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 BX 5055 .MA74 1843 
 Merle d'Aubignae, J. h. 179 
 -1872. 
 
 Puseyism examined I 
 
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 I 
 
PUSEYISM EXAMINED. 
 
PUSEYISM EXAMINED. 
 
 BY 
 
 J. H. MERLE D'AUBIGNE, D. D., 
 
 AUTHOR OF THE " HISTORY OT THE REFORMITION IM THE SIXTEEMTH 
 CENTORY." 
 
 WITH AN 
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. 
 BT ROBERT BAIRD. 
 
 NE W-YORR: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY JOHN S. TAYLOR & CO , 
 
 Brick Church Chapel, 145 Nasiau Street 
 
 1843. 
 
Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the yett 
 1843, by 
 JOHN S. TAYLOR, 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the South- 
 ern District of New-York. 
 
 W. S. DORR, Printer, 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 In compliance with the request of many friendSj 
 who desire to know something of the family, life, 
 character and literary labors of the Rev. Dr. Merle 
 d'Aubigne, author of the celebrated " History of the 
 Reformation in the Sixteenth Centur\%" I furnish the 
 brief memoir which follows. 
 
 John Henry Merle (or, as he is called in England 
 and this country. Merle d'Aubigne), was bom in the 
 city of Geneva, in the year 1794. Consequently he is 
 a little more than forty-eight years of age. 
 
 Although a Swiss by birth, Dr. Merle* is of French 
 origin. His family, like that of many of the inhabi- 
 tants of Geneva, is descended from Huguenot ances- 
 tors, who were compelled to leave their native coun- 
 try, because of their religion, and to take refuge in a 
 city upon which one of their countr\-men, John Cal- 
 vin, had been the instrument, under God, of confer- 
 ring the blessings of the Reformation. 
 
 The great-grandfather of the Rev. Dr. Merle d'Au- 
 bigne on his paternal side, was John Lewis Merle, of 
 Nismes. About the epoch of the Revocation of the 
 
 * Dr. Merle received the degree of Doctor in i?trmt<y from the 
 College of New Jersey, in th« year 1833. 
 
 1* 
 
vi 
 
 INTRODBCTIOV. 
 
 Edict of Nantes (1685), this worthy man, who was 
 a sincere Protestant, fled from his country', and took 
 refuge in Switzerland, in order to enjoy the religious 
 liberty which France, under the rule of Louis XIV., 
 denied him. 
 
 His son, Francis Merle, married, in the year 1743, 
 Elizabeth, the Daughter of a Protestant nobleman re- 
 siding in Geneva, whose name was George d'Aubigne. 
 Agreeably to a usage which exists at Geneva, and, 
 I believe, in many other portions of Switzerland, by 
 which a gentleman adds the name of his wife to his 
 own, in order to distinguish him from other persons 
 of the same name, Mr. Francis Merle appended that 
 of d'Aubigne to his own, and was kno-«Ti as Francis 
 Merle d'Aubigne. Since his day, the family liave 
 retained the name of Merle d'Aubigne. At least this 
 was the case with the son of Francis Merle, — the 
 father of our author, — as well as by our author him- 
 self. 
 
 George d'Aubigne, just mentioned, whose daughter 
 Elizabeth became the wife of Francis Merle, was a 
 descendant of Theodore Agrtppa d'Aubigne, who left 
 France, in the year 1620, on accotmt of Religious per- 
 secution. This Theodore Agrippa d'Aubign6 was no 
 common man. The old chroniclers call him un Cal- 
 viniste zele, si onegues il en fut ; " a zealous Calvinist, 
 if there ever was one." He bought the domam of 
 Lods, near Geneva, on which he built the Chateau 
 of Crest, which still remains. The old Huguenot 
 
INTRODUCTION-. 
 
 warrior handled the pen and the lyre as well as the 
 sword ; and his Tragiques, a poem full of life and 
 genius, drew a vivid picture of the court of the imbe- 
 cile Henry III. of France, and his infamous mother^ 
 Catherine de Medici. His Histoire Vniverselle de la 
 fin du 16me Siecle had the honor of being publicly 
 burnt at Paris, in the year 1620, by order of Louis 
 Xin. He wrote also the Confession de Saucy, and 
 several other works. It is related of him, that at the 
 age of eight years, he knew well both the Latin and 
 the Greek languages. At the age of fourteen, he went 
 to Geneva to finish his studies in the " Academy," or 
 University, of that city. Having completed his course 
 in that Institution, he returned to France ; whence, 
 as has been stated, he was compelled to fly, in the 
 year 1620. Upon establishing himself at Geneva, he 
 became allied, by marriage, with the families of the 
 Burlamachi and Calandrini, two of the most hooora- 
 ble families in that city, both of Italian origin ; for 
 Geneva was a " City of refuge" to persecuted and ex- 
 iled Protestants of Italy as well as of France. 
 
 Francis Merle d'Aubigne had many children, one 
 of whom, Amie Robert Merle d'Axibigne, was bom in 
 1755, and was the father of three sons ; the oldest 
 and the youngest of whom are respectable mer- 
 chants in this country — the former in New- York, and 
 the latter in New Orleans — and the second is the 
 Rev. Dr. Merle d'Aubigne, the subject of this notice 
 Amie Robert Merle d'Aubigne had a strong desire in 
 
INTRODUCTION'. 
 
 his early years to consecrate his life wholly to the 
 service of his God ; and his parents allowed him to 
 pursue the studies requisite for the right discharge of 
 the ofBce of the ministry of the Gospel. But on his 
 father's death, his uncle and guardian, " par un ca- 
 price qui fit le malheur de ma jeunesse"* (as he says 
 in his Memoir, written for his oldest son, William), 
 caused him to give up his studies and emhrace other 
 pursuits. 
 
 The end of this excellent man was truly tragical 
 and deplorable. In the year 1799 he went on an im- 
 portant commercial mission, to Constantinople and 
 Vienna. On his return from the latter city to Geneva, 
 through Switzerland, in the autumn of that year, he 
 Was met on the road, near Zurich, by the savage and 
 infuriated hordes of Russians, who had been recently 
 defeated by the French forces under the command of 
 Massena, and by them was cruelly murdered I 
 
 His widow, who is still living in Geneva, in a vi- 
 gorous old age, devoted all the energies of an active 
 and enlightened mind to the care of her fatherless 
 children ; and now daily thanks God for having sup- 
 plied her with the means of giving them a liberal 
 education. 
 
 The preceding paragraphs will suffice to give the 
 reader some knowledge of the ancestors of the sub* 
 ject of this biographical sketch. 
 
 * Through a caprice vhich rendered my youth miaerabla. 
 
INTRODUCTION'. IS 
 
 Tlie Rev. Dr. Merle d'Aubigne was educated in tlie 
 "Academy" — or, as is more commonly called by 
 strangers, the University — of his native city. After 
 having completed the course of studies in the Facul- 
 ties of Letters and Philosophy, he entered that of 
 Theology. I am not certain as to the time when he 
 finished his preparations for the ministry ; but believe 
 that it was about the year 1816. 
 
 The Theological Faculty in the Academy of Ge- 
 neva when Dr. Merle d'Aubigne was a student, was 
 wholly Socinian in its character. Whatever were 
 the shades of difference in regard to doctrine, which 
 prevailed among its professors, they all agreed in re- 
 jecting the proper divinity of the Saviour and of the 
 Holy Spirit, salvation through the expiatory death 
 and intercession of the former, and regeneration and 
 sanctificaiion by the influences of the latter. With 
 these cardinal doctrines of the Gospel, others which 
 are considered by all Evangelical Christians to be 
 fundamental in the system of their Faith, were also 
 renounced. Alas, the same state of things exists at 
 this day, in the School which Calvin founded, and 
 in which that great man, as well as Beza, Francis 
 Turrettin, Pictet, and other renowned men taught the 
 youth, who gathered around them, the glorious doc- 
 trines of the Gospel and the Reformation. 
 
 It was under such instruction that Dr. Merle pur- 
 sued his studies for the sacred ministry. But it pleas- 
 ed God to send a faithful servant to Geneva about the 
 
X 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 time that he was completing his theological training; 
 This was Mr. Haldane of Edinburgh, a wealthy and 
 zealous Christian, who still protracts a long and use^ 
 ful life, which has been spent in the service of hisMas^ 
 ter. This excellent man, deploring the errors which 
 prevailed in the theological department of the Aca- 
 demy, endeavored to do what he could, during the 
 sojourn of a winter, to counteract them. For this 
 purpose, he invited a number of the young men to his 
 rooms in the hotel in which he lodged, and there, by 
 means of an interpreter at first, he endeavored to teach 
 them the glorious Gospel. In doing this, he com- 
 mented on the Epistle to the Romans, at much length. 
 God blessed his efforts to the salvation of some ten oi 
 twelve of them. 
 
 Seldom has it happened that an equal number of 
 young men have been converted about the same time, 
 and in one place, who have been called to perform so 
 important a part in building up the kingdom of Christ. 
 One of these men was the excellent Felix Neff, of 
 blessed memory. Another was the late Henrj- Pyt. 
 The greater part of them, however, still live to adorn 
 and bless the Church in France and Switzerland. 
 But none of them have become more celebrated than 
 the subject of this notice. 
 
 Not long after his ordination. Dr. Merle set out for 
 Germany, where he spent a number of months, chiefly 
 at Berlin. On his way to that city, he passed through 
 Eisenach, and visited the Castle of Warburg, in the 
 
INTRODUCTION". 
 
 xi 
 
 vicinity, famous for the retreat, if not properly the 
 imprisonment, of Luther. It was whilst gazing at 
 the walls of the room which the great Reformer had 
 occupied, that the thought of writing the " History of 
 the Reformation" entered his mind, never to abandon 
 it till its realization should put the world in possession 
 of the immortal work whose existence may be said 
 to date from that day. 
 
 From Berlin, Dr. Merle was called to Hamburgh, to 
 preach to an interesting French Protestant Church, 
 which had been planted by pious Huguenots, when 
 compelled to leave France, upon the Revocation of 
 the Edict of Nantes, and which has been continued 
 by their descendants. lu that city he spent five years, 
 diligently employing his time in amassing informa- 
 tion on the great subject upon which he had resolved 
 to write. 
 
 From Hamburgh he was invited to Brussels, by the 
 late king of Holland, to preach in a chapel which he 
 had erected in that capital, for Proiestants who spoke 
 the French language. At that time, and down till 
 1830, Belgium, (of which Brussels is the capital), 
 was united to Holland, and formed a portion of the 
 Kingdom of Ketherlands. 
 
 In the year 1830, a Revolution took place in Bel- 
 gium, occasioned as much by religious as by political 
 causes. The priests, in order to deliver the country 
 from the Protestant influence which a union with 
 Holland diffused in it, joined De Potter and the othei 
 
xii iNTRonrcTioN-. 
 
 " patriots" in their revolutionary measures. The en- 
 terprize succeeded. The Dutch were driven out. And 
 all who were considered friendly to the king, or inti- 
 mately coimected with him, were in no little danger. 
 Among those who were in this predicament was Dr. 
 Merle. At no small risk of his life, he escaped from 
 Belgium to Holland ; where he spent a short time, 
 and thence went to his native city. 
 
 The return of Dr. Merle to Geneva was most oppor- 
 tune. The friends of the Truth had been steadily in- 
 creasing in number, since the year 1816, and had be- 
 gtm to think seriously of founding an orthodox School 
 of Theology, in order that pious Swiss and French 
 youth, who were looking to the ministrj^ of the Gos- 
 pel, should no longer be forced to pursue their studies 
 tinder the Unitarian doctors of the Academy. The 
 arrival of Dr. Merle decided them for immediate ac- 
 tion. The next year, (1831) the Geneva Evangelical 
 Society was formed, one of whose objects was to found 
 the long desired Seminar)-. In this movement Dr. 
 Merle took a prominent part, and was placed at the 
 head of the new School of Theology. His intimate 
 friend, the excellent Mr. Gaussen, so favorably known 
 in this country for his Theopneustia, and in Switzer- 
 land for many other writings, took an equal part in 
 this important enterprize, and was chosen Professor 
 of Theolog)-. Mr. Gaussen is one of those in Geneva 
 who have had to endure much of the " shame of the 
 cross," and he has endured it weU. For the noble 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 xiii 
 
 Eland which he had taken in behalf of the Truth, he 
 was, by the government, turned out of the Church of 
 which he was for years a pastor. A man of fortune, 
 as well as of rich gifts and attainments, he has devo- 
 ted himself, without a salary, to the infant Institution 
 which he and Dr. Merle, sustained by some distin- 
 guished laymen, — among whom I may mention Col. 
 Tronchin, Ch. Gautier, and M. Boissier, — have been 
 the instruments, imder Grod, of founding and of raising 
 up to its present respectable standing. Commencing 
 with some three or four young men, it has steadily 
 increased, till it has now forty students, including both 
 the preparatory' and the theological departments. 
 
