(Dr. Pretyman), he entered upon his clerical duties at Gainsborough. In 1794 he was selected by Dr. John Pretyman, Archdeacon of Lincoln, and brother of the bishop, to be tutor to his two sons. The bishop presented him, in 1795, to the rectory of Tansor, in Northamptonshire. About this time he published a periodical essay without his name, entitled "The Country Spectator." In 1797 he married Elizabeth, eldest daughter of John Maddison, Esq. of Gainsborough. In 1798 he published, "The Blessing and the Curse; a Thanksgiving on occasion of Lord Nelson's and other Victories;" and in 1802 obtained from his former patron the consolidated rectory of Little Bytham, with Castle Bytham annexed, which he held with Tansor by dispensation. In 1808 he established his reputation as a scholar by the publication of his celebrated "Treatise on the Doctrine of the Greek Article, applied to the Criticism and the Illustration of the New Testament;" and the following year, his "Christ Divided, a Sermon preached at the Visitation of the Lord Bishop of Lincoln."

In 1810, he began to act as a Magistrate for the county of Northampton; but in 1811 resigned his livings in that county, upon being presented to the Vicarage of St. Pancras, Middlesex, and Puttenham, Herts. In April 1812, he was collated by the Bishop of Lincoln to the archdeaconry of Huntingdon; and in the autumn of the same year he directed his attention to the deplorable condition of the parish of St. Pancras, in which he found a population of upwards of 50,000 persons, with only the ancient very small village church, which could not accommodate a congregation of more than 300. On this occasion he published “ An Address to the Parishioners of St. Pancras, Middlesex, on the intended Application to Parliament for a New Church," 8vo. Dr. Middleton caused a bill to be brought into Parliament, for powers to erect a new church. The bill was lost, in the debate upon the second reading. The chief remaining memoranda of his life will be found by referring to the passages above noticed, in our former volumes. His lordship expired at Calcutta on the 8th of last July, aged 53 years, after a short but severe illness of only a few days, leaving a widow, but no children. We need not add, how deeply and universally his loss

has been lamented both in Great Britain and in India.

Mr. Archdeacon Pott, in proposing at a meeting of the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge the resolutions already referred to, so honourable to the memory of Dr. Middleton, remarked as follows respecting the reluctance with which his friend' accepted the episcopal charge of India.

"I have heard him say, in the warm effusion of his heart, that he had revolved the subject which had been placed before him by the wishes of those who, with so much judgment, selected him for this charge; and that having, without eagerness of mind, or overweening confidence, surveyed the matter on all sides, and having lent an ear to the call, he though that it remained for him to cast every care behind him, and to address himself with an humble trust in the good providence of Almighty God to the work to which he was appointed.

"I had occasion to see something of the course of study in which he was then occupied, which was various in its objects, but directed to one end. I had often felt the power and energy of his comprehensive mind, the compass and sagacity of which have since been so signally displayed; and I may, I hope, be allowed to say, that the Church of England, by the care of those who preside in it, with whose advice and approbation we must all feel convinced that the new-formed diocese received its first appointed pastor, discharged a weighty trust with a singular discretion."

Mr. Parsons, in his funeral sermo i (an extract from which he allowed t be taken by the Corresponding Com mittee of the Church Missionary Society), remarked:

"To advance under God the good work of Brown, Martyn, and Buchanan, the Bishop has appositely given to the cause of missions the identical sort of sanction which it wanted. It wanted political countenance, and the reputation of sound learning. Judged dangerous in its apparent disregard of political cares, it was judged of disputable orthodoxy in point of doctrine. In the Church, it had been supposed to characterize a party. Stability and ballast appeared to be wanting to this ark upon the waters. Old institutions for the purpose did comparatively nothing toward it: the Government of England had not expressed itself favourably on the subject, beyond an

No. 256.]

MEMOIR OF BOSSUET, BISHOP OF MEAUX.

