1848.] Reform of the Italian Church. 623 needed. The days of misgovernment, of legalized oppression, of exclusive aristocratic pretension, and of a wretched serfdom, converting some of the fairest districts in the world into a desert, are fast passing away. Rome, if she would retain a tithe of her power, must practise the lessons of industry and a wise economy. Thirdly, the separation of the civil and ecclesiastical power. This is virtually effected already. The pope at the present moment is an ecclesiastical sovereign and no more. It is not the cardinal legate who governs Bologna; it is the citizens themselves. It is not the pope who sends his troops into Lombardy or who disbands the Swiss guard, or exiles the company of Jesus; it is public opinion, acting through laymen at Rome. The country of Brutus and Cicero and Rienzi, which, three years ago, was a despotism as absolute as any which existed on earth, is now virtually a republic. Fourthly, the immediate introduction, to some extent, of Protestant opinions, of free discussion on matters of religion and of an unrestricted press. The light has hitherto been systematically shut out. For ages an embargo has been laid on everything which would disturb the Catholic belief. The ports and custom-houses of Italy have sought to exclude Protestant opinions as zealously as they would the infection of the plague. But this peremptory exclusion, it is to be hoped, is at an end. The Index Expurgatorius will, probably, be hereafter nothing but an historical curiosity on the shelves of the Vatican. Even should the hopes of the friends of civil liberty be disappointed, and the Austrian supremacy be again restored in Lombardy, still, it would be difficult, if not impracticable, to reïnstate the old system of papal exclusiveness. Vienna herself feels the quickening breath of freedom. This beautiful land, there is good reason to believe, will not again become the theatre of Jesuit intrigue and of inquisitorial cruelty. Whether monarchy, in a limited form, again obtain the ascendancy or not, the cause of Protestant liberty has received an accession of strength which must ere long sweep away all obstacles. Fifthly, we may also hope that some of the more objectionable and comparatively modern features of the Roman Catholic system will be abandoned. An economical or civil reformation must modify, in a va 1 Three or four years ago, a gentleman found it impossible to procure a Bible in the vernacular tongue at any of the book-shops in Rome. In 1846-7, no copy of an Italian Bible could be found for sale in several of the largest cities of the country, except that of Martini, which is in several volumes octavo. Now it is stated in the public prints, that parts of the Bible, the Westminster Assembly's Catechism, extracts from the writings of Vinet and of other Protestants, are translated into Italian and freely distributed. riety of ways, some of the practices and doctrines of the papacy. Certain usages and articles of belief cannot endure the ordeal which emancipated reason, popular education, or an enfranchised Bible would of necessity establish. The right of private judgment in matters of religious belief always accompanies the diffusion of the Scriptures, and must with the blessing of Heaven essentially reform, if it does not gradually destroy the Catholic hierarchy. The degree of freedom which the Vaudois, who dwell in the mountains of Piedmont, after ages of persecution, now enjoy, and which has made a hundred Alpine vallies break forth into singing, is but an earnest, we trust, of that perfect liberty in Christ which shall ere long prevail from sea to sea, and from the Lombard Plain to the utmost South. Then it will be, indeed, fair Italy-sublime and graceful in outward nature, with the larger air, the purple light, and a sun sinking into the sea with a lustre peculiarly his own, full of old reminiscences that stir the soul to its depths, the parent of freedom, the home of art, the nurse of genius in its noblest forms, the guardian of those whose "dust is immortality," where sleeps on Ravenna's shore one who spake of "things invisible to mortal eye," where was revealed to another all deathless ideals of beauty, where apostles and martyrs still repose united to Jesus, where Ambrose sung and Augustine saw the vision of the city of God, whose very soil is instinct with thought, whose "ashes are yet warm,"-how fair she will be when there are no sad contrasts in her moral and religious state, when the spirit that once evangelized the eternal city shall again pervade her plastic, susceptible and most interesting people, when from all her vine-crowned hills and delicious valleys, the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy. 1848.] Remarks on a Sermon by Dr. Emmons. 625 ARTICLE II. REMARKS ON A SERMON DELIVERED BY THE LATE DR. EMMONS OF FRANKLIN BEFORE THE NORFOLK EDUCATION SOCIETY, DORCHESTER, JUNE 11, 1817. By Rev. Leonard Withington, Newbury, Ms. THE reputation of Dr. Emmons as a theologian has been destined to undergo all that variety which arises from the different degrees of attention which the public has been disposed to pay to his works. He has made his first, his second and his third impression on the public mind; his first impression was a strong, and, perhaps we may add, a blind admiration from his own little school of followers, and deep condemnation from the rest of the religious world; then came a time when his principles were generally discussed; and, while every body accorded him the excellence of a most luminous style and a clear perception of the conclusions to which he was to arrive, together with their connection with the premises, still he was regarded by many as a writer of perverse ingenuity, more pleased with a paradox than a common truth, never startled at his own conclusions, if he could support them with a seeming demonstration; in a word, a man who was willing to waste his powers on recondite subtleties rather than in promoting useful knowledge or practical piety. We believe his works are fast making their third, and, perhaps, permanent impression. We hear it suggested, and we fully accord with the suggestion, that few men stand as fair a chance, among New England authors, to be a classic as he. He had a double soul; he was not a mere Elève of the Hopkinsian