The Press. — London, England, 1856-03-29 00:00:00

cular opinions advanced, Dr. Joremie says, in a brief preface : A posthumous work is necessarily imperfect, and dis courses intended for oral delivery would doubtless have gained much in terseness of style and diction by a careful preparation for the press; but even in their present form these sermons will be found to be of no ordinary merit. They are marked by the same originality and vigour of ex pression, the same richness of imagery and illustration, the same large views and catholic spirit, and the same depth and fervour of devotional feeling, which so remark ably distinguished the preceding series, and which ren dered it a most valuable accession to our theological literature. That is high praise from so eminent a quarter, and it i 3 amply deserved. We receive these sermons with great pleasure, and we also wel come them as a valuable addition to our theological library. But as the fame of Mr. Archer Butler is likely to be much discussed in religious circles, we think it right to record our sentiments on his teaching. Dr. Jeremie hints at "diffuseness" in the style of these sermons. In the present, or even in the preceding series, we were not so much struck with that particular fact as with a certain ambiguity running through the logic of the compositions. Archer Butler was not a Puseyite, and he disliked " party names," and never was there a theologian more out of sym pathy with the neologieal esoterics of the modern German (No) Church. We think, indeed, that his finest passages are protests against rationalism in all its forms. He was a thorough Christian in his belief ; but so strong was his appreciation of purely hierar chical institutions, that much of his teaching would suit the confines of the debateable land between Rome and the Reformed Churches. Facts in biography often throw a flood of light upon the higher manifestations of a man's intellect. Mr. Archer Butler was born a member of a Roman Catholic family, in the county of Tipperary. He belonged to the Butlers of Garnavilla, an undoubted strip of the great race of Or►nond. some of whose services have been commemorated in our columns for their valour in the Crimea. " Charming Kate of Garnavilla" (the theme of Lysaght's celebrated song) was the aunt of the eminent divine before us. Mr. Archer Butler had a Catholic father, and a Protestant mother. At an early period he examined the questions between the rival creeds, and, though reared a Catholic, he became a Protestant, and entered the Church. The Irish branch of the Church Establishment has reasons to be proud of his homage to " the true faith established amongst us." Yet, unquestion ably, on some points in his works there is a strong tinge of that philosophy which is parallel to some Romanist doctrines. He appears to have studied Bossuet and Massil lon, and the great Galilean divines, and in his mode of using the word " Church " there is considerable ambiguity. A spiritualised theocracy seems to us to have bcen always hovering before his imagination, though he did not confess it in so many words. He was Protestant in all that related to the Atone ment and the truth of Scriptures, but on Church polity he was more hierarchical than we could approve. This ambiguity resulted, we have no doubt, from the effects of his early education. We do not think, therefore, that Archer Butler can be recommended as a divine who attained a distinct synthesis of his own, but on collateral branches of the Christian schemc his talents, his earnestness, and eloquence, must secure him a large audience. Poetry, philosophy, and theology were blended in his nat .re, and his sermons are full of truths and sublime aspirations. His great gift lay in making intellectual men devout, and we think that he required an academical audience. For common congregations he was too deep; but there is a large class of learned and devout readers of theology who will be specially in terested in these sermons. We were much struck with the first series, to which Doctor Jeremie alludes, and we think this volume us au improvement. The manner in which this divine passes from general and philosophic views to a per sonal application of principles is a peculiarity in his rhetoric. Thus, in the discourse on " Christ, the Restorer of Mankind," before appealing to the truth of Revelation, the THE PRESS. preacher states " the theory of useful preju dice," as propounded by mere utilitarians. This passage is remarkable for its expository power : Nor again will it solve the problem to reply (in a more reverent but still a mistaken spirit) that a corps of moral instructors is felt by statesmen to be expedient, and by good men to be obligatory. There is some truth in this, but it is far indeed from the whole truth. The pertina- cious vitality of Christianity (I speak, you will under stand, only of its secondary and earthly causes) depends neither on statesmen nor on good men. The statesman is too careless and too interested to labour continuously to preserve it; the good men are too weak and too few. No ; Christian establishments, the general organisation of Christian services in countries, are built upon a broader basis than occasional policy or even occasional virtue : Christianity can only be universally recognised because it speaks to universal humanity. We may curse it in our wickedness an•t flout it in our folly, but we cannot wholly tear it from our hearts. It is based on too firm a founds• tion of knowledge of man's wants and weakness ; the chord it