Fitzperal

EPISCOPACY, TRADITION,
AND
THE SACRAMENTS.

EPISCOPACY, TRADITION,

THE SACRAMENTS,

CO.NSIDERED IN REFERENCE TO

THE OXFORD TRACTS,

WITH A POSTSCRIPT UPON FUNDAMENTALS,

REV. WILLIAM FITZGERALD, B.A.

¦ Call me Protestante whoe will, I doe not passe thereof." — BisHor Ridley.

DUBLIN
WILLIAM CURRY, JUN. AND COMPANY.
SAMUEL HOLDSWORTH, LONDON.
J. H. PARKER, OXFORD.
1839-

Dublin : Printed by Joun S, Folds, 5, Bachelor'a-W alk.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The substance of the following sheets appeared originally in the form
of a Review in the Dublin Christian Examiner for 1837. Since that time,
the party who are understood to favor the opinions supported in the Oxford
Tracts, &c. have attracted so much of public notice, both here and in
England, that a republication of these papers in a separate shape was judged
expedient. I have subjoined, in the form of a Postscript, a few Remarks
upon the last volurae of the Tracts. With an earnest hope that what I
have written, may tend to the advancement of God's truth, and that
whichever side, in this controversy, is in error, may be led into the knowledge
of their mistake. I have only farther to entreat the reader that he would
ponder carefully and examine dispassionately the arguments alleged, which,
if they shall be found to be too weak and insufficient, I shall take it as a
kindness to have their weakness and insufficiency pointed out.
Dublin, January, 1839.

CONTENTS.

Page
Introductory Sketch, 
Episcopacy, ... -  27
Tradition  , . . • 44
The Sacraments, 
Postscript upon Fundamentals, 
TT , ... 75
Note on Hooker, 

EPISCOPACY, TRADITION,

THE SACRAMENTS.

INTRODUCTORY SKETCH OF THE ORIGIN OF THE
HIGH-CHURCH PARTY.
The peculiar situation which the British churches occupy in the
great Protestant fraternity, has always attracted the attention of
thoughtful observers ; and Providence (which manifested so
singular a care for these islands from the very first) has blessed
us, above our brethren, with an ecclesiastical constitution which,
like our civil polity, has been the envy and admiration of the
world. While yielding to none of the Reformed in the purity
of our faith and doctrine, we have been more fortunate than
they, in being able to retain that primitive frame of discipline
which prevailed universally in the ancient times of apostolic
integrity, and thus to avoid the semblance of an outward schism,
in the struggle to regain an inward unity with the Catholic
Church of better ages. This felicity in the circumstances of
our Reformation, gave our early apologists great advantage in
refuting the specious sophistry of the Romish champions, who
declaimed against the Reformers, as violators of the public order
which had been always received in Christendom. " Our church,"
said the British divines, "is the church of the four first centu
ries : our doctrines and our orders have come down to us from
thence, in an uninterrupted succession ; we teach nothing but
what they taught, and our governors are the same old consti
tuted authorities as they acknowledged, and acting in strict
accordance with their undoubted canonical prerogatives. ¦ It is
those that separate from us who are schismatics ; and upon them
the onus lies of excusing, if they can, their contempt of their
spiritual superiors." B

The foreign Protestants, it is obvious, could not take the same
ground. Their proceedings bore upon thera undeniable marks
of irregularity and violence, and could only be justified upon
the plea of necessity, which excuses what it dictates. The plea,
doubtless, was a good one ; but, unfortunately, by acknowledging
their conduct to be disorderly, it left their enemies in possession
of all those topics which, enforced by a popular rhetoric, are so
effectual with the undistinguishing vulgar. The prejudice of
authority, and the prescription of antiquity, were against them.
However, as is usual in such cases, the hard words they met
with did but serve to make them more in love with the ecclesi
astical model which they had adopted ; and though it was too
evident that very little in its favour could be got out of the
Fathers, yet the imagination of some of the Swiss leaders
(warmed, we may suppose, by the ardour of their zeal for
Calvin) soon found something in the obscure hints of the New
Testament, which, when filled up and coloured by their own
active fancies, seemed as perfectly to resemble the Genevan
platform, as ever evening cloud did a castellated mountain, to
the eye of a home-sick mariner.
The publication of " Calvin's Institutes" forms no unimpor
tant epoch in the history of the church. The rapidity and per
manence of the effect produced by it upon public opinion, has
been scarcely ever equalled. Its author rose at once into the very
foremost rank of great men, in an age prolific beyond parallel
in genius ; and his work, becoming the acknowledged standard
of faith with a large section of the Protestants, -was regarded
with the profoundest reverence as little less than inspired. Nay,
so strongly is the impress of his abilities stamped upon it, that
even those who abominate his creed, and cordially detest his
moral character, unite with his adherents in their loudest praises
of the masculine vigour, and penetrating sagacity, which it
displays. Neither the most bigoted Papist, nor the laxest
Arminian, can deny the claims of John Calvin to intellectual
eminence. To the classical elegance, and cultivated taste of
Melancthon, he added the unwearied energy and dauntless
courage, the unshaken nerve and the commanding spirit of
Luther. His eloquence, too, held a middle place between the
styles ofthe great German reformers. It is neither so impetuous
as Luther's, nor so equable and unimpassioned as Melancthon's ';
but had all the latter's purity, with much of the former's glowing

fervour. In learning he must yield to some of his contempo
raries ; but even in those tasks where learning might seem most
requisite, his surprising acuteness and unfailing ingenuity have
enabled him to surpass men of greater erudition but duller
parts. His memory was as faithful to retain, as his apprehen
sion was quick to acquire knowledge ; and, so disproportionate
did the extent of his theological attainments appear to the time
and study bestowed in gaining them, that, says Hooker, " Divine
knowledge he gathered, not by hearing or reading, so much as
by teaching others. For, though thousands were debtors unto
him touching knowledge of that kind, yet he to none but only
to God, the author of that most blessed fountain, the Book of
Life, and of that admirable dexterity of wit, together with the
help of other learning, that were his guides.'' Such was Calvin —
" incomparably the wisest man that ever the French Church did
enjoy, since the hour it enjoyed him."
But, in mere literary abilities, he had at least one equal in
Melancthon : what enabled him, upon Luther's death, to take
such a decided lead in the Protestant Churches was, that extra
ordinary capacity for business in which Melancthon was noto
riously deficient. Calvin, like Luther, was formed for action ;
and, like him, he took the foremost place in every action he
engaged in, with that natural supremacy of minds born to
command, before which inferior spirits instinctively give way.
He was a man collected within himself, driving forward his
great objects with an undeviating consistency, and an unremit
ting force. His energy was not the effect of transitory excite
ment, but the habitual tone of his mind. His ambition was as
remarkable as his abilities. Not content with an absolute dic
tatorship in his own city of Geneva, he aspired to a sort of
sovereignty over the whole Protestant Church, and omitted
nothing which could strengthen his influence in every quarter ;
whether we consider " his dependents both abroad and at home,
his intelligence from foreign churches, his correspondence every
where with the chiefest, his industry in pursuing them which
did at any time openly either withstand his proceedings or gain
say his opinions, his book entitled ' Contra Nebulonem quen-
dam,' his writing but of three lines in disgrace of any man as
forcible as any proscription throughout all reformed churches,
his rescripts and answers of as great authority as decretal epistles."
[Hooker's MS. in answer to "the Christian Letter," vol. I, p.

166, of Mr. Keble's Edit.] It is almost incredible how zealously
his followers became devoted to his person, and his system ; until,
at last, that which was originally only vindicated on the plea of
a hard necessity, was advanced upon the bold claim of a Divine
Right to establishment, which kings and people were required
to submit to on their peril.
Upon this errand, Knox, (whose character was a sort of
coarse likeness of his master's,) came to head the turbulent
reformers of the Scottish Church ; while Cartwright, (though
far inferior in talent as a demagogue, and having to work under
less favourable circumstances,) undertook, with his coadjutor
Travers, a similar experiment in England. The contest about
particular ceremonies and vestments, (though still kept up, as
furnishing popular topics for decrying the Episcopal Hierarchy.*)
became now a matter of secondary importance ; the great object
was the introduction of The Discipline ; and the war was
soon regularly opened by the two formal admonitions to the Par
liament, setting forth their duty touching a reform in matters
ecclesiastical. But they soon found watchful and resolute oppo
nents ; the chief of whom. Dr. (afterwards Archbishop) Whit
gift, in a short answer to the admonitions, exposed the sophistry
of their arguments, and the danger of their principles, with
great vigour and cogency of reason. This called forth a reply
from Cartwright ; and that again, an elaborate defence from
Whitgift. The combatants were not ill-matched. Cartwright
possessed, at any rate, that intense activity of mind, which
seems almost to compensate for the want of genius in men of
moderate parts. Every page of his writings betrays evident
tokens of inordinate pride and self-conceit, the natural conse
quence of which was, a stiff obstinacy in all his opinions, and
a preconceived contempt for every thing that could be alleged
against him. To a great command of words, a flowing style,
a considerable skill in the lower kinds of rhetoric, he united
that inexhaustible capacity of mistaking or begging the real
question, and that fertility in irrelevant declamation, which are
necessary to enable a controversialist to dispute for ever on the
wrong side. His reading was great and multifarious, but indi-
* It was scarcely good faith in the Disciplinarians to urge the plea of a
tender conscience against particular ceremonies, ro which these were special
objections, since they objected in reality to all ceremonies, on the ground
that the Church had no power to legislate in matters indififererit.

gested ; and " his Greek and Latin sentences, unchewed, came
up again, for the most part unchanged."* Except only in that
indefatigable activity for which they were both remarkable,
Whitgift was the very opposite of his antagonist. His learning
was solid, but not extensive ; yet such was his dexterity, and
good sense, that it served him in better stead than Cartwright's
unwieldy erudition. His style is often homely, altogether devoid
of that easy flow, and oratorical embellishment, which Cart
wright affected ; and closely resembling the strong, clear, and
nervous English of our early reformers. An acute and expert
logician, he possessed, moreover, that " large, sound, round
about sense,'' which (according to Locke) is the great distinction
between a man of reason and a mere verbal chicaner. Yet, it must
not be denied, that, from the want ofa philosophical knowledge
of human nature, he is apt to estimate an argument according
to its logical value alone, and to think that he has done enough
when he has shown its worthlessness in this respect, without
going to the bottom of those complicated prejudices, mistakes,
and confusions, which gave it plausibility in the judgment ofhis
adversaries. His greatest fault, however, was his choleric dis
position. He loses all temper at Cartwright's perpetual peti-
tiones principii, breaks out into uncontrollable impatience at his
hollow periods, and wordy harangues, and often cannot even
restrain himself from bursting into most undignified personal
invectives against his old opponeiit. To this, indeed, both the
combatants are too prone ; but Cartwright's is the bitter disdain,
and deep-seated hostility, of a stern and arrogant mind ; while
Whitgift evinces all the passionate and sudden violences of a
warm and hasty temper.
Soon after the publication of his defence, Whitgift was
raised to the Episcopal Bench; and, seeing Cartwright still
pertinaciously keeping up the contest, in a happy hour for the
Church of England, he selected Richard Hooker to take his
place in the controversy. To say that Hooker was learned, if by
learning we mean mere extent of reading, is but small praise.
In this sense, Cartwright perhaps was his equal in erudition
But Hooker was not one of those pedantic scholars " who seem
to have been at a banquet of languages, and stolen away the
scraps :" he had fed his mind upon the wholesome nutriment of
•Hobbes.

6
learning. The wisdom, the eloquence, the imagery of ancient
sages, orators, and poets, defecated and clarified by his discern
ing judgment, and pure taste, became assimilated, (as it were,)
with the common mass of his thoughts, and wrought into the
very bone and muscle of his native genius. Profound without
obscurity ; imaginative, yet not fanciful ; a mighty master of the
passions, but ever making it his first business to convince the
reason ; — he enlightened the understanding, while he touched
the heart. He was cautious and discriminating, yet not cool ;
for he had all the warmth of genuine feeling, without the fer
vours of intemperate heat. With a soul that rose superior to
all the petty quarrels of faction, and a wit piercing enough to
penetrate the very hardest questions, he seemed formed to
guard the interests of truth and moderation, in an age of narrow
bigotry and cross-grained fanaticism. Such a man, combining
in rare union the schoolman's speculative acuteness, with the
statesman's practical wisdom, yet meek and charitable, though a
polemic, and deeply pious, though a politician — such a man as
this deserves the proud title of " the glory of the English Priest
hood." Long may the church which he defended revere his
memory, and profit by his labours ; and her sons, to the remotest
posterity, imbibing the generous principles which he advocated,
preserve unimpaired that goodly structure of Ecclesiastical Po
lity ; — that majestic temple, which, consecrated by the memory
of holy men and martyrs of our religion, has proved so long
the inviolable shrine of the purest faith in Christendom 1 '
But wisdom and moderation such as his, it was vain to look
for in his successors. The defenders of our hierarchy against
the Puritans, finding long prescription opposed by the pretence
ofa Divine right, were not slow to see that similar claims might
be made for their own system, and that on far better grounds.
Scripture certainly countenanced them more than their adver
saries, and the authority of the Fathers was, for the most part,
full in their favour. Men naturally grow extravagantly fond of
that which supports their own side of a question, and thus the
too indiscriminate reverence for old tradition, and the doctors of
the Church, which most of our divines at that period inherited
from their Popish ancestors, became increased, strengthened,
and more firmly fixed in their minds, from the assistance which
such topics afforded them in resisting the novelties of the Puri-

tans. " Prevailing studies," says Bishop Berkeley, " are of no
small consequence to a state ; the religion, manners, and civil
government of a country ever taking some bias from its philo
sophy, which affects not only the minds of its professors and
students, but also the opinions of all the better sort, and the
practice of the whole people, remotely and consequentially, in
deed, though not inconsiderably." If this be true of a state, it
applies with still greater force to the circumstances of a party.
Now, that vast heterogeneous collection of authors, who pass,
with an undistinguishing honour, under the venerable title of The
Fathers,* being indeed nothing else but the succession of such
ecclesiastical writers as, differing greatly among themselves, in
age, in parts, in learning, and integrity, were preserved to our
times by accident, or the favour of the most ignorant generations
rather than their intrinsic merits, must needs present to us
the development of those seeds of error and superstition connate
with the human mind, which sprang up early among Christians
and throve fast, till at length they overspread the whole surface
of the Church, and converted the garden of the Lord into a
tangled thicket of briers and thorns. Hence, even in those who
wrote the longest before the actual establishment of the Papal
power, in the strictest sense of that term, we find traces of those
corruptions which are properly denominated Popish, because
they naturally issue in the production of that matured comple
tion of spiritual despotism : and hence it is, that the high-church
system, which, for the most part, is (not a judicious separation of
the genuine spirit of Christianity, from the foreign admixtures
and gross dregs of worldliness, wherewith it was diluted or debased,
but) an indiscriminate concoction of all, good, bad, and indif
ferent, tbgether, though it falls short, in almost every particular,
of the full strength and body of the Roman cup of abominations,
has yet, as being drawn from much of the same materials, no
slight smack and flavour of that intoxicating draught. Into this
system, as men's fears of Rome gradually became weaker, and
their dread of Geneva more urgent and prevailing, a great portion
of our divines went more boldly every day ; a system which
assigns an exorbitant value to tradition and antiquity, unduly
• " Whatsoever time, or the heedless hand of blind chance, hath drawn
from of old to this present, in her huge drag-net, whether fish or sea. weed,
*elli or shrubs, unpicked, unchosen, these be the Fathers." — Milton un
Prelat, Episc.

depreciates the sacred Scriptures, as well as human reason,
restraining free inquiry, lest it should end in diversity of opinion;
a system which extravagantly magnifies the power and impor
tance of the priesthood, abridges the natural liberty of private
judgment, and consolidates a scheme of inordinate ecclesiastical
domination, by working upon the fears, the fancies, the tastes of
the laity, rather than their reasons.
Bancroft's celebrated sermon at Paul's Cross is generally taken
as the first decided indication of this change in the tone of the
defenders of the hierarchy. But more unequivocal signs were
not long wanting ; high-churchism becomes still more clearly
developed in the writings of Bilson, Saravia, Sutcliff, and Covel,
as we advance from the middle of Elizabeth's reign downwards.
Hooker himself has been claimed as one of the leaders of the
new school. If by this it is meant that his principles are the
same as those of the Oxonians, or^even consistent with thera,
nothing, we apprehend, can be more untenable, as we shall
endeavour to show hereafter  [See note at the end of the
Book.] Yet, though Hooker's profound principles (had they
been understood) would have afforded the surest antidote against
the spreading contagion, it must be allowed that there was much
upon the surface of his style and manner which was likely
enough to be hastily caught at as a recognition of their creed,
by the disciples of the rising party. He may often be misunder
stood to be pleading absolutely for a thing, when, in fact, he is
only endeavouring to moderate the frantic opposition of the
Puritans, by showing that, after all, it may be supported with
colourable argument; and that profound reverence for antiquity
which is apt to be so' strong in cultivated minds of a tender and
Imaginative cast, (though it might exist with perfect safety iu
conjunction with an understanding masculine as his) might yet,
when expressed in all his persuasive eloquence, be enough to
destroy the balance of weaker intellects, where there was not
judgment solid and large enough tq counterpoise and adjust it.
But the influence of a great genius who arose in the reign of
Elizabeth's successor, though a foreigner himself, was strongly
and permanently felt by the English high-churchmen. This was
Hugo Grotius, a man mighty either to pull down or to build up,
and of whom it is difficult to say whether he did more injury or
benefit to the church. Now, while we freely confess that Baxter
overdid (as indeed was his wont) his charge of a plot between

" Grotius and the Episcopalians,'' we must yet hold, on the
other hand, that the tincture which Grotius' scheme for a com
prehension of the Romanists, seems to have imparted to all his
later theology, modified to no small extent the tenets and prac
tice of what may be called the Laudian Hierarchists. Certainly
much of the doctrinal corruption which now crept in among
them, may be traced to him ; especially in regard of that funda
mental doctrine of the Reformation, justification by faith only.
Grotius appears to have formed his own creed upon that subject,
very much from the works of certain of the Greek Fathers, who,
accustomed in their scientific speculations to dwell upon the
pollution rather than the moral guilt incurred by transgreSsion,
and to consider sin rather in relation to man's own perfect nature,
or the harmony of the universe, than to God's law, insensibly
accommodated the gospel offer to their philosophical system,
making it only just supply what they felt to be deficient in it,
a means of accomplishing that purification {KaOapais yjrvxri^)
which Plato promised, but could not perform.*
That this precise view of the matter was seldom avowed by
our divines is, perhaps, to be mainly attributed to the explicit
ness with which, what is termed the forensic theory, is asserted
in our articles and homilies. Formularies which those who
signed them had not yet learned to sneer at and deride.-f Be
this as it may, from this time Arminianism began to be an usual
accompaniment of high-churchmanship, while this unfortunate
plan of a comprehension, conceived by the grand luminary of
the Remonstrants, gave no small colour to the charge of Popery
which the Puritans urged so bitterly against their adversaries.
All the materials of this grand magisterium of Anglicanism (as
Mr. Newraan is pleased to call it) being now ready, there was
only wanting a skilful master-artist to give the projection ; and
he soon appeared in Archbishop Laud, the acknowledged symbol
and personification of the party. The explosion which followed
put a tragical end to the experiment ; and though, upon the
restoration of Charles II, another Laud appeared to have re
vived in Sheldon, the genuine spirit of the elder school seemed

* See particularly his Annot. in Cass, cons., and the two tracts against
Rivetus, in his Opp. ThecH. T. III., Amstel. 1679.
+ Bishop Taylor is perhaps the one of our elder , Divines who approaches
most nearly to the Grotian, or even strictly Popish view of Justification. See
his sermon called, Fides Formata in the Asxis 'Efiliiik!//.xii>s.

