Christ took no spoils by His triumph. It is rather the victory of successful defence, of having lost nothing in the struggle, not of having gained aught.
Now I ask any candid person whether this is not a
marvellous sermon, abounding in thought, overflowing
with suggestions? Having read it, will he take up
Scott, or Matthew Henry, or D’Oyly and Mant, and see
what those luminaries have to say on the passage of
Scripture thus wrought out by the Jesuit preacher?
I have not the least doubt as to the opinion he will form on the contrast.
We may truly say of the majority of Protestant commentators, that—Their minds are blinded: for until this day remaineth the veil—upon their heart—in the reading of the Old, or New, Testament. This is more applicable, of course, to foreign reformed theologians—if I may use the term theologian of those who are ignorant of the first principles of theology—than to our own divines. The English Church has always studied the Fathers, and has loved them; there is no great gulf fixed between us and the Mediævals, as there is between the Church and Protestant sectaries, and gleams of patristic light are reflected in the pages of our great divines. But there are commentators among us, such as Scott, who, scorning the master-expositors of early and Mediæval days, go to the study of God’s Word with the veil of their self-sufficiency on their hearts, and become hopelessly involved in heresy.
Scott affords us a melancholy example of a mistaken
