Christ, and hast had the washing of the new birth, the Church in charity must judge of thee, as of one truly grafted into Christ, ' and truly regenerate: but (I say) what thou art inwardly and in the sight of God, God knoweth : examine thou thyself.' (P. 165.) 'All that receive baptism are called the children of God, regene'rate, justified,' says Bishop Carleton; for to us they must be 'taken as such in charity, until they show themselves other.' 'Our Church,' says Dr. Mayer, doth not usurp the gift of pro'phecy, to take upon her to discern which of her children belong to God's unsearchable election, but in the judgment of charity ' embraceth them all, as God's inheritance: and hereby teacheth 'every of us so to believe of ourselves by faith, and of others by 'charity.' (P. 191.) There are higher authorities than these brought forward. Hooker is quoted:

"We speak of infants as the rule of piety alloweth both to speak and think. They that can take to themselves in ordinary talk a charitable kind of liberty to name men of their own sort God's dear children (notwithstanding the large reign of hypocrisy) should not methinks be so strict and rigorous against the Church for PRESUMING as it doth of a Christian innocent. For when we know how Christ in general hath said that of such is the kingdom of heaven, which kingdom is the inheritance of God's elect, and do withal behold how his providence hath called them unto the first beginnings of eternal life, and presented them at the well-spring of new birth wherein original sin is purged, besides which sin there is no hinderance of their salvation known to us, as themselves will grant; hard it were that having so many fair inducements whereupon to ground, we should not be thought to utter at the least a truth as probable and allowable in terming any such particular infant an elect babe, as in presuming the like of others, whose safety nevertheless we are not absolutely able to warrant." (B. v. § 64.)'-P. 197.

Pearson is quoted: Without something appearing to the 'contrary, we ought to presume of the good effect: therefore all 'such as have been received into the Church may in some sense 'be called holy.'

If various divines, however, be put forward, the ground of charitable presumption as an admissible ground on which to make the assertion that all baptized persons are regenerate, a permissible explanation to give. The permission to make that assertion upon that ground, and with that explanation, is no more a licence for not making the assertion itself, than the permission of any other explanatory ground would be. This explanation, like any other, is subsequent to the assertion which it explains, and not prior to it: so far from preventing it from being made, it supposes it to be made. No precedent then has been set, and no authority gained hitherto, taking even Mr. Gorham's own ground, for refusing to make the statement that all infants are regenerate in baptism.

We may state generally that we have given the extracts throughout this Article with the italics, as they appear in Dr. Bayford's speech, in order not to appear to suppress any of their meaning.

Indeed it is not very easy to understand what Mr. Gorham means by professing the ground of charitable judgment, and then refusing to make the assertion of which that is the ground. The Bishop of Exeter asks him, Will you assert that all baptized infants are regenerate? Mr. Gorham refuses to make that assertion. But the assertion is the test whether the charitable judgment is made or not: it is the expression of that judgment. Take the question of a man's honesty: he is honest; it is uncertain whether he is honest or dishonest; he is dishonest: which of these three is the charitable judgment? Not the last certainly; it may be a just one, but the epithet charitable is not applicable to it: not the middle one; it may be a charitable abstaining from judgment, but it is not a charitable judgment: there remains the first, to which the expression charitable judgment is alone applicable. Supposing we want in general society to give any one the benefit of a charitable judgment relative to his character: do we think it fulfils the scope of a charitable judgment simply to express uncertainty about it? But whether a charitable judgment in social life and ordinary acceptance, involves assertion or not, among theologians with respect to baptismal regeneration it does. The divines whom we have just referred to use the ground of charitable presumption indeed; but they all in succession use it in order to found an assertion upon it. I must judge of thee as of one truly grafted unto Christ,' says Benefield: that means a positive judgment surely, not a mere negative one. All who receive baptism are called, the children of God, regenerate, sanctified,' says Bishop Carleton: that is, are affirmed to be so. The judgment of charity embraceth them all as God's inheritance,' says Dr. Mayer: that is a positive judgment again; a judgment which asserts. All are to be 'called holy,' says Pearson; to be termed elect,' says Hooker; to be called saints, members of Christ, and children of God,' says Bishop Hopkins. 'Judge of them' as, 'embrace them as,' call them,'' term them :'-if this is not to make the assertion that they are so, what is it? For how, as we said before, do we call a thing this or that, except by saying that it is that which we call it? We call a man honest by saying that he is honest; and in the same way we call him regenerate by saying that he is regenerate. That is what we mean by calling: we do not mean by calling abstaining from calling, refusing to call, suspending our voice altogether. Can any one believe that any one of these divines, had the Bishop of Exeter' called upon them

1 We cannot mention the Bishop of Exeter's name without expressing our admiration of the disinterested courage with which his Lordship has come forward, on various recent occasions especially, to maintain the doctrines, and encourage and protect the practical efforts, of the Church. His defence of Miss Sellon and her Sisterhood against a storm of popular prejudice, will long be remembered. F 2

And

to say-all the baptized are regenerate,-would have hesitated a moment to give an explicit affirmation? If they had, they would have been simply contradicting their writings. The judgment of charity adopts, in their view, the assertion, as its natural expression; it is not dumb, it speaks. So then this ground, it appears, the favourite and claimed ground, after all turns against its advocates, and condemns them. It demands an expression: and it is refused. It is idle and dormant in their hands: suppressed the instant it begins to operate, and silenced the moment it begins to speak. Talk of the judgment of charity indeed! this is the very thing which Mr. Gorham refuses to make. Called upon to make an assertion, he refuses, because such an assertion would be, in his view, a charitable one, in distinction to being a matter of fact one. He selects a ground on purpose to frustrate it; and judges charitably by abstaining from judgment altogether.