10
to be fast evaporating in the licentious atmosphere of that age,
and was scarcely preserved from the chilling influence of latitu-
dinarianism which the alliance with the Dutch Remonstrants
now began to generate, by the genius and vigour of Bull. Dis
gusted by the Antinomian abuses which he had witnessed during
the anarchy of the commonwealth, that great prelate unhappily
conceived such a prejudice against the old Protestant doctrine
of Justification, as led him to exert all the powers of his manly
understanding in defence of that strange corruption of it which
is indissolubly associated with his name,* and which the weight
of his authority, and the subtlety of his reasonings combined to
make the received standard of orthodoxy amongst British Theo
logians for a long period. A similar panic-fear of the heresies,
strifes, and distractions which the abuse of private judgment
was producing every where around him, both at home and abroad,
most probably influenced him, in like manner, to maintain so
extravagant a veneration for the suffrages of the early fathers.
But, with all faults, such men as Bull would have been an honour
to any cause : — " talis cum sis, utinam noster esses." It was
the shock of the revolution, which threw the very dregs of
fanatical bigotry upon the surface, and gave such men as Dod
well, Hickes, and Sacheverel, (for Leslie, though as violent as
any, deserved more respectable company,) the foremost station
in their party. The high-church interest was now split into two
great divisions ; one of which — the non-jurors — openly separated
from the establishment to hold communion with the ejected
bishops ; and the other, though generally, more or less, dis
affected to the Dutch and Hanoverian lines, judged it best to
secure their benefices and preferments by recognizing a de facto
monarch. The former of these, sinking every day in character as they
grew in rancour and fanaticism, expired at last, as a party,
• Bull's Harmonia Apostolica was first published in 1C69 ; and according
to Nelson, in his life of that prelate, created no small disturbance. '* There
arose," says he, " no small contention whether this interpretation of Scripture
were conformable to the article of religion, and the Homily of Justification
therein referred to ; some — downright denied it, and condemned it as here
tical. Yea, there were not wanting then, even men of some eminence in the
church, who with all might opposed him, and would certainly have over
whelmed him and his doctrine, had it been possjble." Most of the pecu
liarities of BuU't system are to be found in ChiUingworth's eighth sermon,
preached during the civil war ; and (though less definitely) in Hammond's
Practical Catechism, and defences of it against Cheynel, about 1646.

11
amid the general derision and contempt ; the other, too, fast
degenerated into a political faction : enlarging,* as is usual,
and loosening their speculative creed for the practical ad
vantage of strengthening their side with more numerous ad
herents ; for political partizanship is so absorbing a passion that
it will prevail over even religious zeal. And now, the Whig
ministry,! apprehending- (and, to say truth, not without good rea
son) that the great mass ofthe clergy were strongly infected with
Jacobite principles, had recourse to the desperate expedient — as
weak and short-sighted as it was profligately wicked— of hiring a
base crew of infidel pamphleteers to throw every kind of disgrace
and contumely upon the Eccleiiastical order itself. Nor did they
desist from the fierce assault, though they saw that religion
herself was struck at by the furious desperadoes whom they
retained to traduce her ministers. The Whig clergy, indeed,
or low-churchmen, acted a much wiser and honester part. They
did their best to defend religion and liberty (the two greatest
blessings which man is heir to) as far as they themselves under
stood them. But unfortunately, their antipathy to the super
stitions and tyranny of their Tory brethren, made them too
generally inclined to explode all mysteries from religion, and
confound liberty with license ; and thus, Hoadley (who may be
taken as their leader) was as justly reprehensible in one extreme,
as Snape, or Hickes, or Johnson in the other. Endowed with
an imperturbable equanimity of temper, a clear, though not a
capacious intellect, without a single gleam of imagination or
spark of enthusiasm, but blessed with indomitable perseve
rance, dauntless courage, and a confidence in himself which
nothing could for a moment shake, he seemed formed by nature
to maintain that unparalleled controversy which he waged
almost single-handed against a host of such vigorous assailants
as Sherlock, and Atterbury, and Hare, and Potter.| Throughout
• Observe, for instance, the tone of Smift, in what used to pass as a High-
Church Treatise  " A Church-of-England-man hath a true veneration for
the scheme established among us of ecclesiastical government ; and, although
he ivill not determine whether Episcopacy be of Divine right, he is sure it is
most fitted to primitive institution." The sentiments of a Church-of-Bng-
land-man. 'Sect. 1.
¦j- See Warburton's Dedication to Lord Mansfield.
I Hoadley is said to have considered Potter as his most formidable adver
sary. The Archbishop's work has been excellently re-edited by the Rev.
J. C. Crosthwaite.

12
the whole of this opprobrious business, the high-church party
appear to have been acting under the influence of some fatal
frenzy, and provoked perhaps as much by his phlegm as by
his heterodoxy, would have gone almost any lengths to crush
their opponent. Thus, in their inordinate zeal to assert the
speculative right of church authority, they gave the secular
power a pretext (which was all it -wanted) for almost annihilat
ing the exercise of it : —
" The Convocation gaped, but could not speak."
Condemned by this fatal interdict to comparative inactivity,
these fiery polemics seem to have shared the fate of Hudibras's
sword : — " The trenchant blade, Toledo trusty.
For want of use was now grown rusty ;
And, ate into itself, for lack
Of something else to hew and hack ;"
and when, at last, the fervours of Jacobite politics had cooled
down, and a Tory ministry could once more smile favourably
upon the clergy, the high-church party, deprived of the stimulus
by which they had been so long excited, and having no longer
the accustomed arena in which to display themselves, began
every day to exhibit more and more the lazy vices of an affluent
and successful faction, and still degenerated faster and faster,
till, in our younger days, a high-churchman meant little more
than a comfortably beneficed ecclesiastic, with no very definite
religious creed, save that he had signed the Articles without
reading them, was a firm supporter of the king and Mr. Pitt, did
as little as possible in the way of preaching, praying, or catechis
ing, but showed a most edifying zeal to banish and drive away
the damnable heresies of Methodism, Evangelicism, and Bible
Societies, from the flock committed to his care.
Late events, however, have convinced the world that, all this
time, there was an extensive, though noiseless, underground
vegetation of the good old non-juring principles, and that the
stock, yet remaining in the earth, was soon likely to take as firm
a root, and bear as luxuriant foliage as in the glorious days of
the great Sacheverel —
Duris ut ilex tonsa bipennibus,
Nigrse feraci frondis in Algido,
Per damna, per casdes, ab ipso
Ducit opes, animumque ferro.

13
Indeed we look on the Oxonians as genuine enthusiasts, whose
imaginations have been fired by the venerable form of anti
quity, and the grand idea of the catholic church. Men
of cultivated tastes and pious tempers, becoming sensible, on the
one hand, of the spiritual deadness and frigidity of what used to
pass for orthodox Church-of-Englandism, and shrinking, on the
other, firom the hard republican air of evangelical Protestantism,
were naturally captivated by the system which they found in the
Fathers and non-jurors, in which outward ceremony appeared
animated by a spirit of devotion, and the mitigated authority of
tradition was substituted for the iron infallibility of the papal
oracle. The reverend names of the fathers, consecrated by
the admiration of successive ages, formed a sort of magic spell to
hold the intellect in eternal thraldom ; and, reading them with a
constant desire to palliate their errors, and a constant wish to
find them right in every thing, their own minds became gradually
assimilated to the objects of their idolatry. Thus, as the Knight
of La Mancha grew so extravagantly enamoured of the world
he read of in romances, that, sooner than distrust those veracious
chronicles, he would transform, despite his senses, the real world
into accordance with their testimony ; so our modern Quixotes
are so deeply in love with the picture of primitive Christianity,
as drawn by certain grave historians, — about as faithful in this
respect as the biographers of Palmerin and Amadis, — that they
must needs, in spite of logic and common sense, count every
father of the church a saint, every argument he uses a demonstra
tion, every puerile flourish of his pen an unrivalled stroke of
eloquence, and every dogma which he begs, borrows, or invents,
as certain (if not more so) than the Holy Scriptures. There are,
to be sure, some Sanchos amongst their followers, who occasion
ally feel a misgiving about the reality of this faery vision ; but
the genuine out-and-out enthusiast has always an immense
advantage, while the glimmerings of the squire's unsteady reason
only serve to make him uncomfortable and doubtful in the per
petration of an escapade, where his leader is quite at ease.
The conservative principle upon which the English universi
ties are founded, operating steadily against all change at first,
secures them firom the pernicious effects of too hasty innovation
— a thing especially to be dreaded in those seats of learning where
our youth are'^trained for after life— and preserves the existing
settlement until the alteration, now proved by the test of expe-

14
rience, and irresistibly recommended by the voice of public
opinion, may be made (slowly, indeed, but) safely, because with
calm and mature deliberation. Not that (as has been calum-
niously said) " they are immovably fixt by the strength of their
cables, and the ponderousness of their anchors," but that, being
of the old British build, and made of lasting materials — " deep
in their draught, and roomy in their length," — they can only be
floated by a great depth of water, and ride the waves with a
majestic dignity, unlike the frail though gaudy barks, which shake
at every ripple, and veer with every changing gale, the sport
and playthings ofthe capricious elements.
" Bodies of men," says one, whose good sense in this matter
was not misled by prejudice, " retain the character of their first
institution very long ; and, all things considered, I am inclined
to think it not amiss that they do so. Universities and schools
of learning should not be in haste to exchange established prin
ciples and practices which the best sense of former ages had
introduced, for novel and untried pretensions. The reason is
plain : their instructions would have small weight, and their dis
cipline no stability, amid such easy and perpetual changes. They
are, indeed, the depositories of the public wisdom and virtue ;
and their business is to inculcate both on the rising generation,
upon the footing on which they are received and understood in
the several countries where they are erected. Even if their local
statutes laid them under no restraint, an easiness in departing
from established rules were a levity not to be commended, and
would, in the end, be unfavourable to truth itself, when at any
time it should come, in its turn, to be entertained among them."*
However, it cannot be denied that accidental evils attend these
great advantages. Obsolete prejudices, when exploded every
where else, are often harboured in collegiate cells from age to
age, and cling with unusual tenacity to the minds of secluded
students ; and hence the universities have been occasionally dis
graced by such displays of bigotry and intolerance as have caused
infinite injury and scandal to those learned establishments. This
has been remarkably the case in the Hampden controversy ;
and one cannot sufficiently regret that the task of opposing lati-
tudinarianisra has devolved upon a party of such extravagant
sentiments in the opposite extreme, and that that party should
» Kurd's Moral and Political Dialogues. Vol. iii. p. 158.

15
number such respectable names as Newman and Kehle in the
foremost rank of their champions.
The dangerous nature of the opinions which characterise this
party, and the zeal and diligence with which they have been pro
pagated and recommended as the genuine doctrines ofthe Church
of England, render it the duty of those who dissent from them
to protest against such an arrogant assumption, which if, by
often being repeated, it once came to be recognised as true,
would (we are persuaded) do incalculable mischief and discredit
to the church of which we are humble but devoted members.
There is another circumstance which makes us speak out on this
occasion. No one can have failed to remark the unusual activity
which the Roman Catholics have manifested, now for some time
back, to diffuse the poison of their errors in England ; an activity
so intense, that it would almost seem as if the sovereign pontiff,
like Homer's Jupiter, had turned his eyes from every other
quarter of the Christian world, to fix them with undivided
attention upon the all-important contest which Popery is waging
¦with the British churches. Now, the Oxford theology seems
to us (and we have examined it with care, and, we trust, with
candour) to be fraught with the seeds of those corruptions which
appear full-blown in the Romish system. With the bulk of the
people, who are little accustomed to nice distinctions, we are
convinced that there would be a very short transition from high-
churchism to Popery ; and that when once they had brought
themselves to a practical acquiescence in church authority and
the sentence of tradition, as inculcated by the sages of the
British Critic, they would be in a very apt disposition to swallow
the stronger dose of universal infallibility, as administered by the
more daring practitioners of the Dublin Review. Nor is it
only by thus putting such formidable weapons into our adver
saries' hands that the Oxonians appear likely to do injury to the
common cause, but by seeking to dissuade us from using those
defensive arms which the first reformers wielded with triumphant
success, and the use whereof gave that sore blow to the power
of antichrist with which it still shakes to its very centre.
Thus, in a formal enumeration, in one of the " Tracts for the
Times," of the proper topics to be handled in the controversy
with the Church of Rome, not only are ecclesiastical infallibility,
and the right of private judgment, and the sufficiency of Scripture,
excluded from the list, but the doctrine op justification by

16
faith alone — the doctrine with the recovery of which the
reformation began, and with the loss of which (and may God
forefend the omen) the reformation will end — this vital doctrine
(we say,) which Luther deemed of more importance than all
our differences with Rome beside, is judged, forsooth, of far too
ultra-Protestant a complexion to be so much as hinted at by
these staunch defenders of the Church of England. For all these
reasons we should consider it unwise to remain silent upon a
subject of such manifestly great importance, even if we could
command sufficient composure to preserve a total quiescence,
while the whole church was in agitation round us. We are not
insensible, however, to the delicacy of the task which we have
undertaken, nor ignorant how apt much of what we have to say
will be to be misunderstood, and (still more) to be misrepre
sented. But we must only make up our minds to bear these
hardships, as we have done worse, with tolerable equanimity.
Mistakes we must endeavour to obviate by care and circum
spection ; and as for misrepresentations, —

. Lcvius fit patentia,
Quidquid corrigere est nefas."

17

CHAPTER L

EPISCOPACY.
The first thing which must strike every reader of the Oxford
Tracts is, the extraordinary prominence which they assign to the
tenet ofthe necessity of apostolical succession for the valid
administration of those sacraments which are " generally neces
sary for salvation." A large portion of our clergy are sternly
rebuked for the doubtfulness and hesitation which they seera to
f«el about owning this doctrine in all its fulness ; and while, at
one time, it is wondered at, how any can doubt but that this
is the judgment of our church, (vol. i. p. 8,) we have hints
thrown out, at another, of the propriety of enlarging the thirty-
nine articles with a fresh " remedy against schism," in the shape
of an express condemnation " of the heresy of Hoadley — and
of others like him." — (Ibid. Tract 41.)
Now, be this doctrine true or false, (and, as we are only pleading
for toleration, we do not think it necessary to pledge ourselves
to either side of the question,) we must be permitted to say in
behalf of our censured brethren — that, at any rate it is not
Anglicanism, and that (which is raore) we should be heartily
sorry to witness any atterapt to make it so, by excluding from
tJie ministry or the church many thousands of sincere friends to
our ecclesiastical establishment, who are yet content to own that
their fellow-Protestants in Scotland and on the continent are not
destitute of the means of grace and the rights of Christian
churches. Of course, if the doctrine be true, its importance is
such as to render it proper to assert it strongly, impress it seri
ously, and canvass it fairly ; but to make it a mean of narrowing
our terms of comraunion still closer, or excluding from our
borders those who are, in all practical concerns, united to main
tain our present constitution, is just the counsel which the
Romanist and Dissenter might, with reason, wish to see adopted,
as the likeliest to issue in the subversion of their common enemy.
Happily, however, our church herself has evinced raore mode
ration than her over-zealous sons; and "the latitudinarian
heretics" may still address to their opponents the words in which

18
Ulysses remonstrated with the noisy mendicant who sought to
jostle him from his own porch : —
^aifAovi^ ovri Tt fftfl^u kxxov out' ayo^tuaj,
DVTi Tiva- Ip^OViM ^OflSVUI, KCtt ^oXX UViXcVTtX,
oySo? §' a.fj.rpoTl^0Ui o§£ ^itfftTaf o'^ti Tl fftx^
aXXsT^iav (pisrhiv  OdYSS. S'. 15.
In considering how far the Church of England is pledged in
this matter, it will be necessary to draw a distinction between
those things to which her clergy are required only to assent, as
formularies lawful to be used, and those which they subscribe
as authoritative expositions of their faith. Of the former kind
is the Book of Ordination, of the latter the Thirty-nine Articles.
Yet, the Oxonians have attempted to make the clergy's assent
to the use of the ordination services include a solemn assent to
the truth and propriety of every syllable contained in the preface
to it, which they are not required to use at all. But the Church
of England is not, and does not pretend to be infallible : she has
herself expressly declared the contrary ; and, therefore, no man
can properly consider himself bound to maintain her absolute
freedom frora error, in any point, to which he has not voluntarily
declared his own assent. Now, the English ordinal is imposed
on us in three ways : 1, by the 4th Irish canon ; 2, by the 36 th
article ; 3, by the act of uniformity : and all these have mani
festly exclusive reference to ihe use of the formularies prescribed.
The 4th canon runs simply thus: —
" That forra of ordination, and no other, shall be used in the
Church, but that which is contained in the book of Ordering
Bishops, &c. ; and if any shall affirra, that they who are conse
crated or ordered, according to those j-j'ie*, are not lawfully made,
nor ought to be accounted either bishops, priests, or deacons;
or shall deny that the churches established under this govern
ment are true churches, or refuse to join.with them in Christian
profession, let hira be excommunicated, and not restored, until he
repent, and publicly revoke his error."
The 36th article is just as plainly referable only to the law
fulness of the rites used. It declares the book to contain all
things necessary to due consecration Sec, and nothing of itself
superstitious or ungodly, and that, therefore, all persons so con
secrated, &c. are lawfully consecrated and ordered.
Last comes the statute of uniformity, which is, if possible,
more decisive : —
" To the end," says the act, '^that uniformity in the public

19
worship of God may be speedily effected_[to which, certainly, no
more than the use of the forms is requisite] — be it enacted, that
every parson, &c. shall, openly and publicly, declare his unfeigned
assent and consent to the use of all things in the said book
contained and prescribed."
Words could not more plainly express the intention of the
legislature : and, we are persuaded, that no man is bound by the
Church of England, to any peculiar doctrine concerning the
primitive government of the Church, or the exclusive validity of
Episcopal ordination, by the preface to her ordinal, any more
than he is bound to believe the false rule for finding Easter in
her Calendar to be the true one, which (as we remember) was
one of the grounds on which the excellent Baxter was willing to
rest his nonconformity. Let us turn, therefore, to the Articles.
Now these, it has often been remarked, seem to have been
studiously so framed as to pass no definite decision upon the
question. The Church, for instance, is simply defined to be
" a congregation of faithful men, in which the pure word of God
is preached, and the sacraments be duly ministered according to
Christ's ordinance in all those things that of necessity are requi
site to the same.'' And those ministers are judged lawfully
called and sent, " which be chosen and called to this work by
men who have public authority given unto them in the congre
gation, to call and send ministers unto the Lord's vineyard."
Now, of course, to one who holds (as the writer of one of
these tracts does) that the words, " Do this in remembrance of
me" — were addressed to the twelve apostles as bishops of the
Church, commissioning them to consecrate the sacred eleraents,
and that none may presume to do the like but such as derive
their power from them by successive transmissions, an episco-
pally ordained minister would be deemed one of the things that,
according to Christ's commandment, are of necessity requisite
to the solemnization of the Holy Eucharist. But to another
who supposed, for instance, that these words were addressed to
them simply as a congregation of the faithful, .ind referred to the
reception rather than the consecration of the Lord s supper, and
who could not see that any one mode of calling and sending
ministers was unalterably bound upon Christian societies to the
end of time in the word of God, (and the puzzle is — as Stillingfleet
says  to find a divine right any where but in the word of God ;)
to such an one we say, a minister episcopally ordained, however