school; he uttered truths deep as the foundations of human thought, and lasting as eternity. He wanted nothing to make him one of the profoundest of reasoners but a more extensive acquaintance with the history of human speculation. Most of the Hopkinsians, we suspect, were men of great acuteness but of narrow erudition. They went over ground already beaten and were sometimes deceived by sophistries which the world had rejected; still they were bold, whole-souled men, and among them, none stood higher than the sage of Franklin. He was a perfect emanation of New England; close in his attention, deep in his insight, true to his convictions; earnest, consistent, luminous and sincere. We have heard him indeed censured for not knowing, or not distinguishing the cases when the pre mises support the conclusion from those in which the conclusion upsets the premises. But in this respect, Berkeley was more bold and paradoxical than he. Certainly no man can read him without many suggestions, which a mind far less fertile than that of the author of them, may work into permanent and useful truths. The sermon on which we shall attempt a few remarks, was delivered more than thirty years ago. It is one of the happiest produetions of the author. As Dr. Emmons never wrote without an aim, we are inclined to think that he had in view some opinions then growing into fashion, which he regarded, at least, as partial errors. sibly he might have had Andover in view. Possibly it may be said, that he had very little knowledge of the science which he seems to depreciate-Biblical Criticism. The sermon may be regarded as one of the most beautiful specimens of friendly severity ever offered to a rival whom, by admonishing, we mean to correct. Dr. Emmons was not one of the soft souls that wind wreathes of roses around the victims they mean to sacrifice; nor was he a malignant man, whose object is pain and whose wounds are mortal. But such he was, both for morals and discernment, that, whenever he speaks, he deserves attention. The prevalent doctrine, in some of our seminaries, when this discourse was delivered (and perhaps it still continues to be the same) was, that we must come to the Bible for theological knowledge, just as we come to the phenomena of nature for natural, with the mind dissociated from all its previous biasses and conceptions, a mere tabula rasa, and derive our system not from human creeds, but from the inspired volume; as Chalmers says, we must take our grammar and dictionary and interpret the Bible just as if we knew nothing before. The only corypheus we must adopt, is not systems, but history, customs, laws and manners; and your system must be your last conclusion ; the suggestion of certain kinds of knowledge which have no system involved in them; that is, you must go through a long forest, without a ray of light, until you reach the further verge, and then it seems to be implied that the sunshine will break suddenly upon you. Long suspense was to lead you to conclusion, and painful doubt to happy solution. The public mind was then passing from the dogmatic teaching of a previous day to the new element; and no wonder if it did not stop at the middle point of truth and wisdom. It was at this time, that Dr. Emmons, who loved such an office, uttered this astonishing paradox: "No man, I believe, ever has formed, or ever can form, a consistent scheme or system of divinity from the Bible alone, without the aid of some systematical writer or instructor." See Ser 1848.] Character of the Bible. 627 mon, page 18. And again: "The knowledge of sacred history and biblical philology is very different from the proper knowledge of divinity." We remember the astonishment and even disgust with which these opinions were then by many received. And we must confess with some shame that we shared in the general censure. But time and observation have wrought a great revolution in our own mind. No doubt there is plausibility and even truth in placing creeds and systems far below the Bible in point of authority. But we are almost equally sure that Dr. Emmons uttered not only a paradoxical opinion but a salutary truth. It is not true that each individual must be expected to derive all his opinions originally from the Bible; that is a task too mighty for any power short of the collected sagacity of the whole race. No doubt human opinions should be based wholly on the Bible. But the Bible is a deep book, an ancient book; and, like all other wise books, it has a latent system, which, when once discovered, harmonizes all its doctrines and pours light on every page. It has its λóyos, as the Platonists say that is, a reigning thought, a harmonizing idea, which is above all language and by which language itself must be understood. Now until a man seizes this reigning idea, he is in a mist; he is like a mariner on a wide sea, without a polar star or compass; he is obliged to anticipate this λóyos-this predominant object as soon as possible. It is so necessary to him that in all successful investigations, in all explanations of dark and difficult treatises, the reader is obliged to adopt and abandon several false suppositions before he reaches the true. For nothing can be interpreted until the main end of interpretation is assumed and surmised, just as Columbus conjectured the existence of the Western world and even, in some degree, its direction, before he could possibly steer to find it. "In the beginning," says John, “ the word and the word-λóyos-was with God and the word was God." Without denying the personality of the word, we may say, that the system of which Christ was the incarnation, is latent in the first pages of the Bible and blazes on and illumines the last. was Comparisons are often taken from philosophy; and it is said that we must interpret the Bible as we investigate the laws of nature; bringing a blank mind to the light presented. But how is it in the kingdom of nature? For ages, God in his works as he has in his word, presented his truth in the most simple symbols to the human mind; that is, simple to him that has once received the key. For ages, the stars had glittered in the sky to the eye of the ancient astronomers, as they did to those of Kepler or Newton; and yet, for the want of the true key, these symbols were not understood. Let a man but |