As we have said before, the question of Baptismal Regeneration is in a large sense a practical one. The question is, How are you to treat with, and in what state are you to suppose, the visible members of the Church of Christ whom you have to instruct as children, and whom you have to exhort as adults? The Church Catholic from the beginning to the present day has laid down one supposition to be made; all schools in her, predestinarian and the contrary, agree; Mr. Gorham's own authorities lay it down: there is a universal consensus for the supposition, of regeneration, adoption, and sonship in the visible Christian body, as the basis of ministerial teaching and appeals. Will Mr. Gorham make this supposition? Will he instruct the children in his schools, address the congregation in his church, on the idea that they are regenerate? Will he refer them to their baptism as the source of their spiritual life; appeal to them on the ground that they have received a great gift in it, and are responsible for its use and improvement; and take generally a certain past and conferred new birth as the status of the Christian body, instead of a future and uncertain one? If he will, we for our part will promise to ask no curious question on what particular ground he makes the supposition. But the test whether he will bona fide make the supposition of such regeneration or not, is whether he will make or not the assertion of it when called on to do so.

And the sacrifice of labour and anxiety which he has made in the case, which has been the subject of this article, will be long remembered too, whatever be the issue. His Lordship's name is now indissolubly connected with the history of the English Church. Times may be coming which will require a still further display of energy and courage from him; and show that though his Lordship has done much, he has yet more to do for the Church. In that case, we doubt not that one who has begun so bold and manly a course of ecclesiastical policy, will be fully equal to the task of maintaining it; and that it will be with him, as it has been with many as thy day is, so shall thy strength be.'

ART. II.-King Arthur. By SIR E. BULWER LYTTON. London: Colburn.

THERE is something in the composition of an heroic poem, a poem of many parts, elaborate and sustained, which naturally awakes our sympathy. The author needs to be supported in his undertaking by far other than vulgar aims; he cannot hope for golden rewards, nor for general praise. When he sits down to his work, and its length stretches out before him, the most fluent pen will hang suspended, loath to begin a great labour; the most sanguine heart sink at the task before it, glancing over the visionary scheme, the Alps upon Alps which must be surmounted. How many bright expectations must fade in discouragement, how many fancied successes yield to the severity of a calmer judgment; how many images, clear in the distance, must pale into indistinctness when their place awaits them; how many harshnesses must be smoothed down, and resolute obscurities be made intelligible, before the end comes. What hopeless hours, what toilsome days loom upon the fancy when the poet's genius will seem to desert him, or treacherously elude his grasp, shining on the distant peaks of his plan, and leaving him dark and unaided to his present task. What breaks and chasms in the grand design, where over-arching imagination reveals no path; what links wanting in the golden chain which conscious poverty knows not how to supply! Wakeful nights and care-worn days, and haunting perverse measures sounding on wearied ears, self-mistrust, dread of others, all these casting their shadows before, must dog the steps, and float dark phantoms round the man who aspires to write an epic; who entertains that lordly ambition, who would concentrate all his powers in that struggle for fame; who would try that all but hopeless passage through unknown poetic seas. Facing the strictures of sharp criticism, the indifference of common readers, the contempt of the practical world; resting on the future as the hopes of the present slip away from him, he makes the hero's choice noble labour for inglorious ease; and he must needs brace and purify his mind, as the athlete his physical powers, by stern discipline, for the conflict. A great poem is a great labour; even the attempt at one is self-denial, and toil, and pain; it is the sweat of a man's brow, though airs from heaven fan him, and hope, and gleams of a loftier joy cheer him on his way. And so

it is that with little respect for Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton as an author, with a deep sense of the danger of that literature to which he is a leading contributor, which undermines the broad principles of right and wrong, by the systematic substitution of sentiment for principle, which nicely discriminates between vice and crime, and sees something sublime in the perpetration of enormous sins; though we are well weary also of his vague philosophical speculations, and all the mannerism and affectation with which they are put forth, the yearnings after the Beautiful and the True, which end too often in some horrible breach of God's and man's laws; yet we have felt sympathy for him as a poet. It is a step in advance. The hero of an epic poem, for such 'King Arthur' aspires to be, must embody juster and nobler thoughts than the melo-dramatic hero of a novel. The very construction and outward form of the work is an earnest of higher aspirations, and persuades us beforehand to expect better things. Its very length, its twelve books, and innumerable stanzas, its careful arrangement, and adjustment of parts to the whole, and of subordinate interests to the main one, its attention to precedent, and obedience to critical laws, its fable and episodes, its allegories and morals, its similes and descriptions, its learning and research, the patient toil of mature years expended on the first dream of young romance, all forward this expectation; that must be a better and higher work which at such expense of thought and labour chooses the fabled prince of honour and chivalry for its theme, than those which indulge in such impersonations as Pelham, or Philip Beaufort, or Eugene Aram; there must be some chastening of the fancy, some preliminary purification of heart and mind for such an enterprise.

And in a popular writer, who has won the public ear, there is some real sacrifice in thus renouncing the lighter toils of fiction, with their instant meed of appreciation and praise, as well as more substantial rewards, for the ordeal of critics, who in poetry constitute a far larger proportion of the whole amount of readers than in prose. In these days the mass of readers will not read poetry. Poetry used to be called light reading, and young people, in the morality of a former generation, were warned against wasting too much time on its fascinations. But the ingenuity of the present age has invented something much lighter, and easier of digestion, and the popular class of readers will not now endure the labour of extracting the sense from verse. To most minds poetry is a labour; it will not reveal its meaning to the absolutely passive and lazy; they must take some trouble to enter into it, and that trouble need not now be taken by those who seek only amusement from reading, the case of the majority for the popular literature of the day needs no