20
proper and befitting for the purpose, would certainly not be
esteemed essentially necessary to the valid administration of that
sacrament. The article then obviously decides nothing as to the
real point in dispute between these two, and, therefore, both may
subscribe it with a clear conscience. Here, then, we must be
permitted to say, the Oxonians have manifestly swerved from
that discreet moderation which it has ever been the wisdom of
the Church of England to preserve.
We are not ignorant of the reply which will be made to all
this. The Articles, it is said, are " not a body of Divinity ;"
they are " polemical " " protests against certain errors of a
certain period of our Church." But now, granting all this for
argument's sake, is it not certain that this error (supposing it to
be an error) — this very heresy of holding the form of church
government alterable, was rife at that period when convocations
were sitting, and protests might have been made against it, if it
were deemed necessary ? nay, more, was it not held and avowed
by those who actually sat in the convocation by which these
Articles were sanctioned ? — This, surely, ought to be a sufficient
answer. But, in truth, the Oxonians seem greatly to have mis
conceived the nature of our Articles. No unprejudiced person,
we are convinced, can examine them without being convinced
that they are very little " polemical" in their caste, and that it is
rather by setting forth (positively) the whole truth, than by
directly controverting or anathematizing falsehood, that they
protest against the errors of the times. They are entitled
" Articles for the avoiding of the diversities of opinions, and for
the establishing of consent touching true religion :" and in his
Majesty's declaration prefixed to them, they are recognised as
" containing the true doctrine of the Church of England ;"
and his Ma,jesty thereupon takes comfort to himself in the
general agreement of all in the true, usual literal meaning of
the same, commanding that all further curious search be laid
aside, and the Articles taken only in their literal and gramma
tical sense.
Now, let us ask any candid judge, whether the obvious conclu
sion from this is not that the Articles were designed to contain all
such doctrines as the Church deemed it necessary to exact a
conformity upon ? — But, to pass from our authorised formularies
to the suffrages of our divines. The extravagant Erastianism of
Archbishop Cranmer (who seems to have thought that the king

21
might make a priest or bishop, as readily as a justice of the peace,
is so well known that we need only allude to it ; and it is remark
able, that Bishop Ridley himself, (who was in many respects
much nearer to a high-churchman,) in his " Answers" given in
Mr. Gloster Ridley's life of him, cautiously abstains from ven
turing any less general definition of a church, than that given
in our present articles. If we turn to those who maintained the
controversy with the Puritans, and who were compelled by the
nature of that controversy to be explicit upon this subject, we
shall find by Mr. Keble's own confession, the best and earliest of
them defending the hierarchy upon grounds utterly inconsistent
with the very first principles of modern high-churchism — the
ground of the inherent mutability of all modes of discipline and
public regiment, and of the original residence of all spiritual
power and authority in the body corporate* of the Church.
These are confessed to have been the principles of Archbishop
Whitgift, and Bishop Cooper :f and we have taken some pains
(in a subjoined note) to show, that they were the principles of
Hooker also. Nor is Dr. Cosins less explicit upon this matter.
" Are all the churches," asks he, " of Denmark, Sweveland,
Poland, Germanic, Rhetia, Vallis, Tellina, the nine Cantons of
Switzerland reformed, with their confederates of Geneva, of
France, and the Low Countries, and of Scotland, in all points, either
of substance or of circurastances, disciplinated alike ? — Nay, they
neither are, can be, nor yet need so to be ; being it cannot be
proved that any set and exact particular form thereof is recom
mended unto us by the word of God." (Answer to the Abstract
* Bishop Andrews himself appears to have verged towards this opinion.
We quote from the Politica of Mr. Lawson, u work well deserving to be re
printed. Speaking of Matt, xviii. 17, he says, " Erastus upon the place is
intolerable, and most wofuUy wrests it ; so doth Bishop Bilson, in his Church
government, and is point blank contrary to D. Andrews, who, in his Tortura
Torti, doth most accurately examine, interpret, and apply the words, and
most effectually from thence confute Bellarmine. One may truly say of that
book, as he himself said of Austin's Treatise De Civitate Dei, it was opus
palmarium. By his exposition of this text, he utterly overthrows the im
mediate jus divinum of episcopacy, in matters of ecclesiastical jurisdiction.
He plainly and expressly makes the whole church the subject, the primary sub
ject of the power ofthe keys inforo exteriori  And it is observable, that divers
of our champions, when they oppose Bellarmine's Monarchical Government of
the Church, peremptorily affirm the power of the keys to be in the whole
church, as the most effectual way to confute him, yet when they wrote against
the Presbyterian and the Anti-prelaticul party, they change their tone and
tune." p. 276.
f See Keble's Preface to Hooker.

22
Part. Sect. 18, p. 58, London : T. Chard, 1548.) To the same
effect our English Solomon himself, as quoted by Bishop Stilling
fleet, (Irenicon, p. 11, chap. viii. p. 394,) declares it as his
judgment, " Christiano cuique regi, Principi ac Rei-publicije con-
cessum, externam in rebus ecclesiasticis regiminis formam suis
prsesci-ibere, quse ad civilis formam quam proxirae accedat." —
And since we have quoted one layraan, let us add another, but
he of better authority than even the royal head of the church
hiraself, the illustrious Bacon ; who seems to have surveyed
theology with the sarae penetrating glance which he darted
through all huraan science. " For the second point, that there
should be but one form of discipline in all churches, and that
imposed by necessity of comraandment and prescript out ofthe
Word of God ; it is a matter volumes have been compiled of, and
therefore cannot receive a brief redargution. I for my part do
confess that in revolving the Scriptures I could never find any
such thing, but that God hath left the like liberty to the church
government as he hath done to the civil government ; to be
varied according to time, place, and accidents, which nevertheless
his high and divine providence doth order and dispose  So like
wise in church matters the substance of doctrine is immutable ;
and so are the general rules of government ; but for rites and
ceremonies, and for the particular hierarchies, policies, and dis
ciplines, of churches, they be left at large, and, therefore, it is
good we return to the ancient bounds of unity in the church of
God ; which was, one faith, one baptism ; and not one hierarchy,
one discipline." (Of the Pacification of the Church. Works,
vol. vii. p. 68, edit. B. Montague.) Chillingworth too proposes
it as a question to his adversary, (and the context shows he
meant it to be answered in the negative) "whether any one kind
of these external forras and orders and government be so neces
sary to the being of a church, but that they may be diverse in
diverse places, and that a good and peaceable Christian may and
ought to submit himself to the government of the place where
he lives, whatsoever it be." (Religion of Protestants, chap. 6,
sec. 39.)
Nay, some of our greatest divines went a still more startling
length, and seemed very ready to admit, that Presbyterianism
was the primitive form of the church government. See, for
instance. Jewel's defence of the Apology, p. 202, and Dr. Fulke,
(who passed in his own time for a high-churchman,) in his answer
to the Rhemish Testaraent, upon Titus i. 8, " Although," says

23
he, "in Scripture a bishop and elder is one authority in preach
ing, the sacraments, &c., yet in government, by ancient use of
the speech, he is only bishop, who is in the Scripture called
irpoicFTafievoi, &c., to whora the ordination or consecration by
imposition of hands belongeth. Not that imposition of hands
belongeth only to him, for the rest of the elders did lay on their
hands, or else the bishop did lay on his hands in the name of
the rest." Reynolds, we suppose, would be objected to as a
Puritan, but Field on the Church, book iii., chap. 39, is omyii
exceptione major.
But even with those who were for assigning a much higher
origin to the triple distinction of bishops, priests, and deacons,
its absolute necessity was never asserted in the best times of our
Church, in the unqualified language in which it is maintained by
our friends at Oxford. Let us hear, for instance, Francis Mason,
(one of the warmest defenders of our church, and some of
whose works have been received by Dr. Wordsworth into his
" Institutes" lately published,) who, answering an objection
against the orders of ministers beyond the seas, speaks thus:
" First, if by jure divino you raean that which is according to
Scripture, then the pre-eminence of bishops is jure divino ; for
it hath been already proved to be according to Scripture.
Secondly, if by jure divino you mean the ordinance of God, in
this sense also it may be said to be jure divino. For it is an
ordinance of the apostles, whereunto they were directed by
God's Spirit, even the Spirit of prophecy, and consequently the
ordinance of God. But if by jure divino you understand a law
and coramandment of God, binding all Christian churches per
petually, unchangeably, and with such absolute necessity, that
no other order of regiment may in any case be admitted, in this
sense neither may we grant it, nor yet can you prove it to be
jure divino." [Defence of Foreign Ordination, in " certain
brief Treatises," &c., Oxford, 1641. J No less moderate is the
judgment of a still older divine — Downam, Bishop of Derry :
" Though in respect of the institution," says he, " there is small
difference between an apostolical and divine ordinance, because
what was ordained by the apostles proceeded from God (in
which sense, and no other, I do hold the episcopal function to
be a divine ordinance, I mean in respect of its first institu
tion)— yet in respect of perpetuity, difference by some is made
between those things which be diuini, and those which be Apus-

24
tolici juris ; the forraer in their understanding being perpetually,
generally, and irarautably necessary ; the latter not so. So that
the meaning of my defence plainly is, that the episcopal govern
ment hath this commendation above other forras of ecclesiastical
governraent, that in respect of the first institution it is a divine
ordinance ; but that it should be such a divine ordinance aa
should be generally, perpetually, immutably, necessarily observed,
so as no other form of government may in no case be admitted,
I did not take upon me to maintain.'' (Defence of Sermon, p. 139.)
Nay, Bishop Saunderson (an authority whom high-churchmen are
accustomed to have in honour) bears witness that this moderation
was almost universal among the Episcopalians. " The Papist,"
says he, in his eloquent defence of English episcopacy, " The
Papist groundeth the Pope's oecumenical supremacy upon Christ's
command to Peter to execute it, and to all the flock of Christ
(princes also as well as others) to submit to him as their universal
pastor. The Presbyterian crieth up his model of government
and discipline (though minted in the last bygone century) as the
very sceptre of Christ's kingdom ; whereunto all kings are bound
to submit theirs, making it as unalterable, and inevitably neces
sary to the being of a church, as the word and sacraments are.
The Independent Separatist also, upon that grand principle of
Puritanism, comraon to him with the Presbyterian (the very root
of alraost all the sects in the world) viz. : That nothing is to be
ordered in church matters, other or otherwise than Christ hath
appointed in his word, boldeth that any company of people
gathered together by rautual consent in a church way, is jure
divino free and absolute within itself to govern itself by such
rules as it shall judge agreeable to God's word, without depend
ence upon any but Christ Jesus alone, or subjection to any
prince, prelate, or human person or consistory whatsoever. All
these (you see) do not only claim a jus divinum, and that of a
very high nature, but in setting down their opinions seem in
some expresses tending to the diminution of the ecclesiastical
supremacy of princes. Whereas the Episcopal party neither
meddle with the power of princes, nor are ordinarily very forward
to press the jus divinum, hut rather purposely decline the men
tioning of it as a term subject to misconstruction, (as hath been
said), or else to interpret it, as not of necessity to import any
more than an apostolic institution." — p. 40. Even the Uni
versity of Oxford, fproh pudor ! ) in this matter, swims with

25
the stream, and in that formal judgment of theirs upon the Solemn
League and Covenant, decline absolutely determining upon the
strict jus divinum Episcopatus. About the same time. Bishop
Hall (whose treatise on the divine right of Episcopacy has earned
him a place in Doctor Pusey's Catena Patrum) did not think
his principles compromised by speaking thus of the Presbyterian
churches on the Continent : " Blessed be God, there is no differ
ence in any essential matter, betwixt the Church of England
and her sisters of the Reformation. We accord in every point
of Christian doctrine, without the least variation : their public
confessions and ours are sufficient convictions to the world, of
our full and absolute agreement. The only difference is, in the
form of outward administration : wherein also we are so far
agreed, as that we all profess this form not to be essen
tial to the being of a church, though much importing the
well or better being of it, according to our several apprehensions
thereof; and that we do all retain a reverent and loving opinion
of each other in our several ways ; not seeing any reason why so
poor a diversity should work any alienation of affection in us
one towards another; but, withal, nothing hinders, but that we
may corae yet closer to one another, if both may resolve to meet
in that primitive government, whereby it is meet we should both
be regulated, universally agreed on by all antiquity ; wherein all
things were ordered and transacted by the consent of the pres
bytery, moderated by one constant president thereof.  But
if there must be a difference of judgment in these raatters of
outward policy, why should not our hearts be still one ? Why
should such a diversity be of power to endanger the dissolving of
the bond of brotherhood ? May we have the grace but to follow
the truth in love, we shall in these several tracks, overtake her
happily in the end ; and find her embracing of peace, and
crowning us with blessedness." (The Peacemaker, sect. 6.)
We fear that this would pass for little better, now-a-days, than
a rag of " the Heresy of Hoadley," with the Consistory of Oriel,
who, in their zeal for the rights of bishops, seem quite to have
forgotten that antiquity is every whit as unanimously agreed in
asserting the privileges of that council of the presbyters, without
which the primitive bishop used ordinarily to do nothing of
importance. Were we disposed to make a parade in that way
we might easily crowd our pages with testimonies from the
Fathers to this important fact; and whoever will look into
Bingham's Sections upon Presbyters will (we hope) give us

26
credit for our abstinence, when he sees what facilities have been
there provided for appearing learned with very little trouble-
The Chapters of our Cathedrals were evidently designed to per
form the functions of these primitive Synedria ; and when the
existence of these corporations was threatened in the reign of
Charles I. their ablest defender carae forward with a proposal to
raake them efficient for that purpose. (Hacket: see Carwithen's
Hist, of the C. of England : vol. 2. p. 357.) Had that pro
posal been acted upon, we are persuaded the cathedrals would
never have been brought now for a second time into their present
irarainent danger ; and, we would humbly suggest to our Oxford
brethren, when they go seriously to work with their " Second
Reformation," that by such a measure as we allude to, they
would not only restore (what we know they dearly love) an
ancient constitution, but also (what we value still more highly)
an useful one to boot. There is nothing in which we differ more
from the church of the first ages — nothing in which our practice
has given more scandal and offence to moderate men* among
the Dissenters — almost nothing in our outward polity which has
done more injury to the interests of the church than the private
autocratical way in which the raost important concerns of the
diocese are often disposed of by our prelates. Who can doubt
but that a public council of the chief presbyters of his diocese
would be more likely to give their bishop upright, wholesome,
and deliberate advice, than an agent or a private chaplain, or
any of the thousand back-stair senators who usually beset the
ear of a great man ? For our part, we should look upon a
reform of this kind as likely to infuse new life and vigour into
our ecclesiastical administration, and to obtain for it a moral
weight of influence which, it must be confessed on all hands, is
at present greatly wanted.
But this is too important a suggestion to be handled slightly,f
and we are in haste to pass to the second and more important
head of our charge against the authors and admirers of the Tracts.
• Robert Hall, for instance : See his Life by Dr. Gregory.
f There is one great advantage, however, to which such an arrangement
would probably lead, which we cannot pass over altogether in silence — the
facility it would afford of freeing the Church from the opprobrious burden of
its civil law courts, and the complicated intricacies of their practice. The
lay-chancellors, and the enormities of the consistorial judicatories, have
always been principal topics of complaint against our prelacy, and a reform
in these matters was sometimes promised to the dissenters, but never per
formed. There is a curious anecdote on this subject told in Rogers's Life of
Howe.

CHAPTER IL

TRADITION.

We mentioned an excessive respect for tradition as one
of the heaviest of our charges against the Oxford school of
divines ; and we believe that, when our readers have duly con
sidered the evidence of the extravagant way in which this trea
cherous guide is magnified by them, and corapared the thing
itself with the praises of its Protestant — we beg pardon — its
Anglican admirers, they will be by no means disposed to esteem
our fears of the consequences of such opinions unfounded, or our
reprobation of them exaggerated or overcharged. Tradition is
considered by the Oxford theologians as discharging two impor
tant functions, according as we regard it in its relation to doctrine
or to discipline. Dogmatically it is supposed to consign us to the
important truth, (the evidence of which is raade wholly to depend
upon its aid,) that the Scripture contains all things necessary to
salvation, and to supersede the right of private judgment in
eliciting these things from the Scripture so consigned, by the
additional boon of an authoritative exposition of its meaning.
In discipline, it is of even still greater importance ; serving not
only to confirm and explain the scattered hints upon that subject,
to be gathered here and there in the Bible, but also to convey
to us a rule in such matters, quite independent of the written
word, though sanctioned by the same divine authority. In the
first of these respects it seems to be treated of more systema
tically, though not enforced a whit more strongly, by Mr.
Newman* and Professor Keble,f in two of their late publications,
than in the tracts ; and as it would be hypocritical affectation to
pretend ignorance of tliose gentlemen's connexion with the
immediate subject of our review, we shall take the liberty of
occasionally quoting their sentiments fom their acknowledged
discourses, as well as the anonymous pamphlets which areunder-
* Lectures on the Prophetical Ofiice of the Church, by J. H. Newman.
London ; Rivington, 1837.
f Sermon on Primitive Tradition, by Rev. J. Keble. Third edition.

