BRITISH AND FOREIGN EVANGELICAL REVIEW. JANUARY 1868. ART. I.-"The Catholic Revival :" Its Latest Aspect. Tracts for the Day: Essays on Theological Subjects. By various Authors. Edited by the Rev. ORBY SHIPLEY, M.A. No. 1, Priestly Absolution. Scriptural; No. 2, Purgatory; No. 3, The Seven Sacraments; No. 5, The Real Presence. London: Longmans & Co. 1867. The Ritual Reason Why. London: J. T. Hayes. Mind your Rubrics: Seasonable Thoughts upon the Rubrics, and other_important matters, for the consideration of Churchmen. By the Rev. JAMES BARDSLEY, M.A., Rector of St Ann's, Manchester. Second Edition. London: W. Hunt & Co. Confession, Absolution, and the Real Presence. By ARCHIBALD BOYD, M.A., Incumbent of Paddington, and Hon. Canon of Gloucester. London: Seeleys. 1867. N that elaboration of Locke's principles for the "Conduct of the Understanding," the study of which was enjoined by grand old Samuel Johnson as of "paramount importance,' we read of a "ridiculous contest" in which "the two unlearned combatants, Sartor and Sutor, assaulted and defended the doctrine of transubstantiation with much zeal and violence; but Latino happening to come into their company, and inquiring the subject of their dispute, asked each of them what he meant by that long, hard word transubstantiation. Sutor readily informed him that he meant-bowing at the name of Jesus: but Sartor assured him that he meant nothing but bowing at the high altar. 'No wonder then,' said Latino, 'that you cannot agree when you neither understand one another, nor the word about which you contend."" Let us hope that the homeliness of this illustration may be condoned on account of its VOL. XVII-NO. LXIII. A pertinence. We shall very largely have diminished the number of interminable disputes when we have learned to express, in strictly definitive terms, none but definite ideas. This may not always be easy. Paradoxical as it may seem, it is yet true that the simplest questions are the most difficult to answer. What is a miracle? What is inspiration? It is at once as easy and as hard to say, as it was to Theætetus to answer the question of Socrates, "What is science?" Nay, even in relation to the commonest concerns of daily life, the fallacies that lurk beneath ambiguous terms are often found where least suspected. It was but the other day that we saw the possession of vast wealth made to depend on the skill with which opposing counsel elaborated learned arguments in order to obtain, in favour of their respective clients, the decision of the court on that most abstruse question, "What is coal?" Nothing is more common, and at the same time more indefinite, than the use of the term "Real Presence" by those persons who intend by "real" to signify "corporeal." While on the other hand, the reality of the presence is not less strenuously maintained by those who, denying altogether its corporeity, affirm it to be only "spiritual." To remedy this defect of indefiniteness, "real" has been supplemented by the metaphysical term "objective," an addition which serves only to introduce additional ambiguity. On this head, the recent utterance of a dignitary of the Church of England is worthy of attention, not more from the character and position of the speaker than from its own intrinsic importance. The venerable Archdeacon of York, in the "Charge" just addressed to the clergy of his archdeaconry, used these words: "You will therefore, I trust, bear with me if I venture to point out what seems to me to be the nucleus of the whole question, of which the ritualistic controversy is nothing more than an outward and visible sign. It is simply this: Does the holy sacrament of the Lord's Supper impart a blessing to other than recipients, so that they are partakers of the blessing who are not partakers of the sacrament? The Church of Rome, and certain members of the Church of England, adopt the affirmative position; the Church of England (as I read its formularies), the contrary; and I cannot find that Scripture gives any support to the former view. This way of stating the question has the advantage of putting before us a simple issue, which some of the other test-terms proposed do not equally afford. I believe that many of those who affirm, and many of those who deny the real presence, express precisely the same doctrine in different language; and even the newly invented phrase, 'real objective presence,' is ambiguous, as some may mean by it a presence not created by the faith of the recipient, |