 This Seminary has enjoyed the talents of other va- 
 luable and distinguished men. For several years, M. 
 Galland was a professor in it. The late, and still 
 much lamented Steiger, the pupil and friend of Tho- 
 luck, was a professor in it during some years. And, 
 at present, it enjoys the services of jMessrs. Pilet and 
 La Harpe, who are worthy colleagues of Merle d'Au- 
 bigne and Gausseru 
 
 The publications of Dr. Merle have been numerous. 
 I will give the titles of the most important of them. 
 
 1. Lt Christianisme parte aux yations. 
 Christianity carried to the Nations — a Missionary 
 
 Sermon. 
 
 2. Celebration de la Cine. 
 
 A Discourse on the Lord's Supper. 
 
 3. Confession du nom de ChnsU 
 
IVTRODPCTIO??. 
 
 On the Duly ol confessiug Christ before tho WorlJ. 
 
 4. Culte Domestique. 
 On Familv Worship. 
 
 5. DiscouTs sur VEtude. 
 Discourse on Study. 
 
 6. Eglise appelee d confesser. 
 
 The Church called to maintain the Truth, 
 
 7. Enfans de Dieu. 
 The Children of God. 
 
 8. Etudes Chretiennes. 
 Christian Studies. 
 
 9. Foi et Science. 
 Faith and Science. 
 
 10. Miracles, ou deux Erreurs. 
 Miracles, or two Errors. 
 
 11. VoixdeVEgUse. 
 Voice of the Church. 
 12> Voix des Anciens. 
 Voice of the Ancients. 
 13. Liberie des Cultes. 
 On Religious Libertv. 
 
 Most of these publications are pamphlets of from 
 twenty pages up to sixty or eighty. The last named 
 is a volume of some 200 pages, and was called fordi 
 by the state of things in Geneva last year, and is al- 
 luded to in the Discourse which follows, where the 
 author speaks of his having played the part of Cas- 
 sandra, in what he had said respecting the recent 
 Kevolution in his native Canton. 
 
INTRODUC l lO.V. 
 
 XV 
 
 But Dr. Merle's great undertaking is his History of 
 the Reformation in the X\'Ith Cenlxirtj. The first 
 volume of this admirable word appeared in 1S36. 
 
 Two others have, at intervals followed. The au- 
 thor is now engaged on the fourth, in which he is well 
 advanced. It treats of the Reformation in Great Bri- 
 tain, and is expected with very difi'erent feelings, by 
 diflferent religious parties in England. Nor is its ap- 
 pearance anxiously looked for by people in England 
 only. 
 
 It is not probable that the fourth volume will ap- 
 pear in French before the end of this present year, if 
 even so soon. The fifth and sixth volumes — for it is 
 Dr. Merle's intention to make six volumes instead of 
 four, if God grant him life and health — will not be 
 published for some years. It is no easy task to write 
 a history of the Reformation upon the plan which 
 Dr. Merle pursues, — that of making authentic docu- 
 ments speak for themselves. 
 
 It is not my intention to write a critique on Dr. 
 Merle's work. It needs it not. The world has learn- 
 ed and acknowledged its surprising merits. It may 
 almost be said that the History of the Reformation 
 was never written until his matchless talent, for judi- 
 ciously selecting and skillfully arranging facts, and 
 graphically presenting them to the reader's mind, 
 was brought to the subject. With the art of a con- 
 jurer, if I may so speak, he causes scene after scene to 
 pass before us, on which the Hramatts persona are 
 
Xvi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 brought forward with almost the vividness of the ob- 
 jects which are presented to the bodily eye. For the 
 first time, vast numbers of readers will learn the true 
 characters of Luther, and Melancthon, and Calvin, 
 and the other Reformers. And for the first time, the 
 Reformation, with all the various and boundless bene- 
 fits which it has conferred upon the world, is begin- 
 ning to be, in some measure, comprehended by man- 
 kind. 
 
 Three translations of the three volumes of this 
 great work which have appeared have been published 
 in Great Britian — those of Messrs. "Walther, Kelly, 
 and Scott — of which the first and the last are better 
 than the second. Mr. Kelly's, however, has had a 
 wider circulation in Great Britian than either of the 
 others, because of the low price at which it has been 
 published. Mr. Scott's translation is the latest of all, 
 and is not only extremely faithful but is also accom- 
 panied with valuable notes. It is published by the 
 Messrs. Blackie, at Glasgow, in twentj'^-two numbers, 
 each for a shilling, and every second one is adorned 
 with an admirable portrait of one of the principal 
 personages who figured in the Reformation — Luther, 
 Melancthon, Tetzel, Leo X., Calvin, the Elector of 
 Saxony, etc. This edition would be called by the 
 French an affaire de luxe ; but no one who could af- 
 ford to pay for it would regret the difference of the 
 price. 
 
 It may be insignificant to remark — but it will an- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 XVll 
 
 swer some inquiries which have been addressed to 
 me — that Dr. Merle d'Aubigne is a large fine looking 
 man, of most agreeable manners; and personally, as 
 well as mentally considered, he would be pronounced 
 by every one, to be altogether worthy to speak of 
 Martin Luther, John Knox, and the other giants of the 
 Reformation. Nevertheless, I am pained to say it' 
 his health does not correspond with the robustness of 
 his frame, nor the vigor of his appearance. He suf- 
 fers much at times from complaints of the chest. I 
 am sure, that in making this statement, I shall secure 
 the prayers of many a reader, that his valuable life 
 may be spared many years to bless the Church and 
 the world. 
 
 In relation to the Discourse which follows, I have 
 *o say, that it was prepared and delivered mainly at 
 the earnest request of a number of English Gentle- 
 men who were at Geneva the last summer and au- 
 tumn. The reader will perceive in it the same phi- 
 losophical division and arrangement, the same concen- 
 tration of thought, the same unsyllogistic, but yet 
 clear and convincing mode of argumentation, and the 
 same playful wit, which are found in the History of 
 the Reformation in the XVIth Century. His proposi- 
 tions often contain his syllogisms; and his simple 
 statements of the results to which the doctrines of 
 those whom he opposes would lead, form the best 
 refutation of the errors which they hold. 
 
 The translation has been made with care, and is as 
 
xvili INTRODLCTIOX. 
 
 close as clearness will permit. Some slight French 
 idioms have been allowed to remain, where the 
 meaning is not doubtful, because they tend to break 
 up monolony of conceplion, if I may be suffered so 
 to speak. The extracts given from the Oxford and 
 other writers, named in this address, may be found to 
 differ in words and arrangement, from the language 
 used by their authors, for in some few cases it was 
 not possible to give the original, because it was not at 
 hand. But though there is a double translation, yet 
 the sense is doubtless well preserved. And this is 
 all that is very important. It was not convenient, 
 nor, indeed, in all cases possible, to hunt up in the 
 original sources, all the extracts which Dr. Merle has 
 given. 
 
 R. B. 
 
 New-Yoek, Jan., 1843, 
 
PUSEYISxM EXAMINED. 
 
 GENEVA AND OXFORD. 
 
 "Two systems of doctrine are now, and probaljly for the last 
 lime, in conflict — the Catholic and Genevan." 
 
 Dr. Pasey's Lctler to the Archbishop of CanUrbary. 
 
 Gentlemen ; 
 
 I am in the practice, at the opening of the course of lec- 
 tures in our School, to call your attention to some subject 
 peculiarly appropriate to the -.vants and the circumstances 
 of the times. Several such suhjects now present them- 
 selves lo our consideration. 
 
 And firsl of all, there is one which is appropriate to 
 every year and to every day, it is that which conccSrns the 
 very nature of this School. It has none of those temporal 
 sources of prosperity, of endowment, and of power, which 
 nourish other institutions; it can exist only as a plant of 
 God ; it can be nothing excepting just as the Spirit of God 
 — like the sap — diffuses itself, without cessation, through 
 the principal branches, and through even the least of its 
 twigs ; adorning the whole tree with leaves, with flowers, 
 and with fruits. Gentlemen, Professors and Students, we 
 are those twigs and branches. Oh I that we may not be 
 barren and withered branches ! 
 
 There is another subject which begins greatly to occupy 
 the most distinguished minds ; it is the question whether 
 the Church ought to depend upon the civil government, 
 or ought to have a government of its own, having no de- 
 pendence, in the last resort, but upon Christ and his Word. 
 Without entering here into this important subject, I would 
 indicate two opjiosite movements, which are at this mo- 
 ment simultaneously taking place under our eyes in the 
 world; the one in theory, the other in practice. On the 
 one hand, an admirable work, the production of one of \he 
 
20 
 
 PUSEYISM EXAMINED. 
 
 most profound thinkers of our age, Mr. Viuct,(l) leads 
 some reflecting minds to acknowledge the independence of 
 the Church ; and, on the other, nnany people are uniting 
 themselves with new zeal around the institutions of the 
 government ; so that there are all around us convictions 
 and movements which seem to carry away the people of 
 our day by contrary currents. It is thus that a student of 
 Geneva has just written to us, that the refusal to grant to 
 him the exemption from military duty which the law stipu- 
 lates in favor of students in Theology, will oblige him to 
 quit our school. We will always respect authority, but we 
 cannot refrain from remarking that if, as all parties main- 
 tain, there has been a radical revolution in Geneva this 
 year, that revolution has not, assuredly, tended to establish 
 among us that equality and that religious liberty, without' 
 which all other liberty is but a useless and dangerous play- 
 thing. However, it is in France above all that this move- 
 ment is taking place. A French student writes to us, with 
 regrets which have touched us, that he has united himself 
 again to the Established Church. When young men, alter 
 having pursued in our Preparatory School those first stu- 
 dies which present so many difficulties, desire to secure 
 to themselves, by certain measures, a future more easy ; 
 or even to abandon our Institution for the purpose of pla- 
 cing themselves in one sustained by government, from 
 which Unitarian and Rationalist doctrines have been ban- 
 ished, we shall be happy to think that we have been able 
 to prepare them in part, with the aid of God our Saviour, 
 for the work of the ministry, and we shall follow them in 
 their career with the same affection, and we hope, with 
 the same prayers. But we ourselves. Gentlemen, will 
 make no advances to the political governments ; we be- 
 1 eve that our sole resource is with the Government from 
 above, and knowing the faithfulness of Christ towards 
 those who seek only His glory, assured that there is a place 
 for whomsoever He calls to preach His Gospel, we will 
 ask of Him the confidence that we, teachers and pupils, 
 ought to have in His love, and to make us all continue to 
 walk by faith and not by sight. 
 
 (1) Essni su- la Mamftstatiou dos Conrict)one« Religieuset — 
 Pori», 
 
PU8EYISM EXAMINED. 
 
