The National Review (Volume 16)

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1863. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... seems strange that, in the middle of the nineteenth century, the most thoughtful and earnest minds should be expected to limit their ideas by the ignorance of the past, and be hampered in their efforts to elevate the spiritual condition of their contemporaries by the timid or worldly prejudices of the present. What is the meaning of doctors and leaders in the Church ? Is new truth forbidden to them ? Are they only to conserve, and never to acquire? If the free movement which is a condition of all life is to be withheld from them, they are in a worse condition than the bishops of the primitive Church in the second and third centuries, who within the limits of their respective 7rapoiKiai were at liberty, under certain conditions that secured a vital Christianity, to modify the liturgy and the creed in accordance with the needs of their locality and their time, and held themselves for all such discretionary reforms responsible to their Lord alone. Ought not the Church to demand the restoration of her ancient franchises? Ought not the bishop, the presbyters, and the people to resume their former relations, and once more consult together for their common spiritual weal ? A momentous alternative is now impending--whether the Church shall receive new blood into her veins, and expand into national breadth and comprehensiveness, or lapse into the cold and petrified formalism of an obsolete sect. Di meliora piis is our fervent prayer. Art. VI.--BOLINGBROKE AS A STATESMAN. The Life of Henry St. John Viscount Bolingbroke, Secretary of State in the reign of Queen Anne. By Thomas Macknight, author of the History of the Life and Times of Edmund Burke. Who now reads Bolingbroke ? was asked sixty years ago. Who knows any thing about him? we may ask now. Professed students...