(Continued from p. 139.) THE unwearied zeal and activity of Bossuet were continually prompting him to fresh encounters with the Protestants. A more determined combatant certainly never appeared in the lists of theological controversy. He met, however, with opponents who were no less confident than himself-and with better reason of the goodness of theircause and the strength of their weapons. Claude, Jurieu, Basnage, and other eminent ministers of the Reformed churches on the continent, stood foremost in this warfare, and never suffered his treatises to remain long unanswered. In the mean time, Tillotson and Burnet were fighting the same battle from the opposite shores of Albion, and upholding the cause of Protestantism with a vigour and dexterity of argumentation which have been seldom equalled. Among the various excellencies of Tillotson in particular, his powers of reasoning shine most conspicuously and admirably, in his opposition to the doctrines and pretensions of Popery. Doddridge speaks of his lucky arguments; and surely never were the weapons of controversy wielded with greater ease, happiness, and effect, than in some of his discourses on the errors of the Church of Rome.

In 1682, Bossuet published his "Traité de la Communion sous les deux Espèces." I am not acquainted with the work; but we may fairly conjecture that he could find no better argument for withholding CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 256.

the cup from the laity than that miserable one which is founded on the doctrine of transubstantiation,

and which must fall with the subversion of the foundation that supports it. Of all the unauthorised innovations of the Church of Rome, the denial of the cup is one of those most recently introduced, and most obviously inconsistent with the tenor of Scripture.

In 1689 came out his "Explication de l'Apocalypse;" in which treatise his panegyrist assures us, that he has completely overturned the Protestant interpretation of the prophecies of this book. That every true Roman Catholic must anxiously desire to see this interpretation disproved, there can be no doubt. But facts are stubborn things, and they make against him. The Apocalypse is doubtless a difficult and mysterious book, even to the present day. Scaliger said of Calvin, that he acted wisely in not meddling with it. But, independently of the detail of proofs by which many learned men have shewn its application to the errors, superstitions, and innovations of Popery, a general survey of its contents is almost sufficient to determine its genuine import. If it be not directed against papal Rome, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to discover any other subject of history to which many parts of it will be found at all applicable.

In the course of the preceding year (1688), this indefatigable polemic had made one of his most formidable attacks upon the Protestants by the publication of his "His

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toire des Variations ;" or an account of the numerous divisions and diversities of opinion which had prevailed among the separatists from the Church of Rome. We are told, by his friends and admirers, that this treatise was attended with as much celebrity as the wonder-working Exposition;" that the Reformed churches themselves were powerfully struck with it; that they now became acquainted, for the first time, with their own history; and that, as the Exposition had surprised them, by a display of purity and excellence in the Romish doctrine which they had never before suspected, so the Variations made them blush at the contrasted picture of their own deformities. This is very lively, but not very convincing, declamation. I cannot, however, resist the temptation of of fering a few remarks on the general argument here made use of for conformity to the Church of Rome, derived from a view of the numerous divisions which have taken place amongst those who have separated from her communion; especially as it is one which, however fallacious, is undoubtedly capable of being enforced with much plausibility, and which perhaps, in point of fact, has made a greater impression upon the minds of many Protestants than any other by which Popery has attempted to maintain her errors.

This argument, as used by the Papists, evidently proceeds, in toto, upon the assumption of an infallibility residing somewhere in their own church, and giving a final authority to all its decisions. Once establish the point of infallibility, and Protestants must submit. But till this be established, the argument drawn from our divisions, were they ten times as numerous as they are, is nothing to the purpose. Our schisms and separations may be, and doubtless are, wrong; but they can never prove the alleged unity of the Church of Rome to be right; because that

unity may be only an agreement in errors and abuses. "There may be," says Lord Bacon, "an universal consent, which is derived from ignorance, as all colours are confounded in the dark."