 21 
 
 The circumstances even of the Church in our country 
 might also occupy our attention. Alas ! we have played 
 this year the part of Cassandra. In vain have we present- 
 ed, as well as we could, the correct principles of Ecclesi- 
 astical Government ; in vain, in particular, have we shown 
 that the elders of the Church ought to be chosen by the 
 people of the parishes assembled in their places of wor- 
 ship, with their pastors, after having invoked the name 
 of God, and not by municipal councils, over which magis- 
 trates preside ; our words for a moment heard, have in the 
 end been in vain. We have seen among us, a very strange 
 spectacle ; we have seen ecclesiastics, men in other re- 
 spects truly enlightened, and possessing undoubted talent, 
 appear to fear their parishes, and employ their powerful in- 
 fluence lo cause the rulers of the Church to be elected, not 
 by the Church, but by the magistrates charged to watch 
 over the maintenance of the roads and public edifices. And 
 now that this election has been made, what do people say 1 
 surprising thing 1 Exclamations of astonishment and grief 
 are heard, that the political bodies to which some have wish- 
 ed at all price to entrust the ecclesiastical elections, have 
 made those elections political ; the fall of the Church is 
 predicted, men are now occupied with those who are des- 
 tined, infalliUy to share the spoils,(2) and nothing can equal 
 the zeal which has been employed to obtain this change, 
 unless it be the grief which has been manifested when, 
 as we predicted, its inevitable results have been disco- 
 vered. Behold, Gentlemen, whither ignorance of the first 
 principles of ecclesiastical government, on the part of those 
 who ailminister the Church, whatever may be, in other 
 respects, their illumination, their morality, their patriot- 
 ism, inevitably conducts. 
 
 If we look beyond this School, beyond this city, into the 
 religious world in general, there are. Gentlemen, other 
 subjects which present themselves. It is thus that we see 
 pious men, seduced, without doubt, by many truths mixed 
 up with strange errors, receive a system come from a city 
 in England,(l) according to which (here is no more Church, 
 
 O) Sco Iho Courier of Geneva of tlic 24th Sept., 1842. 
 
 (2) Plymouth. (Or. Morlo here refers to those who etc called 
 
 Plymouth Brotbrcu.") 
 
22 
 
 PUSEYISM EXAJIINED. 
 
 alihough Jesus has promised (Matth. xvi.) that "the gates 
 of hell shall not prevail against it ;" and that there ought 
 10 be no more pastors and teachers, although revelation 
 declares to us that Christ himself has established '• pastors 
 and teachers for the perfecting of the saints, for the work 
 of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ,' 
 (Ephes. iv. 11, 12,) 
 
 But, Gentlemen, there is another error ; it is that which 
 is found at the other extremity of the theological line, that 
 I intend now to indicate to you. In the bosom of a Uni- 
 Yersity m England, that of Oxford, has grown up an ec- 
 clesiastical system which interests and justly grieves all 
 Christendom. It is now some time since some laymen, 
 whom I love and respect, came to me to ask me to write 
 against that dangerous error. I answered that I had nei- 
 ther the time, nor the capacity, nor the documents ne- 
 cessary for the task. But if I am incapable of composing 
 a dissertation, I can at least show in few words how I 
 regard it. It is with me even a duty, since respectable 
 Christians ask it of me ; and it is that which has determined 
 jne to choose this subject for the present occasion. 
 
 Let OS comprehend well. Gentlemen, the position which 
 Evangelical Christian Theology occupies. 
 
 At the epoch of the Reformation, if I may so speak, 
 three distinct eras had occured in the history of the Church. 
 
 1. That of Evangelical Christianity, which, having its 
 focus in the times of the Apostles, extended its rays 
 throughout the first and second centuries of the Church. 
 
 2. That of Ecclesiastical Catholicism, which, commen- 
 cing its existence in the third century, reigned till the 
 seventh. 
 
 3. That of the Papacy, ^hich reigned from the seventh 
 to the fifteenth century. 
 
 Such were the three grand eras in the then past his- 
 tory of the Church ; let us see what characterized each 
 one of them. 
 
 In the first period, the supreme authority was attributed 
 to the revealed Word of God. 
 
 Id the second, it was, according to some, ascribed lo 
 the Church as represented by its bishops. 
 
PTJSKYISM EXAMINED. 
 
 23 
 
 In the third, to the Pope. 
 
 We acknowledge cheerfully that the second of these sys- 
 tems is much superior to the third ; but it is inferior to the 
 first! 
 
 In fact, in the first of these systems it is God who rules. 
 In the second, it is man. 
 
 In the third, it is, to speak after the Apostle, " that 
 woRKNo OP Satan, with all power, and signs and lying 
 wonders," (2 Thess. ii. 9.) 
 
 The Reformation, in abandoning the Papacy, might have 
 returned to the second of these systems, that is, to Eccle- 
 siastical Catholicism ; or to the first, that is, to Evangeli- 
 ical Christianity. 
 
 In returning to the second, it would have made half the 
 way. Ecclesiastical Catholicism is, in effect, a middle 
 system — a via media, as one of the Oxford Doctors has 
 termed it, in a sermon which he has just published. On 
 the one hand, it approaches much to Papacy, for it con- 
 tains, in the germ, all the principles which are there found. 
 On the other, however, it diverges from it, for it rejects 
 the Papacy itself. 
 
 The Reformation was not a system of pretended jttsU 
 milieu. It went the whole way ; and reboundmg with that 
 force which God gives, it fell, as at one single leap, into 
 the Evangelical Christianity of the Apostles. 
 
 But there is now. Gentlemen, a numerous and powerful 
 party in England, supported even by some Bishops, (whose 
 Charges have filled us with astonishment and grief), which 
 wouU, according to its adversaries, quit the ground of 
 Evangelical Christianity to plant itself upon that of Ec- 
 clesiastical Catholicism, with a marked tendency towards 
 the Papacy ; or which, according to what it pretends, 
 would faithfully maintain itself on that hierarchical and 
 semi-Romish ground, which is, according to it, the true, 
 native and legitimate foundation of the Church of England. 
 It is this movement which is, from the name of one ol its 
 principal chiefs, called Puscyism. 
 
 " The task of the true children of the Catholic Church," 
 says the British Critic, (one of the Journals which are the 
 organs of the O-^ford party,) " is to unprotestantize the 
 Church." "It is necessary," says one of these doctorB,( 1 ) 
 
 (I) Mr. Palmer. 
 6* 
 
24 
 
 PUSEYISM EXAJtlNED. 
 
 " to reject entirely and to anathematize the principle of Pro- 
 testantism, as being that of a heresy, with all its forms, its 
 sects and its denominations." "It is necessary," says 
 another in his posthumous writings. (1) "to hate more and 
 more the Reformation and the Reformers." 
 
 In separating the Church from the Reformation, this party 
 pretends to wish not to bring back the Papacy, but to re- 
 tain the church in the juste milieu of Ecclesiastical Catho- 
 licism. However, the fact is not to be disguised, that if 
 it were forced to choose between what it considers two 
 evils, it would greatly prefer Rome to the Reformation. 
 
 Men highly respectable for their knowledge, their ta- 
 lents, and their moral character, are found among these 
 theologians. And, let us acknowledge it, the fundamental 
 want which seems to have decided this movement is a le- 
 gitimate one. 
 
 There has been felt in England, in the midst of all the 
 waves which now heave and agitate the Church, a want of 
 antiquity ; and men have sought a rock, firm and immova- 
 ble, on which to plant their footsteps. 
 
 This want is founded in human nature ; it is also justified 
 by the social and religious state of the present time. I my- 
 self thirst for antiquity. 
 
 But the doctors of Oxford, do they satisfy, for them- 
 selves and others, these wants of the age ! 
 
 I am convinced of the contrary. What a juvenile anti- 
 quity is that before which these eminent men prostrate 
 themselves ! It is the young and inexperienced Christian- 
 ity of the first ages which they call ancient ; it is to the 
 c^iild that they ascribe the authority of the old man. If it 
 be a question respecting the antiquity of humanity, cer- 
 tainly we are more ancient than the Fathers, for we are 
 15 or 18 centuries older than they ; it is we who have the 
 light of experience and the maturity of gray hairs. 
 
 But no ; it is not respecting such an antiquity that there 
 can be any question in divine things. The only antiquity 
 to which we hold is that of the " Ancient of days," (Dan. 
 vii. 13,) " of Him who before the mountains were brought 
 forth, or ever He had formed the earth and the world, even 
 from everlasting to everlasting is God." It is " He who is 
 our refuge from age to age," (Ps. xc. 1, 2 ) The truly an- 
 
 (1) Mr. Froude. 
 
PtJSEYlSM EXAMINED. 
 
 25 
 
 cient document to which we appeal is that " Word which is 
 settled forever in Heaven." (Ps. cxix. 89,) and " which 
 shall stand forever," (Isaiah, xl. 8.) Behold, Gentlemen, 
 our antiquity. 
 
 Alas, that which most afflicts us in the learned doctors 
 of Oxford, is that whilst the people who surround them 
 hunger and thirst after antiquity, they themselves instead 
 of leading them to the ancient testimony of the "Ancient 
 of days," only conduct them to puerile novelties. What 
 novelties in reality, and what faded novelties ! — that pur- 
 gatory, those human pardons, those images, those relics, 
 that invocation of the saints which these doctors would 
 restore to the Church (1). What immense and monstrous 
 innovation that Rome to which they would have us re- 
 turn ! 
 
 Who are the innovators, I demand 1 those who say as we 
 do, with the eternal Word : " God hath begotten as of His 
 own will, with the word of truth," (Jas. i. 18,) or those who 
 say as do the " Tracts for the Times :" " Rome is our mo- 
 ther, it is by her that we have been born to Christ." Those 
 who say as we do, with the eternal Word: "Take heed, 
 brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of un- 
 belief in departing from the living God," (Heb. iii. 12;) or 
 those who say, as do these doctors : " In losing visible 
 union with the Church of Rome, we have lost great privi- 
 leges, "(8) certainly the doctors of Oxford are the innova- 
 tors. 
 
 The partizans of Rome, that grand innovation in Chris- 
 tendom, do not here deceive themselves ; they hail in these 
 new doctors advocates of Romish novelties. The famous 
 Romish Doctor Wiseman writes to Lord Shrewsbury : 
 
 We can count certainly on a prompt, zealous, and able 
 co-operation to bring the Church of England to obedi- 
 ence to the See of Rome. When I read in their chronolo- 
 gical order the writings of the theologians of Oxford, I 
 see in the clearest manner these doctors approximating 
 from day to day our holy Church, both as to doctrine and 
 good-will. Our Saints, our Popes, become more and more 
 dear to them; our rites, our ceremonies, and even the fes- 
 
 (1) Tracts for Tha Times, No. 90, Art. 0. 
 C^) Britisli Critic 
 
26 
 
 PTTSEYISM EXAMINED. 
 
 tivalsofour saints, and our days of fasting, are precious in 
 their eyes, more precious, alas, than in the eyes of many 
 of our own people." 
 
 And the doctors of Oxford, notwithstanding theii pro- 
 testations, do they not concur in this yiew of the matter, 
 when they say ; " the tendency to Romanism is at bottom 
 only a fruit of the profound desire which the Church, great- 
 ly moved, experiences to become again that which the 
 Saviour left her, — One." (1) 
 
 Such, Gentlemen, is the movement which is taking place 
 in that Church of England, which so many pious men, so 
 many Christian works, have rendered illustrious. Dr. Pu- 
 sey has had reason to say in his letter to the Archbishop 
 of Canterbury: "upon the issue of the present struggle 
 depend the destinies of our Church." And it is worth 
 while for us to pause here a few moments to examine 
 what party we ought to prefer, as members of the ancient 
 Church of the continent, and what we have to do in this 
 grave and solemn crisis. 
 
 Gentlemen, we ought to profess frankly that we will 
 have neither the Papacy, nor the ma media of Ecclesiasti- 
 cal Catholicism, but remain firm upon the foundation of 
 Evangelical Christianity. In what consists this Chris- 
 tianity when it is opposed to the two other systems nhich 
 •we reject 1 
 
 There are in it things essential and things unessential ; 
 it is of that only which forms its essence ; of that which 
 is its principle, that I would here speak. 
 
 There are three principles which form its essence ; the 
 first is that which we may call its formal principle, because 
 it is the means by which this system is formed or con- 
 stituted ; the second is that which may be called the ma- 
 terial principle, because it is the very doctrine which 
 constitutes this religious system ; the third, I call the 
 personal or moral principle, because it concerns the ap- 
 plication of Christianity to the soul of each individual. 
 