28
stood to be partly written, and wholly approved of by them.
But before doing so, we beg earnestly to disclaim all share in,
or approbation of, the personal violence with which they and
(even still more perhaps) their coadjutor. Dr. Pusey, have some
times been assailed — a violence the more inexcusable, because
(whatever may be said of their friends,) it seems to have been
in no way provoked on iheir own parts. Demanding for ourselves
an unrestrained liberty of thinking freely, and as freely expressing
what we think, we should be strangely inconsistent with our own
principles, if we refused to others the same privilege. To repro
bate the opinions we think erroneous, to expose the arguments
we deem weak and insufficient, are things which appear to us to
come fairly within our province ; but personal animosity and
angry vituperation we leave to those qui nesciunt quanta lahore
Veritas inveniatur et quam difficile caveantur errores, et quibus
suspiriis et gemitihus, fiat ut ex quantulacunque parte intelligi
possit Deus. Those who take either side in a great public
question are more responsible than they generally seem to think
for the misconduct of their allies, and certainly are not quite
exempt from blame, if they encourage ihat by their silence, which
their conscience will not suffer them to praise, and a politic
regard for party forbids them to reprehend. This is our reason
for interposing a protest which may appear to some uncalled
for, and to others injudicious ; and having now delivered our
own souls, we proceed to address ourselves to the important
argument which lies before us.
We need hardly tell our readers that we differ widely from
the Oxford school in both the positions which we have explained.
Indeed those positions are so much at variance with the princi
ples upon which the Reformation has usually been defended by
its greatest champions, that we do not wonder at the dread of
Popery which has been inspired by the promulgation of them.
Still no question should be decided by antecedent presumptions,
where it is possible to examine it in detail, and we are confident
that a very slight examination will suffice to show that there is
no evidence adequate to convince any reasonable man, if he do
but weigh it fairly, that the Holy Spirit ever intended for the
church any rule, independent of Scripture, and delivered down
by ecclesiastical tradition, or that it is possible to collect the
apostolic doctrine in this way, upon any points concerning faith
or practice, upon which we have not far clearer and more satis-

29
factory information from the Bible itself. We do not pretend to
enter into a full examination ofthe subject, but we are confident
that we shall say quite enough to guard our readers against any
thing that may seem specious in the very shallow plausibilities
which have been advanced on the other side, and indicate, at
least, some of those general considerations which raay tend to
give satisfaction to an impartial mind in forming its own judg
ment upon the subject.
Mr. Keble has taken a great deal of pains, (but, as it seems to
us, to very little purpose,) to prove that, previous io the comple-
, tion of the Canon of the New Testament, there was a received
code of apostolic traditions, well known and recognised by all
Christian churches as their rule of faith and morals. Now, even
if he could prove this point, it would serve his cause very little,
however well a dexterous Jesuit raight be able to press it into
the Papal service. For since he raust needs confess that every
doctrine contained in this traditive code is also, for the raatter
and substantially contained in Holy Scripture too, and since we
have undoubtedly better evidence forthe integrity ofthe written
than of the unwritten word, it plainly becomes our duty to use
the first as a test to try the sincerity ofthe other. But a test,
to be rightly applied, must be rightly understood ; so that, after
all we are compelled to expound the sense of Scripture for our
selves, before we can arrive at that full satisfaction concerning
the uncorrupted purity of our traditions, which we are bound
to seek for when the materials are within our reach.
But now, when we have done all this, and fairly proved our
creed out of the Bible, most men, we think, will agree with us
that we have done enough, and raay wish the admirers of anti
quity joy of their long and tortuous voyage back again to the
same port, through an ocean of bishops and doctors, and saints
and councils, from Clement of Rome to the Abbot of Clairvaux,
whose " well-according strife" of mutual and self-contradictions
makes up that harmonious Consensus Patrum which chimes so
sweetly in the ears of all Orthodox Divines. But in truth, we
think that Mr. Keble has very insufficiently established the
existence of any methodised system of traditional theology in
the early church, as a rule independent of the apostolic writings.
By the same act of faith which admitted a man into the com
munion of the church, he implicitly assented to the infallible
authority of the apostles. Hence, whatever they taught us was, to

30
him, equally indispensable to be believed, and, consequently,
there was but little need of any formal division of the matter.
of their teaching into fundamentals and non-fundamentals, prin
ciples and consequences. That the individuals who actually
heard the apostles preach would naturally store up in their me
mories, and frequently commit to writing too, the gracious words
which fell from their lips, is, of course, most certain ; but while
there was an unerring living judge of all controversies of faith
extant in the world, and the extraordinary gifts ofthe Holy Ghost,
poured out in rich abundance, supplied inspired prophets and
teachers in the scattered congregations of Christians, it was by .
no means necessary that any systematic code of divinity should
be compiled as an authentic standard, and sanctioned hy the
public sentence of the church ; and now, when the college of
apostles had become extinct, and the miraculous gift of the Spirit
had ceased, the Holy Scriptures came immediately into their
place, the canon of which (notwithstanding all the wrong-
headed paradoxes of Dodwell,) has been often shown to have
been completed, and recognized throughout the churches, before
the death of St. John. This seems to us by far the most natural
account of the matter, and nothing can be weaker than the
attempt at Biblical evidence which Mr. Keble has ventured
upon. He endeavours to show that the " Deposit" (^Trapaicaja
OrjKT)) " command" (ivioXif) " faithful sayings" (Xo'-joi tt/o-toi)
" charge" (jrapar-jr^eXia), which occur in the epistles to Timothy,
are (as he expresses it,) " parts of the vocabulary of the Holy
Catholic Church," or technical terms denoting a well-known
and well-acknowledged standard of the true doctrines of the
faith. But now, in the first place, does it not seem rather an
arbitrary process by which the existence of a single and definite
code is collected from such a multitude of denominations, oc
curring within the compass of a very few pages in the writings
of an individual author ? This seems to argue a greater copious
ness in the " vocabulary of the Holy Catholic Church" than
one would naturally have expected to find so early, and may
lead us to suspect that this variety of appellation has regard to a
similar variety of subjects. Nor will our suspicions be abated
if we look a little raore narrowly into the context of the pas
sages where they occur. 1 Tim. i. 3, we read, " As I besought
thee to abide in Ephesus  that thou shouldst charge
(¦!rapar^<yeiX-qs) some that they preach no other doctrine, neither

31
give heed to fables and endless genealogies  so do. Now
the end of this charge (-rrji Trapar^r^eXias) is charity," &c. Now
can any one, who looks at the original, doubt but that the
article here refers to the cognate word preceding, and that ihe
charge in verse 5 is the same as that in verse 3 ? We meet the
same word again at verse 18 ; and there it certainly belongs to
Timothy's immediate duty in regulating affairs at Ephesus.
'' This charge yravrrjv ttjv tt.) I commit unto thee," &c. Again,
at chapter vi. verse 11, we have a specific commandment first
given : " But thou, O man of God, flee these things ; follow
after righteousness, &c. Fight the good fight, lay hold upon
eternal life," &c. After which immediately follows : " I charge
thee before God  and Christ Jesus,  that thou keep this
commandment (t^v ivroXrjv) pure and undefiled,* unto the
appearing of the Lord." And to this sense agrees Theodoret,
one of the greatest of the Greek fathers : Trjv 4vro\7jv rovsiaTi,
Ta-ijTa a. rPA<I>Q. Finally, having now brought his epistle to a
close, he subjoins, at verse 20 — " O Timothy, keep this which
is committed to thee {rr/v ¦n-apaicaTaOrjKrfv)." But the passage
which most clearly disproves the notion of a technical appro
priation of this terra, is found in immediate connexion with the
very one which Mr. Keble has selected for his text. 2 Tim. i.
12, et seq. " I know," says St. Paul, " whom I have believed,
and I am persuaded that he is able to keep my deposit (jrjv
TTapaica-TaOijKriv fiov) unto that day. Keep the pattern virorv-
TTtuo-fi') of sound words which thou hast heard of me  TTiat
good deposit (t-^v ^apaKaTaOrjKTjv) guard through the Holy Ghost
that dwelleth in us." Now, here not only is the word in question
referred to special instructions given to Timothy, but used so
little in any technical appropriation of meaning, that it is ap
plied, in the verse immediately preceding, to quite a different
subject — viz. the apostle's own soul, which he had learned to
commit unto God's keeping, as unto a faithful creator.-j- Thus
• The words xrtriXoy and dK9ri>.,,r!fTcv seem rather (as Erasmus has re
marked) to belong to the Ss preceding than to ItTaXity.
f So Grotius " Habemus in hoc et 14 comraate mentionem depositi
duplicis. Deus apud nos deponit verbum suum, nos apud Deum deponimus
spiritum nostrum. Luc. xxiii. 40. Act vii. 59. Also, upon v. 13, inTu-
*<!)«!, exemplar ut I Tim. i. I. Sed hie intellige exemplar in auimo infixum,
quod tSiiv Platonici vocant." So, Theodoret also, /^.i/iov, fwi, tous t,a,y(aipov;,
xx) Kxixm^ 'aciiUi Ten a^x^Tvm^ 9r^oA%oi,n;, irm dx-^ifiiici. 'tx.titio,v Zuy(x(potmv
'lixivx; ouToi Kou iru »i!i» Tl x^x'^'^"^" '^X,^ '^'" '""¦^ '^f^'" '^^i' -^'"'^^'"^ "'" osy^^l!
yiymiii'-nv 'SiSxo-x.xX'ixv. Theodoret explains the ,sx^xtUn of Timothy's alacrity
in God's service, which was a gift conferred by the Holy Ghost.

9
a mere examination of the context of those passages upon
which he has endeavoured to found it, is sufficient to dissipate
that baseless fabric in whose erection Mr. Keble has wasted so
much unprofitable pains. We suppose that we may now leave
this part of the subject, without any detailed examination of
the Xo^oi TTfcTToj, and their rhythmical structure, (which, by the
way, it requires the practised ear of a joos^jca? professor to dis
cover,) as things on which the learned author himself scarcely
intended to lay any important stress. The phrases alluded to
occur only in one particular portion of St. Paul's writings, and
surely it is no more unaccountable that he should have used this
form of speech, to introduce his own remarks, only here, than
that he should, only here, have alluded, in such terms, to the
supposed traditionary code.
But here let us not be mistaken or misrepresented. That
the apostles delivered oral instructions to their disciples, that
it was their duty to treasure up and attend to those instructions,
and that before the written word had been consigned to the
faithful, these instructions were the rule by which their faith
and practice were to be directed, are propositions which we cor
dially assent to. But, that their tradition was ever intended
to be a permanent rule, for the direction of the church, inde
pendent of the Holy Scriptures, now completed, is a thing
which we look on as so highly improbable, from the circum
stances of the case, that nothing but finding it a matter of
express revelation could induce us to believe it. Let us consi
der for a moment what — supposing them honest and intelligent
men — the duty of the rulers of the early church would have
been if the apostles had only left them in possession of an
oral deposit. Surrounded as they were with dangers to the
integrity of its transmission, both frora within and from with
out, would it not, naturally, have been their first business to
take the obvious precaution of drawing up in writing, a full
and authorised collection of the traditions they had received,
and thereby guarding, as far as possible, against the evil effects
of neglect or dishonesty in their successors ? That doctrines
are more securely transmitted by oral than by written tradition,
has, indeed, been asserted by some paradoxical defenders of
the Church of Rome, whose absurdity has been rendered " im
mortal in its own despite," by the wit and genius of their

33
illustrious confuter Tillotson,* but it is, on the whole, such a
thesis as nobody, we presume, at the present day, would choose
to make himself notorious by maintaining. , Now tliat very
thing which would have been the first duty of honest and intel
ligent men (supposing it had been left to thera) was actually
undertaken and performed by the Holy Spirit himself, who,
doubtless, foresaw how foully, in after ages, the conduit was
to be polluted through which the stream of tradition must needs
have passed. Can we doubt, then, but that it was designed to
accomplish the same object, and supersede a method of trans
mitting truth exposed to the greatest difficulties and dangers,
and which experience had already proved to be liable to the
grossest abuses ? Thus the very fact of the gospel having been
committed to writing is a recognition of the inefficiency of
traditive conveyance, and affords an antecedent presumption
against any rule pretending to be delivered down in that way.
Let it be remembered, too, that the Christian was not an
isolated revelation, but grounded upon one still more ancient,
and related to that elder one in almost all its parts. The no
tion of a written rule of faith was nothing new or singular in
the church ; for such a rule the Jewish people had before, and
one of the heaviest charges which our Lord and the apostles
urged against their teachers was their deterioration of this per
fect rule by the admittance of the oi-al law.
This idea, then, of a complete canon cf faith formed an inte
gral part of the orthodox conception of the character of the
Hebrew Scriptures. When, therefore, the term '^pdtfir],
which was appropriated to the designation of that canon, is trans
ferred (as it is both by St. Paul and St. Peter) to the writings
of the New Testament, we naturally understand it in the same
sense : and it certainly lies upon those who will not stand by this
analogy to show some positive presumption against its justice,
before they can be allowed to have any reasonable pretext for
rejecting it. The celebrated passage, 2 Tim. iii. 15, se£ms to
set this analogy in so strong a light that it will be worth our
while to examine it somewhat narrowly. " I know," says St.
Paul, " that, from a child, thou hast known the Holy Scriptures,
which are able to make thee wise unto salvation, through the
faith that is in Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of
• See his " Rule of Faith."

34
God, and is profitable for doctrine (SiSactKaXiav), for reproof
(eXe^j^os),* for correction {eTravopdixiaiv), for instruction
(jraibelav) in righteousness ; that the man of God may be per
fect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." Let us attend
here to the strict propriety of the terms in which the apostle
marks out the specific manner in which the Old Testament per
forms its object. " The Holy Scriptures," says he, " are able to
make thee wise (20<I>I2AI) unto salvation, through faith in
Jesus Christ." In other words, the law, having a shadow of
good things to come, was our schoolmaster to bring us to
Christ, for this term {aotpla) wisdom, has been proved to have
a sense appropriated to a knowledge of the relations subsisting
between the elder and latter dispensations.! So much, then, for
the specific character of the Old Testament ; but when he goes
on to add the generic notion of all Scripture as such, he gives,
as we shall see, a complete arrangement of the whole science
of theology, for in the verse following he seeras to have struck
out the true idea of all that can properly pretend to that title.
I. The foundation of it is laid in the inspiration of the
vehicle of its conveyance, which inspiration, adequately insuring
its infallibility, we may hence certainly derive —
1. Doctrine, or the Dogmatic, part Divinity.
2. Reproof, by which it is clear we must understand the
polemical. This comprehends all the speculative portion: next comes
the practical. It is profitable also for
3. Correction ; and 4. Instruction in righteousness. And the
end of this master science is,
II. That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly fur
nished for every good work.
So finely accurate are all the apostle's expressions, — so preg
nant with instruction many a passage which we are apt to pass
over with a careless negligence ! Now, that this elaborate enu
meration should be given, and Scripture declared to be useful
for every part and member of divine knowledge, merely to enforce
the truth that it " must help to the perfection and entire fur
nishing of the man of God," is, to say the least of it, rather a
strain to serve an hypothesis ; for, since the apostle is plainly
• Ad refutandos et profiigandos religionis christianse adversaries. —
Schleusner in voc.
f See Dr. Henderson's Lectures on Inspiration.

35
speaking of Scripture in general, and in the notion of it, the
only general reason why, in order to their end of perfecting the
godly, it should extend to every department of revealed truth,
must needs be that it was intended to be their complete and
sufficient rule in all things touching that perfection.
It would be ludicrous, if the subject were not so serious, to
see how Mr. Newman* struggles to evade the force of this ana
logy, by a number of hypothetical distinctions between the two
cases, which might, perhaps, some of them, be let to pass, if
they professed only to account for soraething already established
by positive evidence, but which so good a logician as he is ought
to have known are of no sort of weight when tised as negative
presumptions. He tells us, for instance, that one of the reasons
why the Jewish church had a sufficient written rule, may have
heen that theirs was a carnal, ceremonial religion, which required
that every thing should be clearly and definitely laid down,
whereas ours is a law of love, in which small probabilities and
slight hints are sufficient. This we take to be the most con
siderable thing he says, and not to mention that it is a gross
instance of the radical fallacy just exposed, (a fallacy which,
if it were once admitted, would make short work of the ana
logical way of reasoning altogether,) it seems to come with a
very bad grace, indeed, from one whose favourite topic is the
uncertainty of Scripture, without the aid of traditionary inter
pretation !
But, it is said, tradition after all is the ground upon which
you believe the genuineness and authenticity of the Scriptures
themselves. We answer. True; tradition is, indeed, the^nw-
cipal ground upon which we believe these facts, and when they
produce to us a tradition so circumstanced and verified, to any
other facts, we shall believe them also no less firmly. An his
torical tradition was the chief ground of faith in Scripture to
the Jews also ; but this did not hinder their canon from being
an exclusive rule ; and surely it is a strange logic by which it is
inferred that, because Scripture must needs depend upon some
species of external evidence, it was not intended to supersede
other means of information, where that species of external evi
dence, from the nature of things conveyed, which are doctrines
and not facts, can neither apply so certainly, nor is to be had in
• Lectures, p. 332.

36
anything approaching to the same degree of strength, if it could.
In fact, if it were nothing else, experience shows that the differ
ence between the two cases is immeasurable, since it is found
impossible, permanently and materially, to corrupt a book, the
copies of which are scattered over a great surface, whereas
nothing is more certain than the frequent corruptions of mere
oral traditions of doctrines, however widely diffused. Nor can
the arguments already adduced be shaken until some tradition
of a fact, intended to be revealed to us, can be produced, s-up-
ported on similar historic evidence to that upon which the
authenticity of Scripture rests, or it can be shown to be a valid
consequence that because one truth, peculiarly circumstan
tiated, might be safely trusted to an universal tradition, very
peculiarly circumstantiated also, therefore a great body ofva/rious
doctrines, rites, and ceremonies, might be just as safely trusted
also to the same conveyance.
There is this great disadvantage (amongst many others) at
tendant upon oral tradition, as a means of conveying doctrines,
that, whatever is comraunicated to us by another, takes such a
colour from our own habits of raind and modes of thought, and
becomes so interwoven with our own inferences and deductions,
from what we take to be its meaning, that when we come in our
turn, to transmit what we had received to others, the original
deposit is no longer what it was, but marvellously enlarged and
altered from its primitive simplicity. Thus, when the number
of minds through which it has to pass is considerable, the first
tradition is so greatly (but, at the same time so insensibly)
changed by the influence of individual opinions, and prevailing
fashions in philosophy or religion, that, at last, like Ovid's
young lady — Pars minima est ipsa puella sui,
Mr. Keble, we doubt' not, is a stout Arminian, and utterly
opposed to Calvinism in every shape and form ; let us then take
an example, where he will feel its stringency. Had the books
of the New Testament never been written, but the information
contained in them delivered down, in the same form of words,
to be transmitted to posterity by oral tradition only, can any
one doubt but that the Synod of Dort, for instance, would
have as unhesitatingly determined, that the tenets of Arminius
were contrary to the Holy and Catholic Tradition of the Church,
as they did determine them to be opposed to the sacred Scrip-

37
tures ? Being (as they were) uncompromising Calvinists ; and
persuaded (as they were) that the Calvinistic sense of revela
tion was its legitimate and proper meaning, it is impossible that
they could have acted otherwise. Put, now, the Dordrechtan
in the place of the Nicene Fathers, and Mr. Keble will be
obliged to own the wisdom of God's providence, in placing us
in a condition to judge for ourselves, whether those who pre
tend to be the depositaries of Christ's traditions, have, in reality,
formed a just and adequate conception of their meaning. For
the difference between the case supposed, and the case actually
existing, is just this : — in the former, we should be wholly de
pendent on the testimony of persons — the teachers of the
Church ; — who, being from various prejudices and false princi
ples deceived themselves, must needs also lead those astray
who follow in their track : in the latter, we are not dependent
on persons at all, but on the authentic record' itse\?, of that in
spired preaching, from which our teachers as well as ourselves
must ultimately derive their information. In the former case,
we should have to take the water of life, as we found it in its
distant streams, discoloured and defiled by the foreign tincture of
every soil it traversed in its progress : in the latter, we drink it
at the fountain-head, as it springs, in all its native freshness and
unsullied purity, from beside the eternal throne of God.
But to come from general to particular instances ; we do not
hesitate to say that there is nothing which, with any shadow of
reason, has been attempted to be proved an universal tradition
in the early ages, which cannot be much more clearly traced to
the apostles, through the medium of the Holy Scriptures. For
our own parts, without intending to disparage the applauded
labours of Bull and ^^'aterland, we must own that the doctrine
ofthe Trinity seems to us to be capable of a proof from the
Bible far simpler, easier, and more evident than any which can
be produced to show that it was the universal belief in the age
after the apostolic.
" Were the Scripture revelation," says Dr. Clarke, " like the
heathen pretended oracles of old, only one single obscure sen
tence, it might, indeed^ with some colour of reason have been
alleged, that for the right understanding of it, it were necessary
to depend on other following authorities. But the case of the
Scripture revelation is far otherwise. Our Saviour's own dis
courses are here set down at large, in no less ths^nfour different