touches is too genuine; the aspect it displays is too exquisitely adapted to console our miseries ; it speaks too direct a language to our common unhappiness, to be ever wholly and irretrievably rejected by the general people. All history confirms the fact. Nations have run through the whole cycle of caprices ; they have chased and aban• doned a thousand cherished pursuits ; but I know not of one that ever permanently rejected, after enjoying it, the blessing of a Christian worship. Ambition may forget heavenly in the pursuit of earthly greatness, rank may feel too fortified in position and wealth too strong in gold, to feel the constant necessity of the Great Physician, but as of old " the common people " will still " hoar Him gladly." And then, as to moral education, if that were indeed all that was required, have we not our men of fancy and our men of thought? If a corps of ordained philosophers would suit the wants of an unhappy world, the numbers ambitious of distinction in the pursuits of mind would always be sufficient to supply the demand. But the world, in all its corruption, nevertheless feels and knows that such guides would leave its wants ungratified. They may expound the malady, but they can poorly tell the cure. They can ally themselves with every folly as well as with every virtue ; and, whatever influence they may have over our hours of calm, they are lost in the tem pest of the passions, unheard or despised when " deep is calling to deep," when the flood-gates are burst and the winds are up ! What then is that which these teachers cannot bring, and which that higher and more hallowed order of instruc tors professes to bring? What is that which in spite of corruption and frailty, in spite of evil-speakers that aggra vate the corruption and evil-doers that exemplify and dis seminate it—what is that which even in its very perversions has a power not wholly perished, and in its severest cen sures a secret and impressive commendation to the very hearts that practically reject it—what is that which has revolutionised the domination of selfishness in the world, till in times of trouble and change we hear the people cry aloud that they will stand by their teachers as long as they stand by their teaching, and that they will never consent to exchange them for the frigid apostles of a pretended rationalism? Brethren! the answer to the question is supplied in the assertion of the doctrine taught—Christ has the power, because even in its lowest form it preaches hope and restoration to man. Because even the most neg ligent feel that it speaks the words of the text—" I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds." Then how finely he passes into the subjective element, and appeals to the internal voice : The faith in the Christian sacrifice and its attendant revelation of the Divine character, alone answer the de mands of the heart and reason of man for a higher state of moral perfection. I am well aware how feebly this voice is heard in the ordinary course of the world ; man could scarcely be deemed a fallen creature, if the eon sciousness of his fall were so universal as to prompt the continual demand for his restoration. But it would also be an over-statement to say that we have not a desire for something better, as well as for something happier, than this earthly state admits. Men do weary of the wickedness of the world as really, though not indeed so frequently, as of its disappointments. This is not the place for laboured discussions, and I will simply refer you to one powerful instance of this anxiety for a better and holier condition. I allude to cases of private and personal injury. lieflect upon your emotion in such instances. There is surely something more than mere resentment; there is a strong sense of hijustice, and naturally connected with it (as the mind calms and dif fuses its feelings) a melancholy impression of the lost moral balance of the whole world, and a correspondent yearning for abodes where righteousness shall be a prin ciple of universal action. I specify these cases, not because the feeling is there more real, but because it is more in tense and defined. But, brethren, all these aspirations are in our faith met and satisfied. Is it not its pre eminent character to unveil before our eyes a kingdom where immortally dwelled' righteousness? Is not its great Sacrifice the corner-stone of the equity of the whole moral universe—the Sacrifice that enables God to he at once " just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus " ? Here then is the preaching of Christ crucified recom mended to the reason and to the heart, Here, in the beauty of its holiness, is a cause of its lingering power over the better affections even of those who have no strength to realise its commands. It establishes • righteous Governar upon the throne of Heaven ; it de velopes the symmetry of all his judgments ; it answers the inward appeal of the frail and wretched beings who can " know the better," even while they " the worse prefer." SATURDAY, The following passage is a burst of argu mentative eloquence, and is most crushi ng i n its assaults on those rationalists who admit the truth of Scriptures, and yet wish to " unmimcle Christianity":— To oppose the uniform belief of the Church (which in deed has rather inclined to exaggerate than to depreciate the dignity of the Virgin Mother), to oppose the unequi vocal testimony of Scripture, there seems to be (except the utterly unsuccessful attempt to discredit the genuine. ness of the narration) but one