 The formal principle of Christianity is expressed in few 
 ■words : 
 
 The Word op God, only. 
 That is to say, the Christian receives the knowledge of 
 
 (1) Letter of Dr. Pueey to the Archbishop of Canterburr. 
 
PUSEYISM EXAMINED. 
 
 27 
 
 the truth only by the Word of God, and admits of no other 
 source of religious knowledge. 
 
 The material principle of Christianity is expressed with 
 equal brevity : 
 
 The Grace op Chkist, only. 
 
 That is to say, the Christian receives salvation only by 
 the grace of Christ, and recognises no other meritorious 
 cause of eternal life. 
 
 The personal principle of Christianity may be expressed 
 in the most simple terms : 
 
 The Work of the Spirit, only. 
 
 That is to say, there must be in each soul that is saved 
 a moral and individual work of regeneration, wrought by the 
 Spirit of God, and not by the simple concurrence of the 
 Church,* and the magic influence of certain ceremonies. 
 
 Gentlemen, recall constantly to your minds these three 
 simple truths : 
 
 The Word of God, only ; 
 The Grace of Christ, only ; 
 The W(rrk of the Spirit, only ; 
 
 and they will truly be " a lamp to your feet and a light to 
 your paths." 
 
 These are the three great beacons which the Holy Spirit 
 has erected in the Church. Their effulgence should spread 
 from one end of the world to the other. So long as they 
 shine, the Church walks in the light ; as soon as they 
 ehall become extinct or even obscured, darkness like that 
 of Egypt will settle upon Christendom. 
 
 But, Gentlemen, it is precisely these three fundamental 
 principles of Evangelical Christianity which are attacked 
 and overthrown by the new system of Ecclesiastical Catho- 
 licism. It is not to some minor point, to some doctrine 
 of secondary importance that they direct their attention 
 
 • The words which are used in Ibe FrPuch are adjonction de 
 VEglise, aod arc employed to express that additional or concur- 
 rniit influence which the Church is believed, by the Puseyitcs, to 
 i xcrt in regeneration by her ministrations.— iVotc by the Tr. 
 
28 
 
 PUSEYISM EXAMINED. 
 
 at Oxford ; it is to that which constitutes the essence 
 even of Christianity and of the Reformation, to those 
 truths so important that, as Luther said, " with them the 
 Church stands, and without them the Church falls." Let 
 us consider them. 
 
 I. 
 
 The formal principle of Evangelical Christianity is this : 
 The Word of God, oxly. 
 
 He who would know and possess the Truth, in order 
 to be saved, ought to address himself to that revelation of 
 God which is contained in the Sacred Scriptures, and to 
 reject everything which is human addition, everything 
 which, like the work of man, is justly suspected of being 
 stamped with the impress of a deplorable mixture of error. 
 There is one sole source at which the Christian quenches 
 his thirst ; it is that stream, clear, limpid, perfectly pure, 
 which flows from the throne of God. He turns his lips 
 away from every other .''ountam which flows parallel with 
 it, or which would pretend to mix itself with it ; for he 
 knows that because of the source whence these streams 
 issue, they all contain troubled, unwholesome, perhaps 
 deadly waters. 
 
 The sole, ancient, eternal stream, is God; the new, 
 ephemeral, failing stream, is man ; and we will quench 
 our thirst but in God alone. God is for us, so full of a sove- 
 reign majesty, that we would regard as an outrage, and 
 even as impiety, the attempt to put anything by the side of 
 His Word. 
 
 But this is what the authors of the novelties of Oxford 
 are doing. " The Scriptures," say they, in the Tracts 
 for Ike Times, " it is evident are not, according to the 
 principles of the Church of England, the Rule of Faith. 
 The doctrine or message of the Gospel, is but indirectly 
 presented in the Scriptures, and in an obscure and con- 
 cealed manner. "(1) " Catholic tradition," says one of the 
 two principal chiefs of this school,(2) " is a divine informer 
 
 (1) Tract 85. 
 
 (2) Nevmau, Lecture oa RomaDiioi. 
 
PU8EYISM EXAMINED. 
 
 29 
 
 in religious" things ; it is the unwritten word. These two 
 things, (the Bible and the Catholic traditions,) form to- 
 gether a united rule of Faith. Catholic tradition is a divine 
 source of knowledge ;n all things relating to Faith. The 
 Scriptures are only the document of ultimate appeal ; Ca- 
 tholic tradition is the authoritative teacher." 
 
 " Tradition is infallible," says another doctor ;(1) "the 
 unwritten word of God, of necessity, demands of us the 
 same respect which his written word does, and precisely 
 for the same reason, — because it is His word." "We 
 demand that the whole of the Catholic traditions should be 
 taught," says a third. (2) 
 
 Behold, Gentlemen, one of the most pestiferous errors 
 which can be disseminated in the Church. 
 
 Whence has Rome and Oxford derived iti Certainly 
 the respect which we entertain for the incontestable science 
 of these doctors shall not prevent us from saying it : This 
 error can come from no other source than the natural aver- 
 sion of the heart of fallen man for everything that the 
 Scriptures teach. It can be nothing else than a depraved 
 will which leads man to put the Sacred Scriptures aside. 
 Men first abandon the fountain of living waters, and then 
 hew for themselves, here and there, cisterns which will 
 hold no water. Here is a truth which the history of every 
 Church teaches in its successive falls and errors, as well 
 as that of every soul in particular. The theologians of Ox- 
 ford only follow in the way of all flesh. 
 
 Behold, then. Gentlemen, two established authorities by 
 the side of each other : The Bible and Tradition. We do 
 not hesitate as to what we have to do : 
 
 To THE Law and to the Testimony ! We cry with 
 the prophet : " If they speak not according to His word, 
 it is because there is no light in them : and behold trouble 
 and darkness, dimness of anguish ; and they shall be driven 
 to darkness." (Isa. viii. 20, 22.) 
 
 We reject this Tradition as being a species of Ration- 
 alism which introduces, for a rule in Christian doctrine, not 
 the human reason of the present time, but the human rea- 
 son of the times past. We declare, with the Churches of 
 
 (1) Keeble's Scrmon.<. 
 
 (2) Palmcr'9 AidetoRcflectioa. 
 
30 
 
 PL'SEVISM EXAMINED. 
 
 the Reformation in their symbolical writings, (Confessiong 
 of Faith,) that " the Sacred Scriptures are the only judge, 
 the only rule of Faith ;" that it is to them, as to a touch- 
 stone, that all dogmas ought to be brought ; that it is by 
 them that the question should be decided, whether they are 
 pious or impious, true or false ' (1) 
 
 Without doubt there was originally an oral tradition 
 which was pure ; it was the instructions given by the Apos- 
 tles themselves, before the sacred writings of the New 
 Testament existed. However, even then, the apostle and 
 the evangelist, Peter and Barnabas, (Gal. li. 13.) could 
 not walk uprightly, and consequently stumbled in their 
 words. The divinely inspired Scriptures alone are infal- 
 lible : the word of the Lord endureth forever. 
 
 But, however pure was oral instruction from the time 
 that the apostles quitted the earth, that tradition was neces- 
 sarily exposed in this world of sin, to be little by little de- 
 faced, polluted, corrupted. It is for this cause that the 
 Evangelical Church honours and adores, with gratitude and 
 humility, that gracious good pleasure of the Saviour, in 
 virtue of which that pure, primitive type, thai first, Apos- 
 tolic tradition, in all its purity, has been rendered perma- 
 nent, by being written, by the Spirit of God himself, in our 
 sacred books, for all coming time. And now she finds in 
 those writings, as we have just heard, the divine touchstone, 
 which she employs for the purpose of trying all the tradi- 
 tions of men. 
 
 Nor does she establish concurrently, as do the doctors 
 of Oxford and the Council of Trent, the tradition which is 
 tcrillcn and the tradition which is oral ; but she decidedly 
 renders ihe latter subordinate to the former, because one 
 cannot be sure that this oral tradition is only and truly 
 Apostolical tradition, such as it was in its primitive purity. 
 
 The knowledge of true Christianity, says the Protes- 
 tant Church, flows only from one source, namely, from 
 the Holy Scriptures, or, if you will, from the Apostolic 
 tradition, such as we find it contained in the writings of the 
 New Testament. 
 
 The Apostles of Jesus Christ,— Peter, Paul, John, Mat- 
 thew, James, — perform their functions in the Church to- 
 
 (J) Formula o{ Af roeijient. 
 
PUSEYISM EXAMINED. 
 
 31 
 
 day ; no one has need, no one has the power to take their 
 place. They perform their functions at Jerusalem, at Ge- 
 neva, at Cormtb, at Berlin, at Paris ; they bear testimony 
 in Oxford and in Rome itself. They preach, even to the 
 ends of the world, the remission of sins and conversion of 
 the soul in the name of the Saviour ; they announce the 
 resurrection of the Crucified to every creature ; they loose 
 and they retain sins; they lay the foundation of the house 
 of God and they build it ; they teach the missionaries and 
 the ministers of the Gospel ; they regulate the order of the 
 Church, and preside in Synods which would be Christian. 
 They do all this by the written Wurd which they have left 
 us. Or rather, Christ, Christ himself, does it by that 
 Word, since it is the Word of Christ, rather than the word 
 of Paul, of Peter, or of James. " Go ye therefore, and 
 teach all nations ; lo, I am with you alway, even to the 
 end of the world." (Matth. i.\-viii.' 19, 20.) 
 
 Without doubt, as to the number of their words, the 
 Apostles spoke more than they wrote ; but as to the sub- 
 stance, they said notliing more than what they have left us 
 in their divine books. And if they had taught by the 
 mouth, as to the substance, differently or more explicitly 
 than they did by their writings, no one could at this day 
 be in a state to report to us, with assurance, even one syl- 
 lable of these instructions. If God did not wish lo pre- 
 serve them in His Bible, no one can come to His aid, and 
 do what God Himself has not wished to do, and what He 
 has not done. If, in the writings more or less doubtful, of 
 the companions of the Apostles, or of those Fathers who 
 are called Apostolical, one should find any doctrine of the 
 Apostles, it would be necessary, first of all, to put it to 
 the trial, in comparing it with the certain instructions of 
 the Apostles, that is with the Canon of the Scriptures. 
 
 So much for the tradition of the Apostles. Let us pass 
 from the times when they lived to those which succeeded. 
 liCt us come to the tradition of the doctors of the first cen- 
 turies. That tradition is, without doubt, of great value to 
 us ; but by the very fact of its being presbyterian, episco- 
 pal, or synodical, it is no more Apostolical. And let us 
 suppose, (what is not true,) that it does not contradict 
 itself ; and let us suppose, that one Father does not over- 
 throw what another Father has established, fas is often 
 
32 
 
 PUSKYI8M EXAMINED. 
 
 the case, and Abelard has proved it in his famous work 
 entitled the Sic et Non, whose recent publication we owe 
 to the care of a French philosopher (1) ; — let us suppose for 
 a moment, that one might reduce this tradition of the Fa- 
 thers of the Church to a harmony similar to that which the 
 Apostolical tradition presents, the canon wlwch might be 
 obtained thus could in no manner be placed on an e<juality 
 with the canon of the Apostles. (2) 
 
 Without doubt, — and wc acknowledge it, — the declara- 
 tions of Christian doctors merit our attention, if it is the 
 Holy Spirit which speaks in them, that Spirit ever living 
 and ever acting in the Church. But we will not, we abso- 
 lutely will not allow ourselves tu be bound by that which, 
 in this tradition and in these doctors, is only the work of 
 man. And how shall we distinguish that which is of God 
 from that which is of men, but by the Holy Scriptures'! 
 " It remains," says St. Augustme, " that I judge myself 
 according to this only Master, from whose judgment I de- 
 sire not to escape. "(3) The declarations of the doctors in 
 the Church are only the testimonies of the faith which 
 these eminent men had in the doctrines of the Scriptures. 
 They show how these doctors received these doctrines ; 
 they may, without doubt, be instructive and edifying for us ; 
 but there is no authority in them which binds us. All the 
 doctors, Greek, Latm, French, Swiss, German, English, 
 American, placed in the presence of the Word of God, are, 
 altogether, only disciples who are receiving instruction. 
 Men of the first times, men of the last, we are all alike upon 
 the benches of that divine School; and in the chair of 
 instruction, around which we are humbly assembled, no- 
 thing appears, nothing elevates itself, but the infallible 
 Word of God. I perceive, in that vast auditory, Calvin, 
 Luther, Cranmer, Augustine, Chrysostom, Athanasius, 
 Cyprian, by the side of our contemporaries. We are not 
 "disciples of Cyprian and Ignatius," as the doctors of Oi- 
 ford(4) call themselves ; but of Jesus Christ. " V\'e do 
 
 (1) Chivrages intditet iTAbelard. publislied hy Mr. Victor Con- 
 sin. Paris, 183e. TUo Introduction to this worit, upon ihe liislorjr 
 of Scholastic Pliilosophv in France, is a chef-d'cEKvrc, 
 
 (2) Nitzsch, Protcstai'.ticl 0 Thctet. 
 