38
Gospels. The doctrine his disciples preached afterwards, is
recorded distinctly more than once in the Acts of the Apostles ;
and the controversies that arose in their own times, gave occa
sion further for very large and particular explications of that
whole doctrine in their several Epistles. There are contained in
the New Testament, twenty-seven several books, written at dif
ferent times, and in different places, by eight several inspired
authors: and the texts of each author may, in case of difficulty,
be compared with other texts of the same author, in other parts
of the same book, and with other texts of the same author in
different books, written upon other occasions ; and, moreover,
with the texts of other inspired authors, writing likewise upon
the same subject. And can it enter into the heart of any rea
sonable man to imagine, that after all this, any doctrine of ira
portance should not, in such large, such explicit, such repeated
instructions, be made known as fully, as clearly, and distinctly,
as the Revealer of it intended it should be known at all ? The
writings of any uninspired author are usually well enough
understood, by impartial persons comparing one place of his
writings with another, and considering without prejudice what is
the result of the whole. And is the Scripture alone such a
book, as, in doctrines of great importance, and mentioned in
almost every page of the book, nevertheless, by the most diligent
study, and by the most careful comparing of the several texts,
one with another, and interpreting the figurative expressions by
the plain ones, cannot at last be understood without some new
authoritative explication?" Letter to Dr. Wells, &c. pp. 17, 18.
Nor can we see any reason, even from the Fathers themselves,
to lead us to suppose that they were in possession of any such
authentic body of traditions as Mr. Keble speaks of. Irenaeus,
indeed, in the second century, appeals to tradition ; but against
whom ? — and for what ? Against heretics who pretended to an
oral law, delivered down from the apostles, and for the purpose
of establishing partly the mere obvious fundamentals of the
Gospel, (which he affirms, and we know without him, to be
abundantly clear in Scripture — nay, so clear that the heretics
rejected it for that reason,) and partly the genuineness and
authenticity of those very Scriptures themselves. When the
good father travels beyond these, it is but too evident how
grievously he hallucinates ; as, for instance, where he alleges
the apostolic tradition that Christ preached for near twenty

39
years ; which, however, we know to be false upon some better
evidence than the equally apostolic tradition, vouched by Clemens
Alexandrinus, that he preached only one year. It is in defence
of the same simple truths that Tertullian's great book of the
Praescriptions is designed. His argument displays all his cha
racteristic dialectical subtility. The Neologians of those times
urged the text, " seek and ye shall find," as a pretext for still
searching for discoveries in the fundamentals of Christianity ;
which inquiry they pursued by a perverse application of the
false and arbitrary principles of allegoric interpretation, common
amongst the Fathers themselves, to such portions of the sacred
text as they chose to admit for genuine. Tertullian answers
that this command was addressed to those who were not yet
believers, but the Scriptures were given to the church, who
became members of that body by the belief of certain funda
mental doctrines ; and he prescribes against them (as the language
of the civil law was) by an appeal to the notorious faith of all
the churches then in the world, to show that they had no right
to claim an interest in the Scripture, which was only given to
the church. We may think as we please of this arguraent ;
which, to say truth, like most of Tertullian's, is rather perplex
ing than convincing ; but certainly it shows that he was aware
of no universal tradition relating to any thing but the very
elementary parts of the Christian Revelation — such parts as,
with any reasonable principles of interpretation, are abundantly
clear from the Bible itself. It was not until after his time that
it began to be discovered how much more favourable the dim
twilight of tradition was to the prestiges of priestcraft, than the
broad steady illumination of scriptural truth.
Mr. Keble seems to feel the difficulty of making out, in
particular cases, any circumstantial and full evidence of the
apostolic origin of the traditions he is contending for, and he
takes the following strange way of getting out of it : —
" If any one ask, how we ascertain them ; we answer, by application of
the well-known rule, Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus ; Anti
quity, Universality, Catholicity: tests similar to'those which jurists are used
to apply to the common or unwritten laws of any realm. If a maxim or
custora can be traced back to a time whereof the memory of man runneth
not to the contrary ; if it pervade all the different courts, established in dif
ferent provinces for the administration of justice ; and, thirdly, if it be
generally acknowledged in such sort, that contrary decisions have been
disallowed and held invalid : then, whatever the exceptions to it may be, it is
presumed to be part and parcel of our common law. On principles exactly

40

analogous, the Church practices and rules above mentioned, and several
others, ought, we contend, apart from all Scripture evidence, to be received
as traditionary or common laws ecclesiastical. They who contend that the
very notion of such tradition is a mere dream and extravagance ; who plead
against it the uncertainty of history, the loss or probable corruption of records,
the exceptions, deviations, interruptions which have occurred through the
temporary prevalence of tyranny, heresy, or schism ; must, if they would be
consistent, deny the validity of the most important portion of the laws of
this, and of most other old countries."
Now, 1st, as to the rule of Vincentius Lirinensis, it has
always appeared to us a sounding nothing ; for by always
admitting an appeal to the age preceding it brings us back
ultimately to the times of the apostles, and their writings, which
are no other than the inspired Scriptures theraselves. Now, as
Bishop Taylor well puts it, " he that is near the head of the
Volga, need not go to the place of its junction with the sea, and
thence trace it back again, but may well spare his pains in that
particular by beginning where that tedious search would end."*
2. The analogy of civil courts is here nothing to the purpose ;
by reason that, in them, it is not ahstract truth, but public con
venience, which regulates the practice ; and, therefore, settled
custom, and the advantages thereof may well weigh against
speculative exceptions : nor is it necessary, for his ready obe
dience, that every citizen should be sincerely persuaded that a
maxim is grounded in reason, or a particular exposition of a law
right, but only that it is taken and allowed to be so by the public
authorities, who are the constituted judges of such matters.
When Mr. Keble can show us that it is the same in the Church
of Christ, we shall confess that his analogy is of some avail.
But who constituted the Fathei-s judges for us of the true
meaning of holy Scripture, or where is there a vestige to be
found of a traditive interpretation of Scripture ? What Father
ever claims such a possession for hiraself, of the earlier and
better ages? or thinks himself absolutely bound by the deci
sions of his brethren ? Surely, so learned a man as Mr. Keble
raust have seen Whitby's Collection of Jewels out of this " rich
mine;" and yet with a perfect knowledge of the ridiculous
principles which they followed in expounding the Scriptures, he
perversely determines to follow the results of so strange and
unreasonable a method of exposition. How ill-adapted rainds
* See Lardner in his Credibility on Vincentius.

41
schooled in the wrong principles of those tiraes were to appre
hend rightly the true genius and drift of Christianity, any
reader of the New Testament will be able to decide, who reflects
on the perpetual mistakes and misconceptions of the apostles
themselves before their illumination by the Holy Spirit, and the
dread which, after that event, they uniforraly exhibit of an
accommodation of the Gospel to that false philosophy and vain
deceit which had so deeply tinged the intellects of men, that
there was scarce a possibility of their own pure doctrines passing
through thera without being discoloured by sorae sordid stain.
Let us consider that one of the strongest marks of that divine
inspiration, under which the Scriptures were coraposed, is the
difference which is to be found in their whole tenor from the
prevailing tone and cast of thought in that generation — the
absence of that sophistical chicane, and those mistaken notions
of morality, which spoiled the logic and defiled the ethics of the
age that they were penned in, and which, if God had not inter
posed, would certainly have intruded themselves even into the
sanctuary ofhis word, and profaned it by their unholy presence.*
Now, works so much beyond their age were not likely to be best
understood by those who came fresh from the study of models
full ofall the imperfections and vices which then predorainated.
And in point of fact, it is notorious that the earliest Fathers,
such as Barnabas, Cleraens, Justin Martyr, Irenseus, and Origen,
are the most intolerable and fantastic expositors, while the later,
who went upon the principles of common sense, are much to be
preferred, as Chrysostom, Gregory, Basil, and, above all, Theo
doret. We had intended to enter into a pretty large exaraination of
the peculiar circurastances of the early church, and those traits
in the character of the Fathers which render thera very unsafe
guides in matters of either faith or discipline, but our contract
ing limits warn us to conclude. We trust that, either explicitly
or substantially, we have answered raost that, with any show of
novelty, has been urged from the other side upon this important
subject. As to the old, and often refuted arguments, borrowed
from the armory of a Bellarmine, a Perron, or a Bossuet, we
might easily make a parade by repeating the answers of a
» We rejoice to see that a new edition of Daille on the Fathers has been
lately published. Mr, Osbum on the errors of the early Fathers raay also be
consulted.

42
Chillingworth, a Stillingfleet, a Daill^, or a Claude ; but we hope
that the day is coming when our students will be so conversant
with the immortal works of those great defenders of our faith,
as to be quite safe from the blunted shafts which have recoiled
from their shields. We have no lack of weapons ready to our
hands — " In our halls is hung
Armour of the invincible knights of old ;''
and the panoply of proof, which has been tried in many a stern
encounter, will be found still sufficient protection against the
keenest sword of the skilfulest polemic.
There will still, of course, remain much specious declamation
upon the dangers of private judgment, and the presumption of
opposing our reason to the sentence of the Catholic Church,
That the student of Holy Scripture is beset with dangers, we
do not mean to deny ; but, in this world of trial and temptation,
is there any place in which, if he will manfully perform the
duty which God has assigned him, he can hope to be exempt
from them ? Or is there any danger more pressing or more
pernicious than that of shrinking from the labour which the
Almighty has allotted to the sons of men to exercise themselves
therein ? — any temptation more seductive than that sloth which
would induce us to take refuge in the decisions of an infallible
authority, or that impatience of contradiction which raakes us
unwilling to tolerate any difference of opinion, and prompts us
to domineer over the faith of our brethren, when we are unable
to convince their reasons ? The wheat and the tares must grow
together, until the harvest of the earth is ripe. The final deci
sion of our disputes must be put off until that great day, when
the only Infallible Judge, " unto whom all hearts be open, all
desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid," shall come
to reward and punish his servants ; then, if those who have
squandered their Lord's money shall be visited with righteous
vengeance, we may be sure that neither shall they escape who
have buried their talent in the earth, and neglected to traffic on
that stock, which was only intrusted to them to be used.
To conclude with the admirable summary of Bishop Taylor :
" Since the Fathers, who are the best witnesses of traditions,
yet were infinitely deceived in their account ; since sometimes
they guessed at them, and conjectured by way of rule and dis
course, and not of their knowledge, not by evidence of the

43
thing; since many are called traditions which were not sO,
many are uncertain whether they were or no, yet confidently
pretended — and this uncertainty, which at first was great
enough, is increased by infinite causes and accidents, in the
succession of sixteen hundred years; since the Church had
been either so careless or so abused, that she could not, or would
not, preserve traditions with carefulness and truth ; since it was
ordinary for the old writers to set out their own fancies and the
rites of the Church, which had been ancient, under the specious
title of apostolical traditions ; since some traditions rely but
upon single testiraony at first, yet, descending upon others,
corae to be attested by many, whose testiraony, though conjunct,
yet in value is but single, because it relies upon the first single
relater, and so can have no greater authority or certainty than
they derive from the single person ; since the first ages, who
were most competent to consign tradition, yet did consign such
traditions as be of a nature wholly discrepant from the present
questions, and speak nothing at all, or very imperfectly, to our
purposes, and the following ages are no fit witnesses of that
which was not transmitted to them, because they could not know
it at all but by such transmission and prior consignation ; . . . .
and, lastly, since besides the no necessity of traditions, there
being abundantly enough in Scripture, there are many things
called traditions by the Fathers, which they themselves either
proved by no authors, or by apocryphal, and spurious, and here
tical ; — the matter of tradition will, in very much, be so uncer
tain, so false, so suspicious, so contradictory, so unproved, that if
a question be contested, and be offered to be proved only by
tradition, it will be very hard to impose such a proposition to the
belief of all men, with any imperiousness, or resolved determi
nation ; but it will be necessary raen should preserve the liberty
of believing and prophesying, and not part with it, upon a worse
merchandise and exchange than Esau made for his birthright." —
Liberty of Prophesying, sect. v.

44

CHAPTER III.

THE SACRAMENTS.

It is told, we remeraber, of Archbishop Leighton, that once
when upon a periodical assembly of the presbytery to which he
belonged, the question (usual at that unhappy season) " Do you
preach to the times ?" had been put severally to each of his
brother ministers, and by each answered in the affirmative, he,
when it came to his turn to stand the interrogation, broke out
into this passionate remonstrance — " Alas ! when so many of
God's servants are preaching to the Times, will you not suffer one
poor pastor to instruct his people for eternity ?" We are afraid
that the high-church party, at the present day, are too justly
open to the sarae rebuke ; and that, in their zeal for cereraonies,
and forras, and external union — for the " tithing of raint, and
anise, and cummin" — they are apt to merge the " weightier
matters of the law'' as things of secondary importance, or as
if the necessity of inculcating them could vary with the circum
stances of the popular opinion. Of course we are not so unrea
sonable as to complain of any man, or body of men, writing
books and pamphlets to bring what they look upon as (in any
degree) important matters into public notice, or that, professing,
to treat of certain subjects, they should confine themselves to
those subjects ; but we think that where the subject is one so
important as religion, and where the advocacy of the principles
which our brethren have adopted, is so warmly and indefatigably
prosecuted as it is at present, the subordination of those things
which they are urging upon the church, to the great doctrines
which are the prime movers of saving faith, should, at least, be
distinctly recognised by Christians who know the tendency of
the human mind to deem those points most important about
which it is most excited at the moment, and the bias of our
corrupt nature to substitute a flaming zeal in behalf of externals,
for a regard of those great ends on account of which external
observances are themselves enjoined.

45
Now, we think, that we not only observe a deficiency, in this
respect, in the conduct of our Oxford brethren, but even a ten
dency in themselves to verge towards the extreme which we look
on as the goal in the direction of which their inconsiderate
behaviour is, at any rate, likely to drive their admirers. We
think that we can perceive a tendency towards that strange
notion (which, by the way, is no other than the first principle
of the Puritans,) that divine origination reduces all comraands
to the same category, or, at least, to measure their mutual subor
dination rather by the standard of church practice and the tech
nical arrangements of creeds and confessions, than by deductions
from the great tenor of holy Scripture itself, the principles of
right reason, and the spirit and character of the Gospel dispen
sation. Besides this, it is unfortunately too evident that the
masters in this new school are already possessed with such
opinions upon the most vital points of Christian doctrine, as
render it impossible for them (even if they were so inclined) to
remedy the mischief they are doing, by a sufficient infusion of
that knowledge which maketh wise unto salvation — that know
ledge without which ceremony is but an empty show, and zeal for
the church the madness of sectarian bigotry. The ablest of the
whole party, Mr. Newman, declares hiraself, on the question of
justification, a follower of Bishop Bull ; and his coadjutors, Mr.
Keble and Dr. Pusej', are plainly in the sarae sentiraents ;
and it is to be feared, that the still greater corruption of the
truth adopted by Alexander Knox frora Grotius has spread
even more widely, amongst the admirers of antiquity. And,
»n the whole, we do not hesitate to say, that we are per
suaded in our consciences (when we look upon the dangers
which threaten from without, and the ignorance, levity, and
indiscretion which are displayed by too many within our camp,)
that the great doctrine of the Reforraation — justification by
faith only — is, once more, brought into imminent peril of being
corrupted or wholly lost in England, and that its preservation
(if indeed it is to be preserved) must depend, under God, on
the earnest, but, at the same time, judicious and soberly directed
exertions of those who know and value the freeness of the
Gospel of Christ. Happily we are not without those upon our side
who are able to discharge the important task efl^ciently. We
allude to one in particular, whose former labours in support of
this great article of faith have entitled him to be considered as

4G
its chief champion amongst us. The subject, we reraember,
(though the learned author by so long delaying a second edition,
seeras half inclined that we should forget it) — the subject, we
say, has been already handled by Dr. O'Brien, in such a man
ner as that, though he asserted nothing which the Protestant
churches have not always held, and the fathers of the Refor
mation always inculcated, yet the excellence of the method,
the judiciousness and cogency of his proofs, and the lights
reflected upon the whole matter from the soundest theological
learning, and a large and comprehensive knowledge of the truest
philosophical principles, gave an air of originality to the discus
sion, which he disdained to seek for by the petty arts that novelty-
hunters have recourse to. We can propose no better model to
any who shall hereafter take part in the same most important
controversy ; and it would have been well if all who followed
him had preserved the like sobriety and moderation. It must
surely be evident to the raost careless observer that the danger
occasioned by the Oxford theology is not confined to the indis-
crirainate reception of it^by its adherents, but that peril may also
be apprehended from the inclination towards a wholesale rejec
tion of whatever comes from a suspected quarter, which prevails
so strongly in the human mind. Thus discretion is quite as ne
cessary as zeal, in those who would offer any efficient resistance
to the incursions of this active enemy.
We have been led to make these remarks by the nature of
that part of our subject which we are to treat of in this con
cluding portion of our Review, — " the last and weightiest re
mains of this great controversy" — the nature and proper offioe
of the Christian Sacraments. And, as some of the worst and
deadliest errors of the Oxonians are to be found in their doc
trines concerning these, so it will be our endeavour, in exposing
such faults, to preserve the reader from that violent revulsion
to a contrary extreme, which (unhappily) is the too natural
effect of our horror at other men's extravagance.
Man is essentially a social being, and Christianity (which was
intended to remedy the evils which he had brought upon hira
self, in this capacity as in every other,) was fraraed by its great
Author with far too skilful an adaptation to his real nature to be
left to work its effect as a bare speculative creed — " a divine
philosophy in the mind" — concerned only with individuals, and
totally irrespective of those larger aggregates, by which indivi-

47
duals are bound and knit together as members of the same arti
ficial body.
Even Natural Religion, in its naked simplicity, would have
required some external incorjioration of its merabers, and the
body is not more closely united to the soul, than the outward
observances of religion, — the necessary symbols of inward com
munion, which, operating through the fancy, are increased and
heightened by the example and sympathy of our fellows, are
associated with the internal feelings of the mind. But when
Christianity had drawn mankind into a stricter bond, and no
longer a mere sharing in common huraanity, but a participating
in the same spirit, a partaking (as St. Peter calls it) of the divine
nature, gave the fellowship of the Church a more intimate con
nexion and a holier character of sanctity, the more vivid sense of
brotherhood thus created, imparted fresh definiteness and per
manence to the form of religious society ; while our blessed Saviour
himself enforced the institution by new sanction's, and indisso
lubly linked together the open profession of his faith with the
sincere reception of it, by establishing two Fundamental Ordi
nances, as the outward and visible signs of the conveyance of
those primary graces, which form the very essential character of
Christian men as such. These ordinances, then, having rela
tion to special promises, tied to them as the enjoined pledges of
their fulfilment, and not working their effect by mere natural
means of operation, were evidently immutable in themselves, by
any but the same authority which imposed them. But such
other rites of the apostolic church as, though partaking of the
nUure of sacraments in being signs, were signs only on our
parts and not on God's, and wrought by the natural efficiency
of their significations, with a blessing derived only from the
general promise, that " to him that asketh" grace « it shall be
given"  these, it is evident had, in no respects, the same
attributes of durability. For, although God alone can declare
what shall be the tokens of his covenant with the church, yet
surely, if there be any such thing as ecclesiastical authority at
all, it must extend to those matters of outward decency in public
worship, whose propriety must ever vary with the changes of
time and place, and the fluctuation of national manners and
dispositions. Indeed, the obstinate temper of the Jewish peo
ple, (whose neck was an iron sinew,) their irrecoverable proneness
to kpse into idolatrous observances, the typical nature of their

