Newmftn  on  the  Development  of  Chriatian  Doctrine.      417

known,  are  of  contested  application,  and  therefore  Mr.  Newman?
may  have  a  right  to  affirm  the  sense  in  which  they  are  held  in  his-
Church.     We  know  too  that  the  text  of  St.  Paul  to  the  Corinthians  •
is  the  old  desperate  refuge  of  controversialists  in  favour  of  Pur- 1
gatory ;  but  it  should  be  fairly  quoted  '  so  a*  by  fire/  oSruf  xai  ats
5ia  irvpof ;  and  thus  out  of  one  metaphorical  expression,  a  merC
similitude,  is  developed  a  whole  Intermediate  Realm  between  the*
heaven  and  hell  of  the  Scriptures,  with  all  its  fertile  consequences,  i
We  are  wrong ;  there  is  another  sentence,  implying  the  difficulty
of  becoming  a  Christian  and  attaining  Christian  blessedness.     So,
too,  the  Communication  of  the  Merits  of  Saints,  a  doctrine  which,
whether  rightly  or  not,  appears  to  trench  most  strongly  on  the  very  i
cardinal  '  idea '  of  the  Gospel,  rests  on  a  passage,  '  receiving  af
prophets  reward,'  which  to  ordinary  reason  bears  as  much  re*
lation  to  it  as  to  any  other  doctrine  the  most  remote  from  its^
purpose.     We  cannot  find  space  to  examine  the  rest,  but  it  is
curious  that  Mr.  Newman,  in  his  last  clause,  is  obliged  to  take
refuge  in  the  Latin — the  original  of  *  in  Sanctis  Ejus,*  we  humbly
submit,  signifying  not  in  his  Saints,  but  in  his  Sanctuary,  his
Holy  of  Holies  !    And  the  footstool  of  God — of  God,  of  whom!
Christ  has  spoken — whom  man  dare  not  worship  but  as  pure
Spirit!     And  is  this  the  Biblical  interpretation  to  which  we  are^
to  go  back  in  the  present  age  of  Christianity  ?

But  even  these  dim  forebodings  of  future  doctrines,  these
obscure  suggestions  which  the  fertile  imagination  of  the  later
Church  is  to  quicken  into  immutable,  irrepealable  articles  of  faith,
cannot  be  obtained  without  submitting  the  Scriptures  to  another
subtle  process.  The  plain  sense  of  the  New  Testament  is  too*
stubbornly  perspicuous.  Mystic  interpretation  must  be  called  in
to  throw  its  veil  over  the  whole  sacred  volume.  The  simple  nar-
ratives, the  exquisite  parables,  the  pure  moral  maxims,  must  be
refined  into  one  vast  allegory,  which  may  make  it  mean  anything,,
and  consequently  mean  nothing.