 (3) RetraC. inProl. 
 
 (•I) Newman on Komaui.m. 
 
PUSEYISM EXAMINED- 
 
 33 
 
 not despise the writings of the Fathers," we say with Cal- 
 vin, " but in making use of them we remember always that 
 "all things are ours" (1 Cor. iii. 22); that they ought to 
 £*rve, not govern us ; and that " we, we are Christ's" (1 
 Cor. iii. 23), whom in all things, and without exception, it 
 behooves us to obey."(l) 
 
 This the doctors of the first centuries are themselves the 
 first to say. They claim for themselves no authority, and 
 only wish that the Word which has taught them may teach 
 us also. " Now that I am old," says Augustine, in his 
 Relraclioiis, " I do not expect not to stumble in word, or to 
 be perfect in word; how much less when, being young, I 
 commenced writing''"(2) "Beware," says he again, "of 
 subjecting yourselves to my writings, as if they were 
 Canonical Scriptures. "(3) " Do not esteem as Canonical 
 Scriptures the works of Catholic and justly honored men," 
 says he elsewhere. " It is allowed us, without impeach- 
 ing that honor which is due to them, to reject those things 
 in their writings, should we find such in them, which are 
 contrary to the Truth. I am, in regard to the writings of 
 others, what I would have others be in regard to mine. "(4) 
 ^" All that has been said since the times of the Apostles 
 ought to be retrenched," says Jerome, " and have no au- 
 thority. However holy, however learned, a man may be, 
 who comes after the Apostles, let him have no authority. "(5) 
 
 " Neither Antiquity nor Custom," says the Confession 
 of the Reformed Church of France, "ought to be arrayed 
 in opposition to the Holy Scriptures ; on the contrary, all 
 things ought to be examined, regulated and reformed ac- 
 cording to them." 
 
 And the Confession of the English Church even says 
 the doctors ol Oxford to the contrary notwithstanding: 
 " The Holy Scriptures contain all that is necessary to sal- 
 vation, so that all that is not found in them, all that can- 
 not be proved by them, cannot be required of any one as 
 an article of faith or as necessary to salvation." 
 
 (0 Calv. Inst. Relig. Christ. 
 
 (2) Retractions. 
 
 (3) In Prol. dc Trinitate. 
 
 (4) Ad KortuDatlauum. 
 
 (5) Id Pialm. Ixxxvi. 
 
34 
 
 PUSEVISM EXAMINED. 
 
 Thus the Evangelical doctors of our times pive the hand 
 to the Reformers, the Reformers to the Fathers, the 
 Fathers to the Apostles ; and thus forming, as it were, a 
 chain of gold, the whole Church of all ages and of all peo- 
 ple, shouts forth as with one voice to the God of Truth, 
 that hymn of one of our greatest poets :(1) 
 
 Parle seul <i mon coDur, et qu'aucune prudence, 
 Qu'auciiu autre Docleur lie m'explique tes lois ; 
 Que toute creature en fa sainte preseuce, 
 
 S*impose le silence, 
 
 Et laisse agir ta voix 1(2) 
 
 What then is Tradition ? It is the testimony of History. 
 
 There is a historical testimony for the facts of Christian 
 history, as well as for those of any other history. We 
 admit that testimony ; only we would discuss it, and exa- 
 mine it, as we would all other testimony. The heresy of 
 Rome and of Oxford, — and it is that vi-hich distinguishes 
 them from us, — consists in the fact that they attribute in- 
 fallibility to this testimony as to Scripture itself. 
 
 Although we receive the testimony of History in that 
 which is true, as, for example, in that which relates to the 
 collection of the writings of the Apostles ; it by no means 
 results from this that we should receive this testimony in 
 that which is false, as, for instance, in the adoration of 
 Mary, or the celibacy of the priests. 
 
 The Bible is the Faith, holy, authoritative, and truly an- 
 cient, of the child of God ; human Tradition springs from 
 the love of novelties, and is the Faith of ignorance, of super- 
 stition, and of a credulous puerility. 
 
 How deplorable but instructive, to see doctors of a 
 Church called to the gloiious liberty of the children of God, 
 and which reposes only on God and his Word, place them- 
 selves under the bondage of human ordinances ! And how 
 loudly does that example cry to us : " Stand fast in the 
 liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not 
 entangled again with the yoke of bondage." (Gal. v. 1.) 
 
 (1) Corneille. 
 
 (2; Speak Thou alone to mv heart, and let no other Wisdom, no 
 other Doctor explain to nic Thy laws; let every creature be sileut 
 in Tliy holy presence, and li t Thy voice speali 1 " 
 
PnsEYIBM EXAMINED. 
 
 35 
 
 ATI those cirors which we are combatting come from 
 tmtha which have not been rightly understood. We also 
 believe in the attributes of the Church of which they speak 
 so much ; but we believe in them according to the mean- 
 ing which God attaches to it, and our opponents believe 
 in them according to that which men attach to it. 
 
 Yes, there is one holy Catholic Church, but it is, as the 
 Apostle says, " The general assembly and Church of the 
 first-born, whose names are written in heaven," (Heb. xil. 
 23). Umty as well as holiness appertains to the invisible 
 Church. It behooves us, without doubt, to pray that the 
 visible Church should advance daily in the possession of 
 these heavenly attributes ; but neither rigorous unity nor 
 universal holiness, is a perfection essential to its exist- 
 ence, or a sine qua non. To say that the visible Church 
 must absolutely be composed of saints only, is the error of 
 the Donatists and fanatics of all ages. So also, to say that 
 the visible Church must of necessity be externally one, 
 is the corresponding error of Rome, of Oxford, and of 
 formalists of all times. Let us guard against preferring 
 the exterior hierarchy, which consists in certain human 
 forms, to that interior hierarchy which is the kingdom ol 
 God itself. Let us not permit that the form, which passes 
 away, should determine the essence of the Church ; but 
 let us, on the contrary, make the essence of the Church, 
 to wit, the Christian life — which emanates from the Word 
 and Spirit of God, — change and renew the form. The form 
 has killed the substance, — here is the whole history of the 
 Papacy and of false Catholicism. TTie substance vivi- 
 fies the form, — here is the whole history of Evangelical 
 Christianity, and of the true Catholic Church of Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 Yes, I admit it — the Church is the judge of controver- 
 sies — judex controvcrsiarum. But what is the Church'! 
 It is not the Clergy, it is not the Councils, still less is it 
 the Pope. It is the Christian people, it is the faithful. 
 " Prove all things, hold fast that which is good," (1 Thess. 
 V. 21), is said to the children of God, and not to some 
 assembly, or to a certain bishop ; and it is they who are 
 constituted, on the part of God, judges of controversies. 
 If animals have the instinct which leads them not to eat 
 that which is injurioui to them, we cannot do less than 
 2* 
 
36 
 
 PUSEYISM EXAMINED. 
 
 allow to the Christian this instinct, or rather, this intelli- 
 gence, which emanates from the virtue of the Holy Spirit. 
 Every Christian, (the Word declares it), is called upon to 
 reject "every spirit that confesses not that Jesus Christ 
 is come in the flesh," (1 John, iv. 1 — 5 ) And this is 
 what is essentially meant, when it is said that the Church 
 is the judge of controversies ! 
 
 Yes, I believe and confess it, — there is an authority in 
 the Church, and without authority the Church cannot 
 stand. But where is it to be found'! Is it with him, 
 whoever he may be, that has the external consecration, 
 whether he possess or not theological gifts, whether he 
 has received or not grace and justification 1 Rome herself 
 does not yet pretend that orders save and sanctify. Must 
 then the children of God go, in many cases, to ask a deci- 
 sion in things relating to faith, of the children ol this 
 world? What! a bishop, from the moment he is seated 
 in his chair, although he may be perhaps destitute of 
 science, destitute of the Spirit of God, and although he 
 may perhaps have the world and hell in his heart, as had 
 Borgia and so many other bishops, shall he have authority 
 in the assembly of the saints, and do his lips possess always 
 the wisdom and the truth necessary for the Church!... 
 No, Gentlemen, the idea of a knowledge of God, true, but 
 at the same time destitute of holiness, is a gross super- 
 naturalism. "Sanctify them through the Truth" says 
 Jesus, (John, xvii. 17.) There is an authority in the Church, 
 but that authority is wholly in the Word of God. It is not 
 a man, not a minister, not a bishop, descended from Gre- 
 gory, from Chrysostom, from Augustine, or from Irenaeus, 
 who has authority over the soul. It is not with a power 
 so contemptible as that which comes from those men, that 
 we, the ministers of God, go forth into the world. It is 
 elsewhere than in that episcopal succession, that we seek 
 that which gives authority to our ministry, and validity to 
 our sacraments. 
 
 Rejecting these deplorable innovations, we appeal from 
 them to the ancient, sovereign and divine authority of the 
 Word of the Lord. The question which we ask of him 
 who would inform himself concerning eternal things is 
 that which we receive from Jesus himself: "What is 
 written in the Law, and how readest thou!" (Luke x. 
 
PUSEYISM EXAMINED. 
 
 37 
 
 26.) That which we say to rebellious spirits is what 
 Abraham said from heaven to the rich man : " You have 
 Moses and the prophets, hear them." (Luke xvi. 29.) 
 
 That which we ask of all, is to imitate the Bereans 
 who " searched the Scriptures daily, whether these things 
 were so." (Acts xvii. 11.) 
 
 " We ought to obey God rather than men," even the 
 most excellent of men. (Acts v. 29.) 
 
 Behold, the true authority, the true hierarchy, the true 
 polity. The churches which men make possess human 
 authority — this is natural. But the Church of God pos- 
 sesses the authority of God, and she will not receive it 
 from others. 
 
 II. 
 
 Such is the formal principle of Christianity ; let us 
 come now to its material principle, that is to say, to that 
 which is the body, the substance even, of religion. We 
 have announced it in these terms : 
 
 The Grace of Christ, only. 
 
 "Ye are saved by grace, through faith," says the Scrip- 
 ture, " and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God ; not 
 of works, '.est any man should boast." (Eph. ii. 8.) 
 
 Evangelical Christianity not only seeks for complete 
 salvation in Christ, but seeks it in Christ only, thus ex- 
 cluding, as a cause of salvation, all works of his own, all 
 merit, all co-operation of man or of the Church. There 
 is nothing, absolutely nothing upon which we can build 
 the hope of our salvation, but the free and unmerited grace 
 of God, which is given to us in Christ, and communicated 
 hy faith. 
 
 Now, this second great foundation of Evangelical Chris- 
 tianity is equally overthrown by the modern Ecclesias- 
 tical Catholicism. 
 
 The famous Tract, No. 90, which I hold in my hand at this 
 moment, seeks to explain in a papistical sense the Confes- 
 sion of Faith of the Church of England. 
 
 The Uth Article of this Confession says: "That we 
 are justified by Faith only, is a most wholesome doctrine." 
 
38 
 
 rUSEYISM EXAMINED. 
 