48

ceremonies (conveying lessons which had not as yet been clearly
announced by the Spirit of knowledge and revelation,) — these,
and many other causes which might be enuraerated, rendered it
fitting that the Mosaic Law should prescribe every the least
particular of Divine worship with the minutest scrupulosity,
" according to the pattern in the Mount ;" for all which the
temporary duration and confined limits of that economy afforded
the greatest facilities. Accordingly we find in the Old Testa
ment, that full and complete directions were given upon this
subject, and the strictest injunctions iraposed neither to add to,
or dirainish from, the smallest particle of what was coraraanded.
But now, in the case of the Christian Church, which is a
society at large, universal in its extent, and perpetual in its
duration, informed by the most perspicuous declarations of the
Divine will, and supported by the full outpouring of the Holy
Ghost, (which is the distinctive feature of the present dispensa
tion,) a similar exactness is obviously not required. Hence the
perfect canon of our religious duty — the New Testaraent — con
tains no body oi AetsiileA precepts on such subjects, and furnishes
us with nothing but a very few hints, and those extreraely
obscure and ambiguous, of even the practice of the priraitive
coraraunities. Yet, so strangely do sorae men contrive to put
things together, this same circurastance of the gospel's being
A Law of Liberty,* has been raade the foundation of a
directly opposite conclusion, and certain warra adrairers of an
tiquity in these " Tracts for the Tiraes" would fain persuade us
that the raain difference between the two dispensations consists
in the greater difficulty of discovering the precise requireraents
ofthe Christian ritual — the vagueness of its promulgation being
compensated by the zeal of its subjects to discover and comply
with its prescriptions. — (See vol. 1. Nos. 8, 45.) While the
acknowledgment that " the Epistles were not written to pre
scribe and enforce the ritual of religion" is, with equal perverse
ness, raade a reason for looking for it in the gaudy pageants of
the church of the fourth century — (Mr. Keble's preface to
Hooker — the tract on the ancient liturgies, and No. 34, vol. 1,
on the Rites and Customs of the Church^ The last mentioned
* " Christ's Gospel is not a Ceremonial Law, (as much of Moses' law was,)
but it is a religion to serve God, not in bondage of the figure or shadow, but
in freedom ofthe spirit," Preface to Common Prayer,

49
of these references is, indeed, most curious in many respects ;
curious for its garbled and interpolated authorities* — curious for
its precarious and inconsequential reasoning.
» We are sorry, we say it unaffectedly, to be obliged to notice two in
stances of what we can scarcely help calling rather discreditable management
in the writer of Tract 34, vol. 1. of which the mention of this subject
reminds us. In the third section of Tertullian's book De Corona Militis
occur these words — " Hanc [observationem] si nulla Scriptura determinavit,
certe consuetude corroboravit, qua! sine dubio de traditione manavit. Quo
modo enim usurpari quid potest, si traditum prius non est? Etiam in
traditionis obtentu exigenda est, inquis, auctoritas scripta. Ergo quseramus
an et traditio non Scripta non debeat recipi," &c. &c. To this authority
the writer of the tract in question appeals — how reasonably we do not now
inquire ; though we may remind the reader of Hooker's judgment, that the
book was written in a passion, and that, " as men's speeches uttered in heat
of distempered affection, have oftentimes rauch more eagerness than weight,
so he that shall mark the proofs alleged, and the answers to things objected,
in that book, will now and then espy the like imbecility."  E. P. Book ii.
ch. V. 7. But, whether the authority were good or bad, its sense (or nonsense)
ought surely to have been given fairly. Now, the writer of this tract does not
give the Latin, (though the tract is addressed ad scholas) but, instead of it,
supplies us with the following more convenient translation :
'• Though this observance has not been determined by any text of Scrip
ture, yet it is established by custom, which doubtless is derived from
APOSTOLIC tradition." And again — " Let us examine, then, how far it is
true,' that an apostolic tradition itself, unless it is written in Scripture, is
inadmissible." The reader sees here, that the word apostolic is twice interpolated with
out any sort of warrant from the original, and how grossly unfair this repeated
interpolation is, will appear from the fact that, in the immediate context,
Tertullian himself lays it down, "that every rule binds that is accordant
with right reason, by whomsoever inthoudced ;" and omni f deli licere con-
cipere et constituere, duntaxat quod Deo congruat, quod disciplinaj conducat,
quod saluti proticiat ;" and that, of these very traditions here mentioned, he
alleges not only the confirmation of custom, but the patronage of reason,
and that he illustrates his position by the example ofa custom, which bound
the faithful before it taas sanctioned by the apostolic decision. The case, in
fact, is so plain, that RIgaltius, in his note, admits that Tertullian is not
speaking of Apostolic traditions; and the reader, if he wishes for further satis
faction upon the subject, will find the sarae point excellently proved ly the
great Daille, in his very learned discourse de Cullibus Lat. Eel. p. 53. But,
indeed, the following passage, (on which our eye has just happened to glance,
in examining the next section to that quoted in the tracts,) seems alone suffi
cient to decide the matter. " Hanc (rationem) nunc expcstula, salvo tradi
tionis respectu, quacunque traditore censetur." The quotation in the tracts
stops short but a few lines above these words.
Again, amongst other articles of his traditionary ware, Tertullian enumerates
oblations for the dead, holding it impious to fast, or pray kneeling upon a
Sunday, or from Easter to Whitsuntide, and taking it to heart if any bread
and drink, even at comraon meals, fell upon the ground. These, it is obvious,
were of rather too advanced a nature to be quite palatable lo his readers yet,
and the writer, accordingly, with great prudence, omits them.
The second authority, to which he appeals very confidently, is Sect. 66 of
S. Basil's Treatise on the Holy Spirit. Now, it would have been only fair
E

50
" Let us consider,'' says this writer, " that reraarkable passage,
(1 Cor. xi. 2. 16,) which, I am persuaded, most readers pass
over as if they could get little instruction from it. St. Paul is
therein blaming the Corinthians for not adhering to the custom of
the church, which prescribed that men should wear their hair
short, and that women should have their head covered during
Divine Service ; a custom apparently most unimportant, if any
one ever was, but in his view strictly binding on Christians.
He begins by implying that it is one of many rules or traditions
(vapaioaeii) which he had given to them, and they were bound
to keep. He ends by refusing to argue with any one who obsti
nately cavils at it and rejects it. ' If any man seems to be con
tentious, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God.'
Here then at once a view is opened to us which is quite suffi
cient to remove the surprise we might otherwise feel at the
multitude of rites which w-ere in use in the primitive church,
but about which the New Testaraent is silent ; and further to
command our obedience to such as come down to us from thefirst
ages, and are agreeable to Scripture."
Now, we are confident that no person of comraon understand
ing can exaraine the place in the Corinthians here referred to,
with an impartial and unprejudiced mind, without seeing that
the apostle is urging this maxim (not on the legitimate gover
nors of Christian coraraunities, but) upon particular members of
them, who refused to comply with the public order of the
church, because it was not founded in any natural concinnity.
The holy apostle, therefore, wisely considering that tliis objec
tion (however invalid) raight be urged by sorae weak believers
in perfect good faith, takes upon hira, in the first place, charit
ably to remove their scruples by showing them what they
required — a sufficient reason in the nature of things for the
fitness of the practice objected to. Thus far he condescended
to satisfy the doubts of honest, though weak, inquirers ; but
now, lest captious and wrangling schisraatics should pretend
that, in so doing, he had acknowledged their general principle,

to have owned that the whole of this passage is pronounced spurious by so
considerable a critic as Erasmus. Bishop Stillingfleet, we remember, takes
one of his adversaries very roundly to task for producing it as genuine, and
if the reader will look at the works of that great prelate, vol. iv. p. 235, he
will find that he has confirmed the opinion of Erasmus with no slight or dei-
picable arguraents.

51
and urged insufficient exceptions to its special application in
the present case, he hastens to cut the matter short with this
pereraptory decision : — " If any raan seeras to be contentious,
we have no such custom, neither the churches of God." A
maxim which holds equally against those wrong-headed votaries
of antiquity who disturb the peace of the congregation, occasion
scandals, and excite dissension and tumult in the church, by
their ill-timed zeal to restore such rites and ceremonies as
(however ancient) have long since fallen into desuetude, or been
superseded by ecclesiastical authority.
In a word, the apostle certainly implies that the commonly
received customs (at one period) of the church are not lightly
to be violated by particular raembers of it, but he says not a
syllable from which it can be fairly inferred that the example of
the church in one age is obligatory upon the legitimate gover
nors and body corporate of the church in all ages and situations.
But let us look at another instance (which by the way is a fa
vorite one with Mr. Keble also.)*
" In the original institution of the eucharlst, as recorded in
the gospels, there is no mention of consecrating the elements ;
but in 1 Cor. x. 16, St. Paul calls it ' the cup of blessing, which
we bless.' This incidental information, vouchsafed to us in
Scripture, should lead us to be very cautious how we put aside
other usages of the early church concerning this sacrament^
which do not happen [let the reader mark the word] to be clearly
mentioned in Scripture ; as e. g. the solemn offering of the ele
ments to God by way of pleading his mercy through Christ,
which seems to have been universal in the church, till popery
corrupted it into a superstitious aud blasphemous ordinance."
We apprehend that the learned author is here equally wrong
in both of his positions. 1. The consecration of the elements
(as he calls it) happens to be mentioned by all the three Evange
lists who happen to relate the institution of the Eucharist at all.
St. Matthew's words are : — " As they were eating, Jesus took
bread, and blessed it (evXaryrjcrai) and brake, &c. &c. And
he took the cup, and gave thanks (evxaptar'^tra'!,) and gave
unto them," &c. &c, Matt. xxvi. 26, 27.
* " Where but in the ancient liturgies  can we find assurance that in
tbe Holy Eucharist we consecrate as the apostles did ?"&c. Keble, p. 38.
As if we had to do, not with a merciful God, but some malignant demon, who
would take advantage of the least slip in the prescribed formula of incantation,
to break in upou the unskilful necromancer, and tear hira to pieces.

52
St. Mark, in like manner, — " And, as they were eating, Jesus,
having taken the bread, and blessed it , (evXar/rjaat) brake it,
and gave unto them, &c. ; and, taking the cup, he gave thanks,"
&c. Mark xiv. 22, 23.
Lastly, St. Luke, — " And taking bread, he gave thanks, and
gave unto thera," &c. Luke xxii. 19.*
2. Until either this writer hiraself, or some other of his party,
can make some satisfactory reply to Waterland's masterly refu
tation of Mede, and the other two, (whose names we should be
ashamed to associate with the illustrious Hierophant of the
Apocalypse,) we raust persist in thinking that the notion of the
unbloody sacrifice seeras to have been as little talked of in the
pure ages of primitive antiquity, as in the reraains of the sacred
writers -which happen by good luck to have corae down to us.
But the palpable inconsistency of the whole system lies in
this, that, whereas they hold the church bound to follow exactly
the pattern of apostolical discipline and ritual, they yet make no
difficulty of confessing that, ia a thousand instances, it is im
possible with any degree of certainty to discover what that
pattern prescribes, and thatj frora the imperfection of the medium
through which it was transmitted to us — the magnified convey
ance of oral tradition.
Now surely the great legislator of the church must have
foreseen the accidents which have occasioned this fatal loss, and
was certainly as well able, if he had judged it necessary, to
preserve, by his good providence, the code of Christian discipline
perfect and unimpaired, as the canon of Christian faith. That
he did not, therefore, take steps for the accomplishing such an
end, is an arguraent against the necessity of any such code ;
• It is evident, from a comparison of these places, that JuXaysa fin this
connexion) is merely synonymous with 'n/xx^irTcu ; and that St. Paul's
iTOTiijiav iuXoyix; aUudes to the nSTin t31D of the Jews ; — See Reland's
Ant, Heb. p. 427. See Grotius's excellent note on Matt. xxvi. and Casau-
bon. c. Baron. Exercitat, xvi. No. xxxiii. tit. 'tuXoyix. Before we dismiss
this subject finally, we wish to observe (in reference to another remark of this
sarae writer's) that MiTou^yos (and its derivatives) denotes the office of a public
minister of religion in general, without any special reference to liis sacrificial
functions. Xi'iTou^yos is applied in the New Testament to the apostles, os
preachers, Rom. xv. 16; to civil magistrates, Rom. xiii. 6 ; to those who
ministered to Paul's necessities, Phil. ii. 25 ; to angels, Heb. i. 7, 1 4. In the
place immediately referred to, Acts xiii. 2, the Syriac renders it, " Whilst
they were praying to God and fasting." See Schleusner in voc.
The Bourdeaux Testament took a similar view of the matter with our
friend at Oxford, rendering it — " or comrae iis effroient au seigneur le sacrifice
de la masse," &c.

53
since the necessity (if there be a necessity) must needs hold
equally of every part alike, and the obligation extends indiscri
minately to all. Besides, if apostolic practice be a perfect rule
in rituals^ it is as wrong to add to as to diminish from our
example : but now, in taking church ceremonies as they have
come down to us, we may be quite certain that we take them
thickly encrusted with the deposits of corrupter ages, while yet
it is quite uncertain where the line of division is to be drawn.
Here then the law of liberty is raade to bring us under the yoke
of a worse than Egyptian bondage ; for not only are we required
to search for straw to make our bricks, but the straw itself is
placed studiously beyond our reach. In the case of the sacra
ments, (which all acknowledge to be of permanent obligation,)
our merciful Master has dealt with us very differently. Their
institution is distinctly recorded ; the consequent practice of
them carefully noted ; and their use and nature diligently ex
plained in the great charter of salvation, the standing rule of
the church's privileges and duties. They are not intrusted to
the faithless guardianship of tradition, or left to be irremediably
mutilated or disfigured by the arts of knavish priests, and the
dotages of a superstitious laity ; — the same lively oracles which
preserved Christ's doctrine pure,
" When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones,"
bore witness also against the tyrannous captivity in which his
sacraments were held, when the blessed tokens of the Holy
Spirit of God were made part of the juggleries and witchcraft
of the Roman sorceress. To this really important part of our
subject we gladly hasten back, and are only sorry that we have
been diverted from it so long, that what still remains of space to
us will admit of nothing more than a hasty and superficial
glance at many topics of no slight weight and dignity.
It has long appeared to us, that there has prevailed among
persons professing what are callad evangelical sentiments, a
certain unfounded, and (may we add,) morbid apprehension of
some inconsistency between high thoughts of the proper efficacy
of the sacraments— (baptism especially) and those doctrines of
free grace and justification by faith alone, which they deservedly
consider as the warrant of " all their salvation and all their
hope." This apprehension, an apprehension which Luther, and
Jewel, and Cranmer, and Ridley, never seem to have experienced,

54
IS turned to no small advantage by their opponents ; and partly
by the loud assertion of the latter, and partly by the timorous
concessions of the former, the public is raade to believe, that
they must either degrade the sacraments to the rank of mere
significant emblems, with only a natural operation through their
meaning, or else deny that faith is any whit more instrumental
in the raatter of our justification, than any other of those virtues
by which our baptismal purity is preserved, and which are
wrought within us, by the continual supplies of grace, derived
from the other great channel of supernatural assistance. But
our old divines, as we said just now, were strangers to such a
notion. " The Papists," says Hooker, " pretend that to sacra
ments we ascribe no efficacy, but make them bare signs of in
struction or admonition ; which is utterly false, for sacraments
with us are signs effectual : they are the instruments of God,
whereby to bestow grace : howbeit, grace not proceeding from the
visible sign, but from his invisible power. ' God, by sacraments,
giveth grace :' (saith Bernard :) ' even as honours and dignities
are given, an abbot made by receiving a staff, a doctor by a
book, a bishop by a ring;' because he that giveth these pre
eminences, declareth by such signs his raeaning, nor doth the
receiver take the same but with effect ; for which cause he is
said to have the one by the other ; albeit, that which is bestowed
proceed wholly from the will of the giver, and not frora the
efficacy of the sign." — (Appendix to Book v. no. 1 . Keble's edit.)
Supported by so high an authority, for the consistency of free
grace and sacramental efficacy, we shall not hesitate to advance a
little further into this matter, raore especially as the laying down
sound and general principles upon the subject will be necessary
for giving a full answer to some dreadful perversions of the doc
trine of baptismal regeneration, which have been advocated by
Doctor Pusey.
The Christian church is that great society, which our Saviour
has instituted for bringing all nations to the obedience of faith.
This is his visible kingdom upon earth ; and, as he requires that
all who believe in him in their hearts, shall also confess him
with their mouths, so he has been pleased to raake this society
the depository of his ordinary graces, proralsing, in a solemn
manner, to bless the word preached, to answer the prayers
offered up, and to ratify the necessary acts of discipline exercised
in the lawful assemblies of its raembers. The full idea of a

65
Christian, then, is not completed, until we contemplate him not
only as united internally with Christ, but externally also with the
whole body of the faithful.* For the better securing this, our
Lord instituted the two sacraments : which, lest they should be
neglected by the spiritual, on the one hand, as mere outward
rites, he made efficacious of heavenly graces ; and, lest they
should be perverted by the carnal on the other, he contrived as
symbolic representations also, which signify the functions of
genuine faith, by their obvious and expressive meaning. Thusj
as in the Supper of the Lord, he has promised that his body
and blood, in all their sacrificial virtue and life-giving efficacy,"!"
shall be present to the mind of the worthy receiver of it, so he
has provided that the very rite itself should be a significant action,
betokening, in a manner not to be misunderstood, that mental act
of faith in which the value of it consists, and which he strengthens
us to exert, if we avail ourselves, in humility, of his appointed
means. As in Baptism, likewise, our pardon is sealed to us, a right to
all the privileges and graces which attend church-fellowship con
signed, and a pledge imparted of that covenant by which the
assistance of the Holy Ghost is engaged to guide us all our life
long with his counsel, and afterwards receive us with glory, so
the very outward ceremony conveys to us, by a simple and affect
ing figure, the lesson that our souls are by nature defiled with sin,
until purified by the sanctification of the Spirit, and that we must
hy faith go down and be buried with our Saviour, in his grave,
before we can thus rise again with him from the dead, to the
newness of a spiritual life.
This notion of Baptism, as the seal of the New Testament, in
which God visibly makes over to us, rightly receiving it, a title to
the gift of the Spirit, by whose effectual working our fallen nature
• Mark, for instance, how St. Paul puts belief and confession together.
Rom. X. 9, 10. , . ,
t Dr. Pusey treats it as no slight error to affirm that " the sacramental
participation of Christ is the same as that out of tbe sacrament." Now, to us
it appears that our Lord has done tbjs very thing, when in John vi. he makes
coming unto him and believing on him synonymous with eating his flesh, ho
our church, in the Rubric, at the end of the coramumon of the sick_" The
curate shall instruct him, that if be truly repent him of his sins, and steadfastly
believe that Jesus Christ had suffered upon tbe cross for him, and shed his
blood for his redemption, earnestly remembering the benefits he hath thereby,
and giving him hearty thanks therefor, he doth eat and drink the body and
blood of Christ profitably to his soul's health, although he do not receive tht
sacrament with his mouth."

56
is regenerated ; — and the annexing an outward means to this
particular grace seems no more to derogate from God's free
mercy, than the annexing grace in general ordinarily to the use of
means in general. This notion — we say — will help us clearly to
perceive that the grace of baptisra is (not one instantaneous
effect, but) co-extensive with that state into which it introduces
us, and the provisions of that covenant whereof it is the appointed
obsignation. This whole grace is called Regeneration,* which
not only iraplies that a man has faith and repentance wrought in
him, and is consequently Justified for Christ's merits, but, being
thus qualified, has been incorporated into the Church, and is
brought under the habitual direction of the Holy Ghost the
sanctifier. Of this grace, some is actuaUy given before we can
be baptized, and is only sealed in that sacrament ; (as the produc
tion of faith and repentance, and our ensuing change of state in
God's eyes, which he declares to us in this ceremony) — sorae,
God works in us when we are baptized, and conveys in the
rite, (as the confirraation of our faith, the corafortable assu
rance of pardon, and the iraparting of federal privileges, as
before explained ;) — some, continues to be given to us to the
latest hour of our existence here — and some is no other than
the glorious fruits of a happy eternity in heaven. In one word,
regeneration (in its complete though not only sense) raay be
taken to regard the Christian in his social as well as his indivi
dual capacity, and the Church militant in the world is as truly
THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH of the Ciiurch trium
phant, as the Christian's life here is the same as his eternal life
* In the beautiful words of Bishop Home — " The gradual and complete
work of our sanctification is carried on, through our lives, -by tbe Spirit of
God, given in due degree and proportion to every individual for that purpose.
And it is marvellous to behold, as the excellent Bishop Andrews observes,
how, from the laver of regeneration to the administration ofthe viaticum, this
good Spirit helpeth us, and poureth hisbenefits upon us, having a grace for
every season. When we are troubled with erroneous opinions, he is the Spirit
of truth ; when assailed with temptations, he is the Spirit of holiness ; when
dissipated with worldly vanity, he is the Spirit of compunction ; when broken
with worldly sorrow, he is the Holy Ghost, the comforter. It is he who,
after having regenerated us in baptisra, confirms us by the imposition of hands ;
renews us to repentance when we fall away ; teaches us all our life long what
we know not ; puts us in mind of what we forget ; stirs us up when we are
dull; helps us in our prayers; relieves us in our infirmities; consoles us in
our heaviness; gives us songs of joy in the darkest night of sorrow; seals us
to the day of our redemption ; and raises us up again in the last day; when
that which was sown in grace shall be reaped in glory, and the work of sanctifi
cation, in spirit, soul, and body, shall be completed."

