"True indeed it is, that more than any other subject of human knowledge, Biblical criticism has hung (_sic._) to the past;" (p. 340;) but the reason is also obvious. It is because, in the words of great Bishop Pearson, "Philosophia quotidie _progressu_, Theologia nisi _regressu_ non crescit[204]." "O ye who are devoting yourselves to the Divine Science of Theology," (he exclaims,) "and whose cheeks grow pale over the study of Holy Scripture above all; ye who either fill the venerable office of the Priesthood or intend it, and are hereafter to undertake the awful cure of souls:--rid yourselves of that itch of the present age, the love of novelty. Make it your business to inquire for that which was from the beginning. Resort for counsel to the fountain-head. Have recourse to Antiquity. Return to the holy Fathers. Look back to the primitive Church. In the words of the Prophet,--'_Ask for the old paths_[205].'" When therefore Mr. Jowett classes together "the early Fathers, the Roman Catholic mystical writers, the Swiss and German Reformers, and the Nonconformist Divines," (p. 377,)--he either shews a most lamentable want of intellectual perspective, or a most perverse understanding. So jumbled into one confused heap, it may not be altogether untrue to say of Commentators generally, that "the words of Scripture suggest to them _their own thoughts or feelings_." (p. 377.) But when it is straightway added, "There is nothing in such a view derogatory to _the Saints and Doctors of former ages_," (_Ibid._,) we are constrained, (for the reasons already before the reader,) to remonstrate against so misleading and deceitful a way of putting the case. Mr. Jowett desires to be understood not to depreciate "the genius or learning of famous men of old," when he remarks "that _Aquinas or Bernard did not shake themselves free from the mystical method of the Patristic times_." (_Ibid._) But with singular obtuseness, or with pitiful disingenuousness, he does his best by such words to shut out from view the real question at issue,--namely, _the exegetical value of Patristic Antiquity_. For the Church of England, when she appeals, (as she repeatedly does,) to "the Ancient Fathers," does not by any means intend such names as the Abbot of Clairvaux, who flourished in the middle of the twelfth century; or Thomas of Aquinum, who lived later into the thirteenth. It is the spirit of _the ante-Nicene age_ which she defers to; the Fathers of _the first four or five centuries_ to whose opinion she gives reverent attention; as her formularies abundantly shew. Whether therefore Aquinas and Bernard were or were not able to "shake themselves free from the mystical method _of the Patristic times_," matters very little. The point to be observed is that _the Writers of the Patristic times_, as a matter of fact, "did not shake themselves _free from the mystical method of" CHRIST and His Apostles_!