 Behold the commentary of the new School of Oxford : 
 " In adhering to the doctrine that faith alone justifies, we 
 do not at all exclude the doctrine that works also justify. 
 If it were said that works justify in the same sense in which 
 it is said that faith alone justifies, there would be a contra- 
 diction in terms. But faith alone in one sense justifies us, 
 and in another, good works justify ns; this is all that is 
 here maintained !.... Christ alone, in one sense justifies, 
 faith also justifies in its proper sense ; and so works, 
 whether moral or ceremonial may justify us in their re- 
 spective sense." 
 
 " There are," says the British Crilic, " some Catholic 
 truths which are imprinted on the surface of the Scripture 
 rather than eveloped in its profound meaning ; such is the 
 doctrine of justification by works." " The preachmg of 
 Justification by Faith," says another doctor of this School, 
 " ought to be addressed to Pagans by the propagators of 
 Christian knowledge ; its promoters ought to preach to 
 baptized persons justification by works." — Works, yes ; 
 but justification by them, never! 
 
 Justification is not, according to these doctors, that ju- 
 dicial act by which God, for the sake of the expiatory death 
 of Christ, declares that He treats us as righteous ; it is 
 confounded by them, as well as by Rome, with the work of 
 the Holy Spirit. 
 
 " Justification," says again the chief of these doctors, 
 " is a progressive work ; it must be the work of the Holy 
 Spirit and not of Christ. The distinction between deliver- 
 ance from the guilt of sin and deliverance from sin itself, 
 is not scriptural. "(1) The British Critic calls the system 
 of Justification by grace through faith "radically and fun- 
 damentally monstrous, immoral, heretical and anti-Chris- 
 tian." " The custom which has prevailed," say again 
 these doctors, " of advancing, on all occasions, the doctrine 
 of Justification explicitly and mainly, is evidently and 
 entirely opposed to the teaching of the Holy Scriptures. "(2) 
 And they condemn those who make " Justification to con- 
 
 (1) Newman, od Juttificatios. 
 
 (2) Tract 80. 
 
PUSEVISM EXAMINED. 
 
 39 
 
 sist in the act by which the soul rests upon the merits of 
 Christ only."(l) 
 
 I know that the doctors of Oxford pretend to have found 
 here a middle term between the Evangehcal doctrine and 
 the Romish doctrine, "his not," say they, " Sanctifi- 
 cation which justifies us, but the presence of God in us, 
 from which this Sauctitication flows. Our Justiticatiou is 
 the possession of tliis presence." But the doctrine of 
 Oxford is at bottom the same with that of Rome. The 
 Bible speaks to us of two great works of Christ: Christ 
 FOR us, AND Christ in us. Which of these two works is 
 that which justifies us 1 The Church of Christ answers : 
 The first. Rome and Oxford answer ; The second. When 
 this is said, all is said. 
 
 And these doctors do not conceal it. They inform us 
 that it is the system against which they stand up. They 
 declare to us that it is against the idea, that, when the 
 sinner "has by faith laid hold of the saving merits of 
 Christ, his sins are blotted out, covered, and cannot re- 
 appear; his guilt has been abolished, so that he has only to 
 render thanks to Christ, who has delivered him from his 
 transgressions." — " My Lord," says Dr. Pusey to the 
 Bishop of Oxford, "it is against this system that I have 
 
 spoken" Stop ! Do not tear to pieces this Good News, 
 
 which alone has been, and will be in all ages, the con- 
 solation of the sinner! 
 
 Gentlemen, if the first principle of this new School had 
 for effect to deprive the Church of all light, this second 
 principle would have for its end to deprive her of all sal- 
 vation. "If righteousness come by the law, then Christ 
 is dead in vain. O foolish Galalians, who hath bewitched 
 you, that ye should not obey the truth : received ye the 
 Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith !" 
 (Gal. ii. 21, ill. 2, 3.) 
 
 Men the most eminent for piety, have felt that it is the 
 source even of tlie Christian life, the foundation of the 
 Church, which is here attacked ; " There is reason," says 
 the excellent Bishop of Winchester, who, as well as several 
 other Bishops, and particularly those of Chester and Cal- 
 
 (i; Newman, on Juslificutiou. 
 
40 
 
 PUSEYISM EXAMIN-ED. 
 
 cutta, has denounced these errors, in a Charge addressed 
 to his clergy, " there is reason to fear that the distinctive 
 principles of our Church would be endangered, if men 
 should envelop in a cloud the great doctrine which sets 
 forth the way in which we are accounted righteous before 
 God ; if men doubt that the Protestant doctrine of Jus- 
 tification by faith is fundamental ; if, instead of the sacri- 
 fice of Christ, the pure and only cause for which we are 
 graciously received, men establish a certain inherent dis- 
 position of sanctification, and thus confound the work of 
 the Spirit within with the work of Christ without." 
 
 The School of Oiford pretends, with Rome and the 
 Council of Trent, " that justification is the indvfelling in 
 us, of God the Father and of the incarnate Word, by the 
 Holy Spirit, and that the two acts distinguished from 
 each other by the Bible and our theologians form only 
 one. "(l)— What then 1 
 
 God 1. remits to the sinner the penalty of sin; he 
 absolves him ; he pardons him ; 2. he delivers him from 
 sin itself; he renews him ; he sanctifies him. 
 
 Are there not here two things 1 
 
 The pardon of sin on the part of God, would it not be 
 just nothing at all 1 Would it not be simply but an image 
 of sanctification 1 Or should one say that the pardon 
 which is granted to faith, and which produces in the heart 
 the sentiment of reconciliation, of adoption, and of peace, 
 is something too external to be taken into the account ? 
 
 "The Lutheran system," says the BriUsli Critic, "is 
 immoral, because it distinguishes these two works." 
 Without doubt, it does distinguish them, but it does not 
 separate them. "See wherefore we are justified," says 
 Melancthon, in the Apology for the Confession of Augs- 
 burg; "it is in order that being righteots we should do 
 good, and begin to obey the law of God ; see, here why it 
 is that we are regenerated and receive the Holy Spirit : it 
 is that the new life may have new works, and new dis- 
 positions." How many times has not the Reformation 
 declared that justifying faith is not an historical, dead, 
 vain knowledge, but a living action, a willing and a receiv- 
 
 (l) Lelter of Dr, Pusey to tho Bishop of OiforU. 
 
rUSEYISM EXAMINED. 
 
 41 
 
 ing, a work of the Holy Spirit, the true worship of God, 
 obedience towards God in the most important of ail mo- 
 ments. Yes, it is a living, efficacious faith which justifies ; 
 and these words, efficacious faith — which are found in all 
 «our Confessions of Faith — are there for the purpose of 
 declaring that faith alone, without doubt, serves as a cause 
 in the work of justification, that alone, without doubt, it 
 justifies, but that precisely because of this it does not rest 
 alone, that is to say, without its appropriate operations and 
 its fruits. 
 
 Behold, the grand difference between us and the Oxford 
 School. We believe in sanctification through justification, 
 and the O.xford School believes in justification through 
 sanctification. With us, justification is the cause and 
 sanctification is the effect. With these doctors, on the 
 contrary, sanctification is the cause, and justification the 
 effect. And here are not things indifferent, and vain dis- 
 tinctions ; it is the sic and the no7i, the yes and the no. 
 Whilst our creed establishes in all their rights these two 
 works, the creed of Oxford compromises and annihilates 
 both. Justification exists no more, if it depend on man's 
 sanctification, and not on the grace of God ; for " the 
 heavens," says the Scripture, "are not clean in his sight," 
 (Job XV. 15), " and his eyes are too ])urc to behold 
 iniquity," (Hab. i. 13); but on the other hand sanctification 
 itself cannot be accomplished ; for how could you expect 
 the effect to be produced when you begin by taking away 
 the cause? "Herein is love," says St. John, "not that we 
 loved God, but that He loved us; wc love Him because 
 he first loved us." (1 John, iv. 10, 19 ) If I might use a 
 vulgar expression, I should say that Oxford puis the cart 
 before the horse, in placing sanctification before justi- 
 fication. In this way neither the cart nor the horse will 
 advance. In order that the work should go on, it is 
 necessary that that which draws should be jilaced before 
 that which is drawn. There is not a system more contrary 
 to true sanctification than that ; and, to employ the lan- 
 guage of the Brilifh Critic, there is not, consequently, 
 a system more monstrous and immoral. What ! your jus- 
 tification, shall it not depend upon the work which Christ 
 accomplished on the cross, but upon that which is accom- 
 plished in your hearts ! It is not to Christ, to his grace, 
 
42 
 
 PUSEYISM EXAMINED. 
 
 that you ought to look ia order to be justified, but to 
 yourselves, to the righteousness which is in you, to your 
 spiritual gifts I.... 
 
 From this result two great evils. 
 
 Either you will deceive yourselves, in believing that 
 there is a work in you sufficiently good to justify you 
 before God ; and then you will be inflated with pride, that 
 pride which the Scriptures say, " goeth before a fall." 
 Or you will not deceive yourselves, you will see, as the 
 Saviour says, that you arc poor, and wretched, and blind 
 and naked ; and then you will fall into despair. The 
 heights of pride and the depths of despair, these are the 
 alternatives which the doctrine of Oxford and of Rome 
 bequeathes us. 
 
 The Christian doctrine, on the contrary, places man in 
 perfect humility, for it is Another who justifies him; and 
 yet it gives him abundant peace, for his justification, — 
 a fruit of the " righteousness of God," (2 Cor. v. 21) — is 
 complete, assured, eternal. 
 
 III. 
 
 Finally, we indicate the personal or moral principle of 
 Christianity. We have announced it in these words : — 
 
 The Work of the Spirit only. 
 
 Christianity is an individual work ; the grace of God 
 converts soul after soul. Each soul is a world, in which 
 a creation peculiar to itself must be accomplished. The 
 Church is but the assemblage of all the souls in whom 
 this work is wrought, and who are now united because 
 they have hut " one Spirit, one Lord, one Father." 
 
 And what is the nature of this work ! It is essentially 
 moral. Christianity operates upon the will of man and 
 changes it. Conversion comes from the action of the 
 Spirit of God, and not from the magic action of certain 
 ceremonies, which, rendering faith on the part of man vain 
 and useless, would regenerate him by their own inherent 
 virtue. " In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth 
 anything, nor uncircumcision, but [to be] a new crea- 
 
PUSEYISM EXAMINED. 
 
 43 
 
 ture;"' (Gal. vi. 15.) " If through the Spirit ye Jo mor- 
 tify the deeds of the body, ye shall live ;" (Rom. viii. 13.) 
 
 Now the doctors of Oxford, although there is a great 
 difference among them on this point, as well as on some 
 others, — some going by no means as far as others, — put 
 immense obstacles in the way of this individual regenera- 
 tion. 
 
 Nothing inspires them with greater repugnance than 
 Christian individualism. They proceed by synthesis, not by 
 analysis. They do not set out with the principle laid 
 down by the Saviour: "except a man be born again, he 
 cannot see the kingdom of God;" but they set out with 
 this opposite principle : " all those who have participa- 
 ted in the ordinancesvof the Church are born again." 
 And whilst the Saviour in all his discourses excites the ef- 
 forts of each individual, saying : "Seek, ask, knock, strive 
 to enter in at the strait gate ; it is only the violent who 
 take it by force ;" the Oxford doctors say, on the contra- 
 ry : " The idea of obtaining religious truth ourselves, and 
 by our private inquiry, whether by reading, or by thinking, 
 or by studying the Scriptures or other books, ... is no- 
 where commanded in the Scriptures. The great question 
 which ought to he placed before every mind is this : 
 " What voice should be heard like that of the holy Catholic 
 and Apostolic ChurchV (1.) 
 
 And this individual regeneration by the Holy Spirit, 
 how shall it be accomplished, since the first task of Pusey- 
 ism is to say to all, that it is already accomplished ; that 
 all who have been baptised have thereby been rendered 
 partakers of the divine nature ; and that to preach conver- 
 sion again to them is contrary to the truth ! " It is bap- 
 tism and not faith," says one of these doctors, " that is 
 the primary instrument of justification ;" (2) and we know 
 that with them justification and conversion are one and the 
 same work. To prevent the wretched from escaping from 
 the miserable state in which they are, would not the best 
 means be to persuade a poor man that he possesses a large 
 fortune, or an ignorant man that he has great science, or a 
 
 (1) British Critic 
 
 <a; Newman, on JiisiiCcaliou. 
 