57
hereafter— the same in kind, though infinitely differing in degree.
At any rate, conceding thus rauch of the substance, we are not
disposed to quarrel with Dr. Pusey about the mere name of
baptismal regeneration, however odious he and his party have
rendered it by the fearful errors which they have attached to it.
Let us briefly apply these principles to the difficult case of
infant baptism. That infants are incapable of salvation, is a
proposition so shocking to every mind that understands the terms
of it, as to have found scarcely any abettors in the worid. That
they can be saved otherwise than through the raerits of Christ,
will be maintained by no one who does not deny the doctrine of
original sin, and with those who do, we have, at present, no
concern. From these premises it seeras to follow that an explicit faith
in the Redeemer cannot be a condition to infants, who are phy
sically incapable of such an act. But now, since the sacra
ment of baptism was designed as the seal of pardon (which in
fants stand in need of, and raay obtain) — as the pledge of spi
ritual assistance, (which may operate on their minds, we know
not how soon, and which they doubtless lack from the first dawn
of reason, to the last hour of their existence) — and as the title
to federal privileges, (which the analogy of the Old Testament
shows us may belong to children who are to be brought up in the
doctrine and communion of the church) — finally, since infants
being thus plainly capable subjects ofthe sacrament, our Saviour
has expressly declared, that " except a man be born again
OF -water and of the Spirit he cannot see the kingdom of
God," we cannot but assent to the grave judgment of our
church that, " the baptism of young children is in any wise to be
retained, as most agreeable to the institution of Christ." But
is not this to deny that justification is by faith only ? By no
means. Faith becomes the condition — the only condition — of
the covenant upon our part as soon as wo are capable of per
forming it, and that pardon which is sealed unconditionally to
the infant, is sealed prospectively to the man under the charac
ter of a true believer. If he fail, and as long as he fails, the
full benefits of the gracious promise to him in that sacrament
are suspended, but he that has bidden us " to be merciful as
our Father which is in heaven is merciful," will still work for
his name's sake to renew the backslider once more, and, if he
turn again and repent, will assuredly forgive his sins. But until

58
actual rebellion appears, we are, at least, bound to presitme
the contrary. This the strictest raaintainers of particular re
demption will acknowledge. " We speak of infants," says the
judicious Hooker — " as the rule of piety alloweth both to speak
and think. They that can take to theraselves in ordinary talk, a
charitable kind of liberty to name raen of then: own sort, God's
dear children, (notwithstanding the large reign of hypocrisy,)
should not methinks, be so strict and rigorous against the church,
for presurahig as it doth of a Christian innocent. For when we
know how Christ in general hath said, of such is the kingdora of
heaven, which kingdora is the inheritance of God's elect; and
do withal behold how his providence hath called them unto the
first beginnings of eternal life, and presented them at the well-
spring of new-birth, wherein original sin is purged, besides which
sin there is no hindrance of their salvation known to us", as thera
selves will grant ; hard it were that having so many fair induce
ments whereupon to ground, we should not be thought to utter,
at the least, a truth as probable and allowable in terming any
such particular infant an elect babe, as in presuming the like of
others whose safety, nevertheless, we are not absolutely able to
warrant." The sacramental efficacy of baptism, then, may be
safely held in connexion with the perfect freeness of the Gospel
plan of justification, but when disjoined from that great truth
it is changed from wholesome medicine to the deadliest poison.
Let us listen to one of Dr. Pusey's expositions of his doctrine of
Baptismal Regeneration .-
" Although the privileges annexed to regeneration are elsewhere spoken of,
and the character of mind thereto conformable. — our sonship, and the mind
which we should have as sons, our new creation — yet these are spoken of as
already belonging to, or to be cultivated in us, not as to be begun anew in
any one received into the covenant of Christ. There are tests aff'orded,
whether we are acting up to our privilege of regeneration, and cherishing the
spirit therein given to us, hut there is no Ain* that regeneration can be obtained
in any way but by baptism, or, if totally lost, could be restored. We are
warned that, having been saved by baptisra through the resurrection of Jesus
Christ, we should no longer live the rest of our time in the flesh to tbe lusts
of men, but to tbe will of God, (I Pet. iii. 21 — iv. 2); that 'having been
saved by the washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost,
we should be careful to maintain good works', — (Tit, ii. 1,8.) And again,
those who had fallen in any way are exhorted to repentance; but men are
not taught to seek for regeneration, to pray that they may be regenerate; it
is no where implied that any Christian had not been regenerated, or could
hereafter be so. The very error of the Novatians, that none who fell away
after baptism could be renewed to repentance, will approach nearer to the
truth of the Gospel, than the supposition that persons could be admitted as
dead members into Christ, and then afterwards for the first time quickened.

59
Our life is throughout represented as commencing when we are, by baptism
made members of Christ and children of God : that life may, through our
negligence, afterwards decay, or be choked or smothered, or well nigh extin
guished, and by God's mercy again be renewed and refreshed ; but a com
mencement of spiritual life after baptism — a death unto sin, and a new birth
unto righteousness, at any other period than that one of first introduction into
God's covenant, is as little consonant with the general representation of Holy
Scripture, as a commencement of physical life after our natural birth is with
the order of his providence." — pp. 14.
" The effect of our preaching, as it does not depend upon ourselves, so
neither may it be our test of its soundness ; and that, simply, because we can
at the best know but a very small portion of its real effects or defects. Our
concern is, whether it be according to God's word. And it behoves us rauch
to ascertain, by patient, teachable study of that word with prayer, whether it
be right to make the way of repentance so easy to those who, after baptism,
have turned away from God ; whether we have any right at once to appropriate
to them the gracious words with which our Saviour invited those who had
never known hira, and so had never forsaken him, and with which, through
the church, he still invites his true disciples to the participation of his most
blessed body and blood : — ' come unto me, ye that labour and are heavy laden ;*
and whether, having no fresh ' baptism for the remission of sins' to offer, no
means of ' renewing them to repentance', we have any right to apply to them
the words which the apostles used in inviting men for the first time into the
ark of Christ ; whether we are not thereby making broad the narrow way of
life, and preaching ' peace, peace,' when, this way at least, ' there is no
peace.*"— pp. 207,208.
Our readers, we imagine, will be somewhat startled with this
doctrine. It will be new to them to hear that it is only in bap
tism that our sins can be forgiven, and the Holy Ghost imparted
to us ; and still more strange, perhaps, to learn that the visible
church is crowded with men once regenerate, but fallen from
their first love, who have no means left them to which a promise
of forgiveness is attached, and who would be wholly without all
glimpse of hope, if Dr. Pusey and the fathers had not kindly
discovered a path through penitence and maceration, by which,
if they do not obtain eternal life, they may at least earn " a
freedom from punishment." (St. Ambrose de lapsu Virginis,
quoted p. 63.) But no, we cannot speak lightly of so dreadful
an error — an error of which we have not words strong enough
to express our detestation. We have not, we say, language for
cible enough to express our intense horror at a minister of the
gracious gospel of him who came to seek and to save the lost,
putting coolly forward the assertion, that araong the thousands
of debauched and blaspheraing, although once baptized, and
therefore once regenerate Christians, by whom he is surrounded,
there is not one to whom he can address that blessed message,
" Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved."
The promise even under the old law was, " When the wicked

60
man turneth away frora the wickedness which he hath coramitted,
and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul
alive ;" and the Gospel, speaking as to children, in a dearer and
a tenderer voice, assures us, that " Hira that cometh unto Christ,
he will in no wise cast out."
Dr. Pusey, then, raust either say that there is no appointed
means of coming to Chirst for one who, throwing away the
filthy garraent of his flesh, seeks, in singleness of heart, to
be clothed with God's everlasting righteousness ; or, that the
Spirit never works true faith and repentance in those, who, once
washed in the laver of regeneration, have been unmindfiil of
their heavenly calling, and grown up in the way of sin, instead
of the nurture and adraonition of the Lord. The first proposi
tion would be too horrible, we think, even for the merciless
doctors of the Oxford school ; and the second (blessed be God !)
receives its best confutation frora the experience of raany a happy
believer who can testify that God has raade his darkness to be
light, and can show forth also the change to his brethren by a
consistent and unblaraeable conversation in the world.
True it is, that the instrument of baptism is connected with
the energy of the Holy Ghost in Scripture, in a way that no
other mean is ; — i. e. as a thing done upon God's own part for us.
But, we know also, that the Spirit, " which bloweth where it
listeth,'" is not tied to any means whatsoever, and that it was
only its prescription that made water necessary, in the cases
wherein it was prescribed.*
* Dr. Pusey, aware of the objection that might be drawn from the church's
application of such texts as Matt. xi. 28, in the communion service, endea
vours to prove that they are only intended for those whom (what he calls)
the ancient discipline of the church would have allowed to be present. The
evasion is monstrous, and, if it needed a refutation, is completely refuted by the
latter part of tbe exhortation prescribed in announcing the celebration of the
sacrament, where those who are described as blasphemers, slanderers, adul.
terers, are, on their repentance, invited to come the very next Sunday. In
the visitation of the sick, also, the minister is required to give absolution upon
confession made. We cannot resist quoting the following, from a peculiar
office of the Irish Church, for malefactors under sentence of death : —
•' Despair not of God's raercy, though trouble is on every side ; for God
shutteth not up his mercies forever in displeasure ; but if we confess our sins,
he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, &c. Do not either way
abuse the goodness of God, who calleth us mercifully to amendment, and
of his infinite pity promiseth us forgiveness of that which is past, if with
a perfect and true heart we return to him.'
Again — ".Now you are the objects of God's mercy, if by repentance
and true faith you turn to him  Now you may claim the merits of
Christ," ^c— Offices for the Visitation of Prisoners.

61
However, let us look at what Dr. Pusey has elsewhere done
to explain or modify this horrihile decretum:
_ « On one point, I fear that the doctrines of the ancient church are so dis
tinct from modern ultra- Protestant theology on the one hand, (as also) from
the Romanist on the other, that the view which I have exhibited of the cha
racter of grievous sin after baptism raay cause perplexity. It cannot be
otherwise ; and I pray only that it may be healthful. For our modern sys
tem, founded, as it is, on the virtual rejection of baptisra as a sacrament, con
founds the distinction^ot grievous sin before and after baptism, and applies to
repentance, after falling frora baptisraal grace, al! the proraises which, in
Scripture, are pledged, not as the fruit of repentance simply, but as God's
free gift in baptism. Yet our reforraers thought differently ; for, had their
theology been like our's, there had been no occasion for an article on 'sin
after baptisra,' (article 16,) or for denying that every such sin is sin against
the Holy Ghost, and unpardonable. It had been matter of course. The possi
bility or efficacy of such repentance / have not denied; God forbid : but that
such repentance is likely, especially after a relapse, or that men who have fallen
can be as assured of the adequacy of their repentance as they might have been
of God's free grace in baptism, daily experience, as well as the probable mean
ing of Scripture, forbid us to hope  Again, the pardon in baptism is
free, full, instantaneous, universal, without any service on our part ; the
PABDON on repentance, for those who have forfeited their baptismal pardon,
IS SLOW, partial, gradual, as is the repentance itself, to be humbly waited
for, and to be wrought out through that penitence  Again, the
penitent must regard hiraself not raerely as a novice, but as a very weak one.
He has already cast away the arraour wherewith he was clad ; he is beginning
an irksorae, distasteful course ; and having already failed, it becoraes him not
to be impatient of suspense, or too confident in his new steadfastness, but to
be content to wear ' doubt's galling chain,' until God shall see it healthful for
him gradually to be relieved. The fears and anxieties whereof he ignorantly
complains, and would rid himself by the one or the other systera of theology,
is a raost important, perhaps an essential condition of his cure, otherwise God
would not have sent troubles often so intolerably : —
But where is then the stay of contrite hearts ?
Of old tliey leaned on thy eternal word ,¦
But with the sinner's fear their hope departs.
Fast linked, as thy great name to thee, O Lord.
Man desires to have, under any circumstances, certainty of salvation through
Christ. To those who have fallen, God holds out only ' a light in a dark
place, suflEcient for them to see their path, but not bright or cheering, as they
would have it : and so, in different ways, man would forestall the sentence of ,
his judge ; the Romanist by the sacrament of penance, a modern class of i
divines by the appropriation of ihe merits and righteousness of our Blessed j
JRedeemcr ; the Methodists by sensible experience : our own, with the ancient -'
Church, preserves a reverent silence, not cutting off hope and yet not nur
turing an untimely confidence, or a presumptuous security. A further question
will, probably, occur to many ; what is that grievous sin after baptism, which
involves the falling from grace ? what the distinction between lesser and
greater — venial and mortal sins? or if mortal sins be " sins against the
decalogue," as St. Augustine says, are they only the highest degrees of those
sins, or are they the lower also ? This question, as it is a very distressing one,
I would gladly answer if I could, or dared. But, as with regard to the sin
against the Holy Ghost, so here also Scripture is silent. " What that mea
sure is," to apply to St. Augustine's words, " and what are the sins, which
prevent men's attaining to the kingdom of God — it is most difficult to dis.

62
cover, and more dangerous to define. I certainly, much as 1 have laboured,
have not yet been able to decide any thing. Perhaps it is therefore con
cealed, lest men's anxiety to hold onward to the avoiding of all sin should
wax cold — But now, since the degree of venial iniquity, if persevered in
is unknown, the eagerness to make progress by more instant continuance in
prayer is quickened, and the carefulness to make holy friends ofthe mammon
of unrighteousness is not despised."_(Preface, pp. 13, 14, 15.)
Dr. Pusey endeavours to confirra this hateful doctrine by the
good old plea of tradition. The testimony, such as it is, is con
tradictory and weak enough, but we protest against the use of
such an argument altogether. The full, clear, and explicit teach
ing of the holy apostles, in the form in which they designed
that it should continue the perpetual rule of faith to the universal
. church is in our hands, and may be exarained by our own
eyes ; and are we to suffer conclusions derived frora this to be
overborne by such vague talk as the " Audivi a quodam pres-
bytero, qui audierat ab his, qui apostolos viderant" — the " I saw
a man, that saw a man, tliat said he saw the king" — of an
IreucEus ? Now, where in Scripture has Dr. Pusey learned this
succedaneum ? — where has he been taught any secondary way to
heaven, besides that great and living way, which we tread by
faith in the Son of God? If this "doctrine and practice of
repentance" be true at all, it must certainly be a raost important
article of our faith. Let him show it to us then (if he can)
in the Bible, and not in the uncertain relics of a mutilated and
corrupt tradition. But all that he seeras able to tell us frora the
Bible is, that it represents the sins of Christians as so black and
heinous, that to repent of them raust be " the work of a whole
life ;" and that " if any man say that he have repented of any
great sin, thereby meaning that his repentance is ended, or
sufficient, he has not repented, perhaps not yet begun to repent as
he ought ;" (p. 81) and indeed if our repentance were to be a
compensation for any sin, whether great or small, it should be
the work not of a life, but of all eternity ; if it were a price to
purchase God's favour, it could never be sufficient. But we need
not add that it is neither ; the compensation has been made ; the
price has been paid — an inestimable compensation, and an
infinite price ! God now waiteth tb he gracious, not to inflict
vengeance. " If any man sin, we have an advocate with the
Father, Jesus Christ the righteous ; and he is the propitiation
for our sins." If our repentance be sufficient to make us ffeel
that we are helpless in ourselves, but that he is willing and able
to help us, — that we are ruined and undone, but that we may

63
trust in him for life, and health, and all things, — if our repent
ance, we say, is sufficient to do this, why then we have repented,
and, as the blessed fruits of that repentance, we are " the
heirs of heaven," and may rpfoice in God, through our Lord
Jesus Christ. We are happy to add, that some of those who
are in general inclined to symbolise with the Oxford school, have
taken alarm at these shocking and offensive sentiments ; and
we cannot close this subject better than in the noble burst of
indignation in which one of them protests against the frenzy of
his brethren.
" Where is the minister of Christ in London, Birmingham, or Manches
ter, whom such a doctrine, heartily and inwardly entertained, would not drive
to madness ? He is sent to preach the Gospel, What Gospel ? Of all the thou
sands whom he addresses, he cannot venture to believe that there are ten who,
in Dr. Pusey's sense, retain their baptismal purity. All he can do, there
fore, is to tell wretched creatures, who spend eighteen hours out of the
twenty-four in close factories and bitter toil, corrupting and being corrupted,
that if they spend the remaining six in prayer — he need not add fasting — they
may possibly be saved. How can we insult God, and torment man wifh
such mockery? — But who urge us to take that course? The very
men to whora we — mere journeymen, appointed to live in the noise and
hurry of the world, not in the quiet of colleges, looked for deUverance
from the Calvinistic theology by which we were pressed out of measure,
so that we despaired even of life. When we were feeling the intense, the
intolerable misery of being obliged to treat these poor people as outcasts from
God's mercy, of whom one or two might find their way to the waters of
healing, if an angel first went down and trotibled thera ; when we were
tormented with the horrid contradiction of having to say in one breath
'believe,' in the next 'you cannot believe;' now, 'you ought to look
upon God as a gracious and loving Lord,' then, 'we have no proofs that
you are some of the elect children whom he loves.'  These kind
doctors told us, or seemed to our longing ears to tell us, of a theology
which taught that our people were still under the covenant of God's holy
baptism ; that the love of God was brooding over them ; that the grace of
Christ was given to them ; that the energy of the Spirit was with them,
to put them in possession of true righteousness. Now all this comfort is
taken from us ; and, if we believe our instructors, we have a worse mes
sage to deliver than before. But, although we be xvi^aim xy^x/ipxToi xxi
itiuTxi only picking up snatches of knowledge here and there, and thankful
that a race of men has been provided, of larger capacities and greater
leisure, who may impart to us what little we are fitted to receive ; yet we
have also the forms of the church, and the word of God, and a holy com
munion, and the Holy Spirit; and so long as these are continued to us,
we will not, in this solemn matter, give place to these doctors m subjection,
no, not for 'an hour. We will assert that the covenant of baptism encom-
passes the publicans and hariots to whom we preach ; let thera have as
little of baptismal purity as they may, we will preach repentance to them on
this ground, and on no other— that they have a Father, and that they raay
arise and go to hira ; that they have a Saviour, and that he will deliver thera
frora all their enemies ; that they have a Spirit given to them, and that he is
willing and able to cleanse them from their sins, and to endow them with the
blessing which they need— righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy
Ghost,"  Letters on the Kingdom of Heaven, Sfc., vol. I.