universal objection—the same to this as to all other doctrines that transcend °nib nary experience—that the thing is an incomprehensible " mystery." The Church is in this holy season peculiarly busied with her mysteries: I cannot then but pause, while speaking of the great mystery declared in the text, to ask, are we indeed the fools these men would paint us to believ e ; such ? They would have a Christianity purged of myste ries or none ; a Christianity without trinity of persons, or duality of natures, or miraculous conception, or atoning redemption, or sanctifying Spirit; and all these exclusions equally, because they are mysteries. They are told that the object of this religion is to bring together earth and heaven—a world which we know little with a world of which we know nothing; and they expect to have the de tails of such a conjunction level to their capacities. They are told that God has interfered with the fortunes of man, and they expect the mighty transaction to proceed as simply as an ordinary treaty of peace. They admit that God has condescended to enlighten his creatures, yet they are obstinate in refusing to take anything from Him on trust. They concede that the preliminaries of ages were not considered too much to herald the Advent of this great epoch ; that that " day " seen through the vista of two thousand years was enough to make glad the heart of one patriarch—nay, that the.patriaroh of the human race him self was permitted to see in it the source of all his conso lation ; that a polity singular in the history of the world was for centuries maintained for the sole purpose of evidencing and illustrating and preparing it; that miracles and pro digies, each enough to make the foundation of a separate system , were, aggregated together, only worthy to be the faint precursors of this master wonder; that figures, each worthy alone to occupy the full breadth and height of an ordinary painting, were only the accessories of the mighty and prominent form of that mystic Being who fills the foreground of the Christian picture ; and yet, admitting all, or nearly all this, obliged to confess that, explain it as we may, the whole subject comes to us from on high and clothed in the light of other worlds, these objectors— though drenched in mysteries, when they come to the scriptural testimonies to the miraculous conception, and personal dignity, and mystical offices of Christ—suddenly assume the utmost minuteness of sceptical caution, set to work every refinement of criticism to extort inanity out of expressions the most positive and unequivocal, stamp folly on the Old Testament in order to rationalise the New, cor• tend implicitly (in this endeavour to uniniraele the advent and the person of Christ) that the vast organisation of Judaism was after all a preparation in which nothing was prepared, a porch without an edifice, a cypher without a solution; in abort, after groping through a labyrinth of preliminary mystery, refuse to acknowledge that mystery which alone can make all the rest cease to be such ! That passage is taken from " The Advent Exalts Human Relations," and was preached for a lying•in hospital. The preacher con tinues in a strain that reminds us of the old French pulpit : But you, my friends, I trust, have not " so learned Christ" or Christ's gospel. You are willing to concede to your adorable Master that dignity which really exalt{ our nature by exalting His ; you are willing to admit that He, and she who bore the hallowed title of His earthly mother, were connected in ties such as they alone have ever held; you are willing to acknowledge that in that awful hour of Bethlehem there must have mingled with the sorrows of the outcast virgin the trembling joys of one who knew herself the supernatural channel of the hope of the human race; and that, though she might own to the feebleness of the woman in that hour of trial, and deplore amid the unworthy accompaniments of such a scene that " low estate " of " the handmaid of the Lord" which had re duced her to them, yet that, as she gazed upon that eternal child in whom was bound the regeneration of Israel, of the world, "her soul could magnify the Lord," "and her spirit rejoice in God her Saviour !" In his youth Butler must have often (as a Catholic) invoked the Blessed Virgin ; and we think that we can see traces of the practice in these discourses. From the sermon on "The Will of God towards His Children " we take the following thrilling appeal:— This awful truth,—that between the world's glory and God's glory there is a variance which no art of sell delu sion can reconcile ; that no human heart can idolise the one and truly adore the other; that if you will indeed struggle for the eternal prize you must silence every pulse of worldly ambition. tear from the soul every longing desire fur the miserable excitements that consume awiy your years—and, receiving a new nature, cast yourselves in trembling hope and all the lowliness of infancy, as " little ones," at the feet of God—this seems to many " a hard doctrine "—" Who can bear it?" T. some it is " enthu siasm " (the world never wants a name to stigmatise troth with ),—to some it is "fanaticism,"—to some again it is "hypocrisy." Brethren ! we cannot pare, and shape, and fashion Christianity to suit any man or body of men. It is the unalterable decree of God as promulgated in his Word, that the sinful nature can never behold the sinless glories of Ilia kingdom, that it is only as justified by the humble faith which is the characteristic of these " little