41 
 
 PUSEi-ISM EXAMINED. 
 
 sick man that he is in perfect health ! The Evil One 
 could not invent a stratagem more fit to prevent conver- 
 sion, than this idea that all men who have been baptised 
 by water are regenerated. 
 
 Still more, these doctors extend to the Holy Supper this 
 same magic virtue. " It is now almost universally be- 
 lieved," say they, in speaking of their Church, " that God 
 communicates grace only through faith, prayer, spiritual 
 Contemplation, communion with God ; whilst it is the 
 Church and her sacraments which are the ordained, direct, 
 visible means for conveying to the soul that which is 
 invisible and supernaiural. It is said, for example, that 
 to administer the Supper to infants, to dying persons ap- 
 parently deprived of their senses, however pious they may 
 have been, is a superstition ; and yet these practices are 
 sanctioned by antiquity. The essence of the sectarian doc- 
 trine is to consider faith, and not the sacraments, as the 
 means of justification and other evangelical gifts." (1) 
 
 What then, a child which does not possess reason and 
 which does not know even how to speak, a sick man 
 whom the approach of death has deprived of perception 
 and intelligence, shall they receive grace purely by the 
 external application of the sacraments ] The will, the 
 affections of the heart, have they no need to be touched 
 in order that man may be sanctified t What a degrada- 
 tion of man and of the religion of Jesus Christ ! Is there 
 a great difference between such ceremonies and the mum- 
 meries and charms of the debased Hindoos or of the Af- 
 rican savages ! 
 
 If the first error of Oxford deprives the Church of light, 
 if the second deprives her of salvation, the third deprives 
 her of all real sanctification. Without doubt, we believe 
 the sacraments are means of grace ; but they are only so 
 when faith accompanies their use. To put failh and the 
 sacraments in opposition, as the Oxford doctors do, is to 
 annihilate the efficacy of the sacraments themselves. 
 
 The Church will rise up against such fatal errors. There 
 is a work of renovation which must be wrought in man, 
 a personal or individual work ; and it is God who pet- 
 
 (l) Tracts for the Times. Advcrtijciacnl in Vol II. 
 
rUSEYISM EXAMINED. 
 
 45 
 
 forms it. "A now heart," saith tho Lord, "will I give 
 you, anU a new spirit will I put within vou." (Ez. xxxvi. 
 '20 ) 
 
 By what right would they thus put the Church in the 
 place of God, and establish her clergy as the dispensers 
 of divine life ? 
 
 Then it would be of little consequence that a man had 
 led a dissipated life, and that the heart remains attached 
 to sin and the world ; would not a participation in the sa- 
 craments of religion suffice to put him in possession of 
 grace ? M'e are assured that already sad consequences 
 are manifested in the life of many of the adherents of Ox- 
 ford. 
 
 The system of Puseyism tends to lull the conscience to 
 sleep, by the participation of external rites : the Evatigelical 
 system tends to awaken it without cessation. The work 
 of the Spirit, which is one of the grand principles of Evan- 
 gelical Christianity, does not consist only in regeneration ; 
 it consists also in a sanctification, fundamental and univer- 
 sal. If, instead of permitting ourselves to be enfeebled by 
 trusting to human ordinances, we have truly the Spirit of 
 Christ within us, we shall not suffer the least contradiction 
 to exist between the divine law on tie one hand, and our 
 dispositions and actions on the other. We shall not con- 
 tent ourselves with abstaining from the grosser manifesta- 
 tions of sin, but we shall desire that the very germ of evil 
 be eradicated from our hearts. We shall love the Truth, 
 and we shall reject with horror that sad hypocrisy which 
 sometimes defiles the sanctuary. Wc shall not have in the 
 communication of our religious convictions that reserve 
 which Puseyism prescribes: "that which shall have been 
 told to us in the ear, we shall proclaim on the house- 
 tops." (Matth. X. 27.) We shall not remain in a Church 
 whose most sacred truths wc trdinplc under our feet, 
 eating the bread which she gives us and lifting up the arm 
 to strike her. From the moment that we shall have discov- 
 ered, that a doctrine is opposed to the word of God, 
 neither dangers nor sacrifices shall prevent us from casting 
 it far from us. The work of the Spirit will carry light into 
 the most secret recesses of our hearts. " The King's 
 daughter is all glorious within." (Ps. xlv. 13 ) The King 
 whom we follow has said to us : "I am the liglit of the 
 
46 
 
 PUSEYISM EXAMINED. 
 
 world : he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, 
 but shall have the light of life." (John, viii. 12 ) 
 
 I repeat again in closing, Gentlemen, the three great 
 principles of Christianity are these : 
 
 The Word of God, onlv. 
 The Grace of God, only. 
 The Work of the Spirit, only. 
 
 I come now to ask you to apply to yourselves hence- 
 forth more and more these principles, and let them reign 
 supremely over your hearts and lives. 
 
 And why. Gentlemen? Because everything that places 
 our souls in immediate communicalion with God is salu- 
 tary ; and everything that interposes between God and 
 our souls is injurious and ruinous. If a thick cloud should 
 pass between you and the sun you would no longer feel its 
 genial warmth, and might perhaps be seized with a chill. 
 So if you place between yourselves and the Word of God 
 the tradition and authority of the Church, you will no fonger 
 have to do with the Word of God ; that is to say, with a 
 divine, and consequently a powerful and perfect instru- 
 ment ; but (vith the word of man ; that is to say, with a 
 human, and consequently a weak and defective instrument, 
 it will have lost that power which translates from dark- 
 ness into light. 
 
 Or, if you place between the grace of God and yourselves 
 the ordinances of the Church, the episcopal priesthood, the 
 dispositions of the heart, works, grace will then be no more 
 grace, as St. Paul says. The instrument of God will have 
 been broken, and we shall no longer be able to say. that 
 "charity proceeds from faith unfeigned," (1 Tun. i.) ; 
 that " faith worketh by love," (Gal. v.) ; " that our souls 
 are purified in obeying the truth," (1 Cor. i.) ; "that 
 Christ dwells in our hearts by faith," (Eph. iii.) 
 
 Man always seeks to return, in some way, to a human 
 salvation ; this is the source of the innovations of Rome 
 and of Oxford. The substitution of the Church for Jesus 
 
PrSEYISM EXAMIXED. 
 
 47 
 
 Christ is that which essentially characterizes these opin- 
 ions. It is no longer Christ who enlightens, Christ who 
 saves, Christ who forgives, Christ who commands, Christ 
 who judges ; it is the Church, and always the Church, 
 that is to say, an assembly of sinful men, as weak and 
 prone to err as ourselves. " They have taken away the 
 Lord, and we know not where they have laid him." (John, 
 XX. 2.) 
 
 The errors which we have indicated are, therefore, prac- 
 tical errors, destructive of true piety in the soul, a de- 
 privation of God's influence, and an exaltation of the flesh, 
 although in a form, that " has the show of wisdom in will- 
 worship and humility." (Col. li. 23.) If they should ever 
 obtain the ascendancy in the Church, Christianity would 
 cease to be a new, a holy, a spiritual, a heavenly life. It 
 would become an external atTair of ordinances, rites and 
 ceremonies. This has been clearly seen by the servant 
 of God, whom we have already quoted : " Finally," says 
 Sumner, Bishop of Winchester, " I cannot but fear the 
 consequences that a system of teaching, which confines 
 itself to the external and ritual parts of divine worship, 
 while it loses sight of their internal signification and the 
 spiritual life, may have upon the character, the efficacy and 
 the truth of our Church ; a system, which robs the Church 
 of its brightest glory, and, forgetting the continual pre- 
 sence of the Lord, seems to depose Him from His just pre- 
 eminence ; a system, which tends to put the observance of 
 days, months, times and seasons, in the place of a true and 
 spiritual worship ; which substitutes a spirit of hesitation, 
 fear and doubt, for the cordial obedience of filial love ; 
 a slavish spirit for the liberty of the Gospel ; and which, 
 indeed, calls upon us to work out our sanctification with fear 
 and trembling ; but without any foretaste of the rest that 
 remaineth for the people of God, without giving us joy in 
 believing. "(1) 
 
 The universal Church of Christ rejoices to hear such 
 words. She beholds, with gratitude towards her divine 
 Head, the firmness, with which some bishops, ministers, 
 
 O) Charge delivereJ by Ch. R. Sumner, D. D., Lord Bishop of 
 WincbeEtcr, ISU. 
 
48 
 
 PUSEVISM EXAMINED. 
 
 and laymen of England meet this growing evil. But is 
 this enough? Is it enough to retain, on the edge of a 
 precipice, a Church and a people, hitherto so dear to the 
 iriends of the Gospell 
 
 Oxford conducts to Rome ; Mr. Sibthorp and others 
 have proved it. The march of Puseyisrn regularly incli- 
 ning, from Tract to Tract, towards the pure system of the 
 Papacy, demonstrates clearly enough the end to which it 
 tends. And even if it should not eflFect a total conversion 
 to Popery — what signifies it, since it is nothing else than 
 the Popish system, (in its essential features,) transferred to 
 England 1 It is not necessary that the Thames should go 
 to Rome to bear the tribute of its waters : the Tiber flows 
 in Oslord. 
 
 England owes everything to the Reformation. What 
 was she before the renovation of the Church 1 Blindly 
 submissive to the Tudors, her forms of government, both 
 political and ecclesiastical, were superannuated, without 
 life and spirit; so that in England, as in almost all Europe, 
 we might say, with a Christian statesman, that "despotism 
 seemed the only preservative against dissolution. "(1) The 
 Reformation developed, in an admirable manner, that Chris- 
 tian spirit, that love of liberty, that fear of God, that loyal 
 affection for the sovereign, that patriotism, those gene- 
 rous sacrifices, that genius, that strength, that activity, 
 which constitute the prosperity and glory of England. 
 In the age of the Reformation, Catholic Spain, gorged 
 with the blood of the children of God, fell, overthrown by 
 the Almighty Arm, and reformed England ascended, in her 
 stead, the throne of the seas, which has been justly term- 
 ed the throne of the world. The winds which engulphed 
 the Armada called up this new power from the depths. 
 
 The country of Philip II., wounded to the heart because 
 she had attacked the people of God, dropped from her 
 hand the sceptre of the ocean ; and the country of Elizabeth, 
 fortified by the Word of God, found it floating on the seas, 
 seized it, and wielded it to bring into subjection to the 
 King of Heaven the nations of the earth. It is the Gospel 
 
 (I) Archivei of the House of Orange-Nassau, published at tlx 
 Uafue, by Mr. Qroen Vau Priusterer, Couotellor of State. 
 
PUSEYISM EXAMINED. 
 
 49 
 
 that has given to England our antipodes. (2) It is the God 
 of the Gospel who has bestowed upon her all that she pos- 
 sesses. If in those distinguished islands the Gospel were to 
 fall under the united attacks of Popery and Puseyism, we 
 might write upon their hitherto triumphant banner : "Icha- 
 BOD, the glory of the Lord is departed." 
 
 God has given the dominion of the seas to nations who 
 bear, every where, with them the Gospel of Je«us Christ. 
 But if, instead of the Good News of Salvation, England 
 carries to the heathen a mere human and priestly religion, 
 God will deprivs her of her power. The evil is already 
 great. In India the Puseyite missionaries are satisfied 
 with teaching the natives rites and ceremonies, without 
 troubling themselves about the conversion of the heart ; 
 thus treading closely in the steps of the Roman Catholic 
 Church. They endeavor to counteract the efforts of evan- 
 gelical missionaries, and disturb the weak minds of the na- 
 tives, by telling them that all those who have not received 
 Episcopal ordination are not ministers. 
 
