we cannot hesitate to say that it has seldom been our lot to meet such an example of captious and superficial interpretation, so much slurring over every inconvenient point, so much suppression of essential evidence, and so many of the familiar devices of polemical special pleading, as in the few but pregnant pages of his Lordship of Salisbury. We should not, of course, have expected him to enter into the

Sermon, p. 17.

minutiae of the various points arising out of the consideration of each of the texts which he considers; but we hold him bound to have stated, or, at least, to have indicated the substance of, the main arguments which arise therefrom. Perhaps, too, it would be unreasonable to expect that he should have referred to each and every text which bears upon the subject; but he should not at least have altogether suppressed one of the most important of the entire. Still more, he should not have excluded from the consideration of his hearers an entire class of passages, the whole scope and bearing of which are (from their connected character), perhaps of more importance than any isolated passage can be. Above all, while he does this he should not profess to exhaust the whole body of scriptural evidence on the subject, and assure his readers (p. 18) that no other passage of the New Testament "is capable of being wrested by any ingenuity, so as to support the pretension" of any right on the part of St. Peter" to governthe universal Church; or any supremacy of power over the other Apostles; or any larger insight into spiritual truths, or power of declaring it than they enjoyed." (ibid.)

ing

no

Neither is it consistent with that fair and candid discussion to which every sincere enquirer, and particularly every advocate of the sufficiency of Scripture, is obliged, to dismiss a most important and vital passage, one which is, in truth, almost the Catholic stronghold in the controversy, with a sweeping and unceremonious assertion, that " one," he presumes," would say that in itself it describes an office which did not belong to the other Apostles as well as St. Peter." (p. 19.) The fact being, that every Catholic theologian, without exception, says precisely this, and nothing else; and that every Catholic commentator on the passage, from the Fathers downwards, not alone unhesitatingly understands it as describing an office not common to the other Apostles with St. Peter, but as actually conveying to Peter a primacy above the restthat peculiar privilege of the primacy which St. Ambrose * calls the "primacy of faith!"

Now, be it remembered, we are not speaking here of the case of a writer, who, relying on extrinsic authority as the main, or at least the ultimate, ground of his faith,

* De Incarnatione, c. 4. n. 32. Opera, II. 710.

should feel himself at liberty to accommodate the lan-es, guage of Scripture to the interpretation propounded by e that authority. It is clear that, whatever we may hold as to the justice of the principles upon which such y a writer proceeds, we cannot regard him as seeking to ascertain the genuine sense of the Scripture itself, s as an independent source of divine faith: and at all events, such a proceeding is in direct antagonism to the positions of one who, like the bishop of Salisbury, regards the authority of Scripture as in any way final in matters of controversy.

It is pleasant to turn from this weak and superficial reasoner to the two masterly performances which we have contrasted with his essay. With the authors of both our readers are long familiar :-with the first by his frequent and valuable contributions to the pages of this journal, and the long series of brilliant and original essays which have appeared from his pen during the last four years under the title of "The Irish Annual Miscellany;" with the other, by the learned and singularly candid work on the Anglican Church which preceded his secession from Anglicanism, and the admirable essay on the historical evidences of the Primacy of Rome which heralded his conversion to the Catholic Church.

Dr. Murray's Dissertation on "The Supremacy of St. Peter and his Successors," forms one of the Theological Essays of the Irish Annual Miscellany, and occupies no less than four hundred 8vo. pages of the third and fourth volumes of the series. Mr. Allies's book is intended as a sequel, perhaps we should rather say a companion, to the volume on the Roman Primacy already alluded to.