But, in fact, has the Church of Rome then continued entirely free from schisms and divisions? Every one knows she has not. She has had, formerly, her Thomists and her Scotists ranged in order of battle against each other; and, in modern times, her Jesuits and her Jansenists. A fierce controversy was kept up, for nearly two hundred years, respecting the doctrine of the immaculate conception; a doctrine which now forms one of the most important articles of faith. The most violent disputes have sometimes prevailed between the monastic orders; among which we may notice, in particular, the quarrels which arose, in the thirteenth century, between the Franciscans and Dominicans, concerning the rank and pre-eminence of their respective societies. It may be urged, however, that notwithstanding these manifold differences of opinion, all the members of the church agreed in a main point, which was,-unreserved submission to the infallible authority of the holy see. what shall we say to that porten-. tous schism in the papacy itself, when, for seventy or eighty years, one pope at Avignon thundered out his decrees against another at Rome, and vice versa; till, according to the strongly graphic language of old Fuller, St. Peter's chair was like to be broken betwixt so many sitting down together? And what shall we say, moreover, to the difference of opinion, which has always prevailed in the Romish Church, respecting that particular body in which the pretended infallibility of her decisions is vested; whether it be the pope in his sole person, or the pope with the assistance of a general council, or sometimes one and sometimes the other? It is difficult to conceive any thing more absurd—

But

transubstantiation itself is not more so-than the pretence of an infallible authority, respecting which it is doubtful in whom or where it resides. Even admitting that such an authority were probable, how can any one be required to bow to it unless he knows with certainty where it is to be found?

. The Roman Catholic writers have been accustomed to speak of Protestants, from the Waldenses downwards, as though they had been the first, or the only, disturbers of the unity of the church. They appear to forget that there is another Christian church, in a state of separation from their own; a church not included under any denomination of Protestantism, but partaking largely of their own errors and superstitions. I allude to the Greek communion, extending perhaps over as large a space as that of Rome, and with quite equal pretensions to antiquity. This most extensive schism took place long before the era of the Reformation, and is wholly unconnected with that event; though we may indulge the delightful hope that the day is not very far distant when this oppressed and interesting daughter of Zion will shake herself from the dust, and, putting on the beautiful garments of a pure faith and holy conversation, will shine forth among the brightest ornaments of a renovated world.

As human nature is at present constituted; or rather, I should say, in that state of ignorance, infirmity, and corruption, to which it is now reduced by the Fall, it would seem that there are but two ways, in which even the appearance of universal agreement in matters of religion could be upheld and perpetuated for any length of time. It might be brought about, in the first place, by the establishment of a pretended infallibility in the church, calculated to impose on the imagination, and to fetter the conscience; thus precluding men from the due exercise of their reason and natural liberty. The Church of Rome, we

know, has tried this experiment, and has found it, in part, successful. It was well adapted to those ages of darkness and barbarism during which it was projected; but it has become gradually less and less efficacious in practice since the revival of true learning, and the diffusion of liberal principles of government throughout this quarter of the world. It is greatly to be feared that, with regard to the better-educated classes in the Church of Rome, the blind implicit credulity of former ages has been very widely exchanged for the opposite extreme, of a general spirit of religious indifference, scepticism, and hypocrisy. The other way in which a sort of universal agreement in matters of religion may be thought possible, would have been by the establishment of a real infallibility in the church of Christ; an infallibility so clearly defined and accurately laid down in Scripture, as to leave no one in doubt with regard to the succession of individuals in whom it was vested, and who were authorized to pronounce a final decision in all controversies respecting faith and practice. Now I suppose that there is no Protestant of the present day, how much soever he may be disposed to urge the Divine right of Episcopal or Presbyterian forms of government, who will go the length of affirming that there is, or ever has been, since the times of our Lord and his Apostles, any such infallibility as this actually resident in the church. Indeed, nothing short of a standing miracle throughout successive ages could have produced it. Such an appointment might perhaps be deemed desirable by such short-sighted creatures as we are, amidst " that incurable diversity of opinion" which, says Dr. Paley, "prevails amongst mankind upon all subjects short of demonstration." But we see that an all-wise Providence has not decreed it to be necessary. And we learn, from the instances which occurred during the apostolic age, that even