 If England prove unfaithful to the- Gospel, God will 
 humble her in those powerful islands where she has es- 
 tablished her throne, and in those distant countries sub- 
 jected to her sway. Do we not already hear a faint ru- 
 mor, which justities these gloomy preSentimenls 1 The 
 mother country sees her difliculties increase; unheard of 
 disasters have spread fear and terror on the banks of the 
 Indus. From the chariot of this people is heard a crack- 
 ing noise, because impious hands have changed the pole- 
 bolt. Should England forsake the faith of the Bible, the 
 crown would fall from her head. Ah! We also. Christians 
 of the continent and of the world, would mourn over her 
 fall ! We love her for Christ's sake ; for His sake we 
 pray for her. But if the apostacy, now begun, should he 
 accomplished, we shall have nothing left for her but 
 cries, groans and tears. 
 
 What are the Bishops doing 1 What is the Church 
 doing] This is the general question. 
 
 If the Church of England were well administered, .'he 
 would only admit to her pulpits teachers who submit to 
 
 (2) New Zealand. 
 
50 
 
 PUSETISM EXAMINED. 
 
 the Word of God, agreeably to tlieThirty-nine Articles, and 
 banish from tliem all those who violate her laws, and poi- 
 son the minds of the youth, trouble souls, and seek to 
 overthrow the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 
 
 A few Episcopal matidates will not accomplish this. 
 We undoubtedly believe that no power can take from the 
 Christian the right to " examine the Scriptures, and to 
 try the spirits whether they are of God." But we do not 
 believe in the supreme power of the Clergy: We do not 
 believe that the servants of a church may announce to it 
 doctrines which tend to overthrow it. Did it not please 
 the Apostles, the elders, and the whole church to impose 
 silence upon those at Antioch, who wished to subetitule, as 
 they do now at Oxford, human ordinances for the grace of 
 Christ 1 (.\cts XV. 22j. Since when, does a well consti- 
 tuted Church speak only through isolated voices? Shall 
 the Annual Convocations of the Church of England re- 
 main always a vain ceremony and an empty form ! If 
 their nature cannot be changed, shall not powerful reme- 
 liies be applied to counteract great evils 1 Will not the 
 Church be moved in England, as formerly at Jerusalem ! 
 Shall not the " elders and the whole Church" (.^cts xv. 
 22 ) form a Council which shall, as tradition tells us ihey 
 did at Nice, place the Word of God upon an elevated 
 throne, in token of its supreme authority, and, condemning 
 and cutting off all dangerous errors, render to Jesus Christ 
 and his Word that sovereign authority, which usurping 
 hands are on the point of wresting from Him" 
 
 But if the Church still holds her peace, if she allows 
 her sacred foundations to be sapped in her Universities, 
 then (we say it with profound grief) a voice like that of 
 the prophet will be heard exclaiming : Woe to the Church ! 
 woe to the people ! woe to England ! 
 
 Gentlemen, there are two ways of destroying Chris- 
 tianity ; one is to deny it, the other to displace it. To 
 put the Church above Christianity, the hierarchy above the 
 Word of God ; to ask a man, not whether he has received 
 the Holy Ghost, but, whether he has received baptism 
 from the hands of those who are termed successors of the 
 Apostles, and their delegates, — all this may doubtless flatter 
 the pride of the natuial man, but 16 fundamentally oppo- 
 sed to the Bible, and aims a fatal blow at the religion of 
 
PUSEYISM EXAMINED. 
 
 51 
 
 Jesus Christ. If God had intended that Christianity should, 
 like the Mosaic system, be chiefly an ecclesiastical, sa- 
 cerdotal and hierarchical system, he would have ordered 
 and established it in the New Testament, as he did in the 
 Old. But there is nothing like this in the New Testa- 
 ment. All the declarations of our Lord and of his Apos- 
 tles tend to prove, that the now religion given to the 
 world is " life and Spirit" and not a new system of priest- 
 hood and ordinances. " The kingdom of God" saith Je- 
 sus, "Cometh not with observation: neither shall they 
 say, lo here ! or lo there ! for behold the kingdom of God 
 is within you," (Luke xvii. 20 — 21.) " The kingdom of 
 God is not meat and diink ; but righteousness and peace 
 and joy in the Holy Ghost," (Rom. xiv. 17.) 
 
 Let us then atlributc a divine institution and a divine 
 authority to the essence of the church ; but by no means 
 to its form. God has, undoubtedly established the minis- 
 try of the word and sacraments, that is to say, general 
 forms, which are adapted to the universal church ; but 
 it IS a narrow and dangerous bigotry, which would at- 
 tribute more importance to the particular forms of each 
 sect, than to the spirit of Christianiiv. This evil has long 
 prevailed in the Eastern Church, [Greek,] and has rendered 
 it barren. It is the essence of ttie Church of Rome, and 
 it is destroying it. It is endeavouring to insinuate itself 
 into every Church ; it appears in England in the Established 
 Church ; in Germany in the Lutheran, and even in the 
 Reformed and Presbyterian Church. It is that mystery 
 of iniquity, which already began to work in the time of 
 the Apostles. (2 Thess. ii. 7.) Let us reject and oppose 
 this deadly principle wherever it is found. We are men 
 before we are Swiss, French, English, or German ; let us 
 also remember, that we are Christians before we are Epis- 
 copalians, Lutherans, Reformed, or Dissenters. These 
 dillerent forms of the Church are like the different cos- 
 tumes, different features, and different characters of na- 
 tions ; that which constitutes the man is not found in these 
 accessories. We must seek for it in the heart which 
 beats under this exterior, in the conscience which is 
 seated there, in the intelligence which there shines, in the 
 v»ill which there acts. If we assign more importance to the 
 Church than to Christianity, to the form than to the life, 
 
52 
 
 PITSEYISM EXAMINED. 
 
 we shall infallibly reap that which we have sown ; we 
 shall soon have a Church composed of skeletons, clothed, 
 it may be, in brilliant garments, and ranged, I admit, in 
 a most imposing order to the eye ; but as cold, stiff, 
 and immoveable as a pale legion of the dead. If Pu- 
 seyism, (and, unfortunately, some of the doctrines which it 
 promulgates are not, in England, confined to that school,) 
 if Puseyism should make progress in the Established 
 Church, it will, in a few years, dry up all its springs of 
 life. The feverish excitement which disease at firs: pro- 
 duces, will soon give place to languor, the blood will be 
 congealed, the muscles stiffened, and that Church will 
 be only a dead body, around which the eagles will gather 
 together. 
 
 All forms whether papal, patriarchal, episcopal, consis- 
 torial, or presbyterian, possess only a human value and au- 
 thority. Let us not esteem the bark above the sap, the 
 body above the soul, the form above the life, the visible 
 Church above the invisible, the priest above the Holy 
 Spirit. Let us hate all sectarian, ecclesiastical, national 
 or dissenting spirit ; but let us love Jesus Christ in all 
 sects, whether ecclesiastical, national or dissenting. The 
 true catholicity which we have lost, and which we must 
 seek to recover, is that of " holding the Truth, in love."' 
 A renovation of the Church is necessary ; I know it, I feel 
 it, I pray for it from the bottom of my soul. Only let us 
 seek for it in the right way. Forms, ecclesiastical con- 
 stitutions, the organization of Churches, are important, — 
 very important. " But lot us seek first the kingdom of 
 God and his righteousness, and all these things will be 
 added unto us." (Matth. vi. 33 ) 
 
 Let us then. Gentlemen, be firm and decided in "the 
 Truth ; and while we love the erring, let us boldly attack 
 the error. Let us stand upon the rock of ages, — the 
 Word of God ; and let the vain opinions, and stale innova- 
 tions, which are constantly springing up and dying in the 
 world, break powerless at our feet. "Two systems of 
 doctrine," says Dr. Pusey, " have now, and, probably, 
 for the last time, met in conflict ; the system of Geneva and 
 the Catholic system." Wc accept this definition. One of 
 the men who have most powerfully resisted these errors, 
 the Hev. W. Gqcde, seems to think that by the Ge- 
 
PUSEYISM EXAMINED. 
 
 53 
 
 nevan system, Dr. Pusey intends to designate the Unita- 
 rian, Pelagian, latitudinarian system, which has laid waste 
 the Church, not only in Geneva, but throughout Christen- 
 dom. "According to Romish tactics," says Mr. Goode, 
 " the adversaries of the Oxford School are classed together 
 under the name that will render them most odious ; they 
 belong, it is said, to the Genevan School. {\) 
 
 Certainly, Gentlemen, if the Unitarian School of Eiijr- 
 land and Geneva were called upon to struggle with the 
 semi-Papal School of O.\ford, we should much fear the 
 issue. But these divines will meet with other opponents 
 in England, Scotland, Irclanrl, on the continent, and if 
 need be, even in our little and humble Geneva. 
 
 Yes, we agree to it ; it is the system of Geneva, which 
 is now struggling with the CathoJo: system ; but it is the 
 system of the ancient Geneva , it's the system of Calvin 
 and Bcza, the system of the Gospel and the Reforma- 
 tion. The oi)prolmim they would cast upon us we re- 
 ceive as an honor ; three centuries ago Geneva rose 
 against Rome; let Geneva now rise against Oxford. 
 
 •' I should like," says one of the Oxford doctors, (2) 
 " to see the Patriarch of Constantinopls and our Arcli- 
 bishop of Canterbury go barefoot to Ilome, throw their 
 arms round the Pope, kiss him, and not let him go, till 
 they had persuaded him to be more reasonable ;" that is 
 to say, doubtless, until he had extended his hand to them, 
 and ceased to proclaim them heretics and schismatics. 
 
 (I) The Case ns It la 
 
 (V W. Palmer's Aids ti Ucncction. 1811. This work coiitaiin 
 801116 curious and, without doubt, authentic conversations, which 
 Mr. Palmer had at Geneva, in 1836, with different pastors and pro- 
 fessors of the Academy and the Company. 26. The public 
 professor of Dogmatic Theology told rac, when I asked him what 
 was the precise doctrine of the Company of Pastors at that time, on 
 the subject of the Trinity, ' Perhaps no two had exactly the samo 
 shade of opinion, that the great majority would deny the tloclrino 
 in the scholastic sense.* — August 4. A pastor of the fonipiuiy tdid 
 me, ' that of thirty-four members, he thini<s there arc only lowr m Id 
 would admit the doctrine of the Trinity.'" The author wa»aliTji.M 
 as much dissatisllcd with the Evangelical as wiili llio Unilari.m 
 ministers. He relates that one of the former said to him, on the I2lh 
 of August; "You are lost in the study of outward forms, mere 
 worldly vanities : I'ou are a baby, a mere haby, he aaid in English." 
 
54 
 
 PUSEYISM EXAMINED. 
 
 Evangelical Christians of Geneva, England, and all 
 other countries ! It is not to Rome that you must drag 
 yourselves, " to those seven mountains, on which the 
 woman sitteth, having a golden cup in her hand, full of 
 abominations" (Rev.xvii ) ; the pilgrimage that you must 
 make is to that excellent and perfect tabernacle, " not 
 made with hands" (Heb. ix.) ; that "throne of grace, 
 where we find grace to help in time of need." (Heb iv.) 
 
 Tt is not upon the neck of the " Man of Sin," that you 
 must cast yourselves, covering him with your kisses and 
 your tears ; but upon the neck of Him with whom " Jacob 
 wrestled, until the breaking of the day" (Gen. xxxii.); of 
 him, " who is seated at tne right hand of God in the 
 heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and 
 every name that is named, not only in' this world ; but 
 also in that which is to tome." (Eph. v.) 
 
 Yes, let the children of God m the East and in the 
 West arise, let them, understanding the signs of the times, 
 and, seeing that the destinies of the Church depend upon 
 the issue of the present conflicts, conflicts so numerous, 
 eodiflferent, and so powerful, form a sacred brotherhood, 
 and, with one heart and one soul, exclaim, as Moses did 
 when the ark set forward, "Rise up, Lord, and let ihine 
 enemies be scattered, and let them that hate Thee fle« 
 before Thee." (Num. x. 35.) 
 
 Note. — This address was delivered before the Professors 
 and Students of the New Theological Seminary, at Geneva, 
 at the opening of the present session, on the fourth of Oc- 
 tober last. 
 
 THE END. 
 
Date Due 
 
 
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