Both works address themselves exclusively to the scriptural a nts for and against the primacy of St. Peter. therefore, a fair specimen of the Catholic pretation; and the course pursued in them ed as not inaptly illustrating, by actual rinci d practice of Catholic Herme

CO

the

h of these passages. In a subject which has so often
traversed by controversialists, and in which the
res of argument, both on the Catholic and on the
testant side, may well be supposed to have been
hausted, it is of course hard to expect even a semblance of
nality, strictly so called; and, indeed, Mr. Allies's work
rowedly but a compilation, adapted to popular use, from
scholastic lectures of the learned Jesuit Father Pas-
la. And yet we cannot but regard both of these new
ys, and especially the former, as displaying great
ginality, not merely in the manner of treating the argu-
nt, but even in the selection of the arguments them-

Fires

It will appear strange, too, that two authors writing
the same subject, without concert with each other,
ing the same common sources of information, adopting
e same traditionary line of argument, and following the
e established polemical precedents, should not in very
any things have fallen into precisely the same track, and
red, upon the whole, little more than echoes of each
her, or of some common original. And yet so it is. Not-
ithstanding the identity of their subject, the two works
resent but few points of resemblance; and it is a curious
stimony to the originality of both, that a reader fresh
om the perusal of the first, may turn with undiminished
terest to the second, as to a new and perfectly indepen-
dent treatment of the same subject.

Much of this, no doubt, is attributable to the different
haracter of the writers themselves; but a great deal, too,
due to the unexhaustible fertility of the great subject
hich they treat in common. On the one hand, Dr. Mur-
y has suggested and developed, with singular skill and
felicity, more than one view of the argument from the
elebrated passage of Matthew xvi., to which Mr. Allies
has scarcely adverted, or, at most, has but incidentally
alluded. On the other, the happiest and most successful
portion of Mr. Allies's work is that in which he discusses a
class of arguments which Dr. Murray has professedly
abstained from considering;-those derived from what we

Caroli Passaglia, e Societate Jesu, in Romano Collegio Theogie Professoris, Commentarius de Prærogativis Beati Petri Apostolorum Principis, Auctoritate divinarum Literarum comprobatis. Ratisbona: 1850.

for the body. Now
God hath both raised
up the Lord, and will
raise us up also by
his power. Know
you not that your
bodies are the mem-
bers of Christ? Shall
I then take the mem-
bers of Christ, and
make them the mem-
bers of a harlot ?
God forbid. Or know
you not that he who
is joined to a harlot
is made one body?
For they shall be, saith
he, two in one flesh.
But he who is joined
to the Lord is one
spirit. Fly fornica-
tion. Every sin that
a man doth is with
out the body, but
he that committeth
fornication, sinneth
against his own body.
Or know you not,
that your members
are the temple of the

for the Lord; and the
Lord for the body.
And God hath both
raised up the Lord,
and will also raise
up us by his own
power. Know ye not
that your bodies are
the members of
Christ? Shall I
then take the mem-
bers of Christ, and
make them the mem-
bers of an harlot ?
God forbid. What,
know ye not that he
which is joined to an
harlot is one body?
For two, saith he,
shall be one flesh.
But he that is joined
to the Lord is one
spirit. Flee fornica-
tion. Every sin that
a man doeth is with-
out the body, but
he that committeth
fornication sinneth
against his own body.
What, know ye not

the body is not for this
fornication, but for
the Lord Jesus, and
the Lord Jesus for

the body: * and as

God raised our Lord Jesus from the grave, so He will raise us up by His mighty power. † Know ye

not that your bodies are the members of Christ's Body? Shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them members of a harlot ? God forbid. Know ye not that he who joins himself to a harlot becomes one body with her? As it is written, they twain shall be one flesh.‡ But he who joins himself to Christ, becomes one with Christ in spirit. Flee fornication. [It is true indeed that] all sin

*The body is for the Lord Jesus, to be consecrated, by His indwelling, to His service: and the Lord Jesus is for the body, to consecrate it by dwelling therein in the person of His Spirit.

↑ St. Paul's argument here is, that sins of unchastity, though bodily acts, yet injure a part of our nature which will not be destroyed by death, and which is closely connected with our moral well-being. And it is a fact no less certain than mysterious, that moral and spiritual ruin is caused by such sins, which human reason (when untaught by Revelation) held to be actions as blameless as eating and drinking.

Gen. ii. 24. (lxx.) quoted by our Lord. Matt. xix. 5.

§ Literally, Every sin which a man commits is without (xTo's, external to) the body. The Corinthian free-thinkers probably used this argument also, and perhaps availed themselves of our Lord's words, Mark vii. 18: "Do ye not perceive that whatsoever thing from without entereth into the man, it cannot defile him, because it entereth not into his heart?" (See the whole passage.)

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