64

POSTSCRIPT.

The Oxonians, from the want of a little careful discrimina
tion, have run themselves into strange confusions about the
extent of human ignorance, and the narrowness of human
reason. These considerations, which Bishop Butler brings
in for the purpose of obviating difficulties raised against a
system, supported by a great weight of positive evidences, are
alleged (by men who fancy themselves his disciples) in a way
which — if fairly followed out — must lead into the very wildest
labyrinths of Pyrrhonic scepticism. That is to say, they are
alleged as in themselves, a reason for absolutely distrusting any
judgraent that we can forra as to the greater or less probability
of things. We are very ready to acquit the Oxonians themselves
of any perception of the real tendency of their favourite argu
raent ab ignorantid, but it is certain that their mode of rea
soning is one which, in the hands of a Hurae or a Bayle, would
prove subversive not only of natural and revealed religion, but of
all the principles of ijioral evidence in the commonest affairs of
life. To discredit the probable conclusions of human reason,
however narrow, on account of dark possibilities that lie
beyond its field of vision, is the favourite jugglery of the
academic sophist, and should be carefully shunned by the
Christian divine.
This fault is very observable in all their controversies ; but in
none more so, perhaps, than in their mode of discussing the
question concerning fundamentals. The Oxonians are extremely
anxious to show that we can have no certain guide to determine
fundaraental verities, and distinguish between essentials and non
essentials, except only the tradition of the Catholic Church.
For this purpose they have done their best to decry every attempt
to classify or arrange the doctrines of revelation, by the assist
ance of reason, exaraining the matter, and comparing it with
the design of that revelation — and, in short, seem as effectually
to make Scripture a mere dead letter, without the informing
soul of ecclesiastical interpretation, as a Bellarmine or a Bossuet
could desire. The subject is a very trite, but a very important

65
one. It naturally held a prominent place in the dispute
with both Romanists and Socinians. As against the former, it
has been most ably discussed by Chillingworth, in his well-known
and immortal work, the Religion of Protestants, &c., especially
chap. iii. As against the latter, few have examined it with more
patience and general accuracy, than Waterland, in his celebrated
charge upon this very subject, and in the former part of his
" Iraportance of the Doctrine of the Trinity."
We the more gladly refer to Waterland, as his unirapeachable
orthodoxy raakes him a witness omni exceptione major, and
vindicates him from all suspicion of Latitudinarianism.
There are one or two obvious distinctions with respect to this
matter, which we should not think of noticing, if the way in
which it has been treated by such able men as Mr. Newraan and
Mr. Keble did not convince us that the most obvious things may
escape the notice of very clear-sighted persons, when hood
winked by a favorite prejudice.
First, then, let it be observed that the question concerning
fundamentals is one which we become involved with, rather in
our social, than in our individual capacities. To each man,
individually, whatever he discovers to be a matter of Divine
Revelation is indispensably requisite to be believed ; be the
place that it seems to hold in the economy of grace, high or
low. But when societies come to settle the terms of commu
nion among themselves, then the great question arises : — which
doctrines are we to select as fundamental ? To frame a rule
adequate to comprise all possible cases, is obviously impossible.
The maintainers of tradition grant this just as readily as we do.
All that can be done, in either way, is to determine, in general,
what doctrines are of such a nature as that, supposing the ordi
nary degree of knowledge and natural capacity, the explicit belief
of them can be fairly deemed necessary to salvation. Now,
here, it is material to observe, that the weight of proof is, of
course, thrown upon the affirmer. This simple remark, plain
as it is, destroys almost all the plausibility of the sceptical ob
jections of our opponents. For, from hence it appears, that we
are in much greater danger of adding to, than diminishing from,
our catalogue of essentials ; or, in other M-ords, that we are, by
the common ties of charity and forbearance, brought under a
plain negative obligation to insist upon nothing as fundamental,
but what we see, by clear and evident reason, to be so plainly
F

66
and unambiguously revealed that no man of the ordinary stan
dard can, without culpable negligence or gross dishonesty, miss
of finding it in Scripture, and what is indissolubly connected
with sorae duty, or other moral end, which revelation itself
represents as a uniforra object of its disclosures. This being
once understood, it will be apparent, at first sight, that the
objections ab ignorantid to such a raodeof proceeding are wholly
impertinent and out of place.
It is possible, indeed, though not at all probable, that God
may have some end which he has not given us any hint of, and
yet equally important with those most evidently revealed, and
for the compassing of which other doctrines, connected in no
conceivable way (or very remotely at least) with the ends we
do see, are absolutely necessary. This, if they will, is a possi
bility, and proper, perhaps, to be urged as a reason why every
one should do his utmost to understand, to the fullest extent,
the whole counsel qf God. But such a possibility, it is plain, can
be no reason for any man or body of men to act on towards
others, because their general duty is to communicate with their
brethren, except so far as they see good grounds for doing other
wise. And a bare possibility cannot be such a ground ; because,
if that were admitted, then (since the highest degree of proba
ble proof always leaves a possibility of the contrary) we could
never reasonably act on any thing less than either sensible or
demonstrative evidence. The old Protestant way of settling
fundamentals, therefore, rests upon these simple principles:
that, whatever God has made absolutely necessary for the sal
vation of men in general, he has revealed with sufficient clear
ness to be understood by raen in general ; and that we are able
to deterraine, in gross, that sorae things are so plainly revealed
that no raan of common understanding (if he be unprejudiced)
can fail of seeing them. Again, that we have no right to deter
mine any thing to be essential, but what Christ and his apostles
declared to be so, or else what is raanifestly necessary for sorae
end distinctly recognised as indispensible in Scripture. This
is not to assume (as the writer of one of the tracts sup
poses, vol. 2, tract 78,) that we are acquainted with the teko^
TeXewraTov, or ultiraate end of the scheme of redemption ; nor
was there any need to allege the authority of Bishop Butler*
* Bishop Butler, indeed, is a special favorite with the whole school, and
may safely say things which would bring down the sternest castigation on a

67
(whom the whole school are constantly quoting, and as constantly
amiss) to show us the arrogance of such an assumption. It
only assumes that we are informed of the end, for which a
partial revelation of that incomprehensible scheme was made
to us, so far as we are personally concerned therein, Now
that that end is the restoration of our ruined nature is, over
and over again, distinctly asserted in holy Scripture : and that in
every possible variety of expression ; so that a man can scarcely
open a page in the Bible without finding that charity, holiness,
and virtue are the end, and faith and hope the means by which
those perfective graces are wrought within us.
But this writer all along confounds the end of the revelation
as it concertu us, with the final end and object of the whole
scheme, as it concerns the universe ; and so has run himself
into such inextricable labyrinths of falso reasoning, that his ar
gument against systematic theology is little better than a con
tinued GKiofiaxi-a, from one end to the other. For our own
parts we confess that we feel little or none of that morbid hor
ror of the system which is at present so fashionable ; and cannot
but think that both reason and Scripture itself lead us to expect
that we shall be able to discover in Revelation some traces of
that order and harmony which characterise the works of wisdom.
That the scheme of Providence, natural and supernatural,
as it is objected to the divine mind, forms one great consistent
whole, the parts of which have a mutual subordination and de
pendence, is what nobody, I suppose, will question. The nar
rowness of our faculties obliges us (as I just hinted) to consider
this scheme, in itself one and indivisible, under two distinct
notions — that of nature, and that of grace. These, having
both the same author, and containing both the workings of the
less trusted writer. For instance, Mr. Erskine is gravely rebuked in this
tract, p. 19, for asking (very reasonably, we think) "what is the history of
another worid to me, unless it has some intelligible relation to my duties and
my happiness ?" Yet what is this more than the bishop had said before him—
" That which makes the question concerning a future life to be of so great
importance to us, is our capacity of happiness and misery. And that which
makes the consideration of it to be of so great importance to us, is the sup
position of our happiness and misery hereafter, depending upon our actions
here Without this, indeed, curiosity could not but sometimes bring tbe
subject • • • ¦ before our thoughts. But reasonable men would not take any
further thought about hereafter, than what should happen thus occasionally
to rise in their minds," &c.— Anal. Part I, chap. ii.
At vos Trojugence vobis ignoscitis !

68
same attributes, must be supposed to bear a close analogy to
each other. Now experience teaches us that, by a diligent
examination and comparison of the phenomena, we may, in
some degree, arrive at a true conception of the system of na
ture. I say, in some degree ; because (in consequence of our
want of any ideas at all of many links in the chain, or of ade
quate ideas in others, or of faculties, diligence, and power of
attention, for working upon such ideas as we have) it is vain to
expect that finite creatures shall ever be able to coraprehend
the whole of a plan, in which it is reasonable to suppose that
all the energies of the Almighty have scope for the develop
ment of their various operations. Accordingly, the doctrine of
a PLUS ultra is one great distinction between -the new and
the ancient philosophy. It would, therefore, appear highly
probable that we should he able to obtain a like true, but im
perfect, conception of the system of grace also, if we have
but patience and modesty enough to investigate the phenomena
in this case as diligently as in the other, and acquiesce in a frank
confession of partial, or of utter ignorance, with respect to the
reasons and relations of many of its departments. If the sys
tematic divines have failed, it was because, like the systematic
philosophers, they endeavoured to raise a perfect edifice, and to
raise it upon a wrong foundation.
They erred, in short, (not in their principle — that revelation
is a system — but) in their method of ascertaining what sort of
system it is. For, instead of gathering their notions of it from
the phenomena, and taking the parts in those relations only in
which Holy Scripture itself represents them, they assumed the
Aristotelic Categories as their infallible standard, and stretched
the phenomena, as it were, upon the rack of the scholastic
logic. The subjects with which such a science as speculative
theology (for it was as a speculative, not a practical science,
that they regarded it) ought to be conversant, were drawn out
under the proper heads of their technical doctrine of method ;
and to every question that dialectic skill could raise upon these,
the Bible was compelled to return an answer. Thus, the inter
pretation of Scripture became, in their hands, nothing raore
than the knack of spinning the greatest possible number of
common-places (as they were called) out of each single text ;
which was considered, not in its relation to the context, or the
general tenor of Holy Writ, but as it stood connected with the

69
logical arrangements of these profound commentators them
selves. If we sought the same end, or employed the same
means as these men, we raight fairly be reproached with the
example of their ill success ; but if we have avoided the fatal
rock on which they ran themselves, there is no reason why we
may not profit by their errors, and derive encouragement from
the miscarriage which has been employed to damp our hopes.
But further, the inspired writers theraselves assign a greater
degree of dignity to some doctrines than to others. Of this we
shall give an instance in the very one which our Oxford friends
complain of being put too prominently forward by the evangeli
cal divines — the doctrine of the atonement. Indeed we
have been told in the last volume of the Tracts for the Times,
that the doctrine of " Christ crucified" is not the doctrine of
the atonement, but the doctrine of mortification, and "the
naked exposure of so very sacred a truth," reprobated as " un
scriptural, dangerous, and incautious." But they must allow us
to say, we have not so learned Christ ; and which of us has
learned of a better master let the Spirit of truth decide. We
desire neither to live nor breathe if we be found opposers of
God's Holy Word. But if it witness for us and against them,
then let them beware how they hide the candle of the Lord
under a bushel, and obscure the glorious Gospel of the grace
of God. " Brethren," says St. Paul, " I declare unto you, the
Gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received,
and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye
keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless yc have
believed in vain. For I delivered -unto you, ferst of all, that
which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins {virep
iSiv ifiapii&v ^jpCbv) according to the Scriptures." 1 Cor. xv. 3.
Where, if not here, is the vicarious sacrifice of Christ explicitly
mentioned ? Is not this, think you, the doctrine of the atone
ment ? Yet this is the very doctrine which St. Paul delivered
to the Corinthians first of all, as the message of salvation. And
this will show us the true meaning of other plac-es in the same
epistle which have been miserably perverted by these men.
"We preach," says the apostle, " Christ crucified to the
Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness." Now,
here it is said, that it was nothing but preaching up the neces
sity of mortification that could appear foolishness to the Greeks.
This I say, is affirmed by men who have read Plato, and know

70
that he defines philosophy to be " a perpetual meditation on death
and disentanglement from the body"* — by raen familiar with
the precepts ofthe Stoics, and the eloquent declamations of the
Alexandrian school. No, however unwilling the Greeks might
be to practise mortification, they could not call it foolishness —
but let it pass. " The notion," they say, " now prevailing is
alterative to the world, in the naked way in which it is put
forth, so as rather to dirainish, than to increase a sense of re
sponsibility and consequent humiliation.'' Commend us to such
reasoners — because the doctrine of the atonement may be per
verted if set forth alone, therefore it ought not to occupy a
prorainent place in the statement of the Gospel. Why, the
very notion of an important fundamental doctrine contains the
idea of its being pregnant with practical consequences, and in
timately connected with the whole systera of revealed truth.
We call doctrines important in relation to an end ; and, if they
are not so put forward as to bear their proper relation to that
end, they are not really put forward as important ; they are
not really used, but abused. Now the question between us and
the Oxonians is (or ought to be) this — Whether the doctrine of
Christ's atoneraent, as such, is of importance to be put prominently
and explicitly forward as a means of obtaining the great end for
which the Gospel is preached ? and not. Whether the bare naked
reception of the theory of this doctrine is itself that end ? Let
it therefore be understood, that it is to the first of these ques
tions, and to the first only, that we answer, yea ; and that
answer we ground upon both Scripture and reason.
Now the end of the Gospel (as we all agree) may be
considered in a two-fold view — i. e. as justification or as sanctifi
cation — as the change of the relation in which we stand to God's
3 jstice ; or as the actual change within us from habits of sin,
to habits of holiness. The explicit preaching of the vicarious
sacrifice of Christ, is represented in Scripture as of prime im
portance to both these purposes. And first for justification.
" We are," says St. Paul, " justified freely, by God's grace.

• Cicero Tusc. Disp. i. 30. Tota enim philosophorum vita, ut ait Plato,
commentatio mortis est ; where see Dr. Davis's note. So Hermias in Phaadrum,
xa) h (ptXaffo^ix oVhh xkXa lirTiv, aXk' y; f/-i>.iTv] dayxTov. And Plato himself,
ol ah6as (pt\offo(pouyTi5 x-vi^ovTXt tud xx^a To ffajfix 'l^i^ufctav a^Xffccy, xxi
xxprtpovffi, xu) ob vx^a^thoaffi'/ xvTRis a.v.oii;. Pha:do. s. 71. See also
Hierocles in Aur. Carmin.

71
through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath
set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to
declare his righteousness  that he might be just, and ihe
justifier qf him that believeth in Jesus." Rom. iii. 22. Here the
proper object upon which saving faith ought to terminate, is
described to be the atonement made by the blood of the Re
deemer : and reason good, since trusting in another, is the surest
safeguard against trusting in ourselves. But to proceed. We
have already considered St. Paul's doctrine in his first epistle
to the Corinthians. Turn now to the second. " God," says the
Apostle, describing his office as a preacher of the word, " hath
committed unto us the word of reconciliation, to wit, ihat God
was in Christ reconciling ihe world unto himself, not imputing
THEIR trespasses UNTO THEM  For, HE HATH MADE
HIM TO BE SIN FOR US, -WHO KNEW NO SIN, that we might be
made the righteousness of God in him'' 2 Cor. v. 18. Yes, St.
Paul felt no niggardly apprehensionsj lest he should squander
the comforts of the Gospel, with tbo unsparing a prodigality.
" O ye Corinthians," he exclaims — " our mouth is open unto
you — our heart is enlarged. Ye are not straitened in us,
but ye are straitened in your own bowels." 2 Cor. vi. 11.
Look now at the Epistle to the Galatians, and see how St.
Paul describes his preaching to that Church. " O, foolish
Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the
truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently
set forth crucified among you." Gal. iii. 1. Do you
ask, now, what was this doctrine of Christ crucified?
You will find it at v. 13. " Christ hath redeemed us from the
curse of the law, being made a curse for us." And the same
account of the Gospel is given in the Epistle to the Ephesians.
" We have," says St. Paul, " redemption in the Beloved through
HIS blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of
his grace." Eph. i. 7. And again, « Ye are made nigh hy
the blood of Christ, for He is our peace, who hath broken
down the middle wall  that he might reconcile both unto
God, in one body, by the cross, having slain the enmity
thereby, and came arvA preached peace to you that were afar off.
ii. 15. And so also in the Epistle to the Colossians, " God
hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and translated us
into the kingdom of his dear Son, in whom we have redemp
tion through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins,r—¥ ox it

72
pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell, and
(having made peace by the blood of his cross) by him to reconcile
all things unto himself,  and you also, if ye continue
in this faith, {iv ttj ¦n-imei,) and be not moved away from the
hope of the Gospel, which ye have heard, and which was
preached unto every creature under heaven, whereof I Paul was
made a minister." Col. i. 13.
Here then where he professedly gives an account of that faith,
by perseverance in which we obtain everlasting life — that hope
of the Gospel which is to be our corafort in this state of trial —
that saving doctrine which he was ordained to propagate — you
see what a prorainent and important place is assigned in it to
the vicarious sacrifice of the Lord Jesus. And so in the
Epistles to Timothy and Titus, where he describes the raessage
which he was commissioned to deliver — " For there is one God,
and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus ;
who gave himself a. ransom for all, to be testified in due tirae ;
whereunto I am ordained a preacher and an apostle." Tim. ii. 5 .
So in the second Epistle also — " God hath saved us, and called
us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but accord
ing to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ
Jesus, before the world began ; but is now made manifest by
the appearing of our Saviour, Jesus Christ, who hath abolished
death, and brought life and immortality to light, through
the Gospel: whereunto I am appointed a preacher and
an apostle." 2 Tira. i. 10. Nor is it otherwise in that
brief sura of Christian divinity which he gives to Titus.
Tit. ii. 11 ; and again, iii. 4. Our Saviour, indeed, in his per
sonal rainistry, did not so explicitly propound his sacrifice as the
part of his office in which faith was especially to be exercised ;
because, until the sacrifice was made, the divine wisdom did
not see fit to make an undisguised and open revelation of it :
but he did not fail to intira.ate the importance which this doctrine
should thenceforth have attached to it, when his kingdora should
be authoritatively set up. For, as he says hiraself, there was
nothing kept secret during the period of his own ministry,
BUT that IT SHOULD COME ABROAD in that of his apostles,
who were enjoined to publish upon the house-tops those rayste-
ries which were whispered in their ears. Matt. x. 27. For as
Christ himself, during his sojourn upon earth, went about dis
guised in the form of a servant, in weakness and great humility,

73
Te ^omn "'^T"^ ¦". ^' ^°" ''^ ^°^ "P"" ^' resurrection, with all
the pomp and evidence of sovereignty, so the Gospel also had
Its time of obscurity in ihe humiliation of its author, that it
might partake m the illustrious manifestation of his glory. Now
what we say is, that our Lord sufficiently intimated that, when
his Gospel was to be publicly preached, this doctrine of the
atonement was to be the most important part of it. Of this,
we think, the sixth chapter of St. John alone affords abundant
proof, in which he describes that act of faith by which the
believer becomes partaker of eternal life, and without which he
has no share in that blessing, (ver. 53, 54, 55,) under the figure
of drinking his blood, and eating his fiesh— ihat flesh
which he was to give for the life of the -world.
(51.) Elsewhere in the same Gospel also, he couples saving
faith with his vicarious sacrifice, as, chap. iii. 14—" As Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the
Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in
him should not perish, but have eternal life." And again, xii. 32.
" I, if / be hfted up from the earth, will draw all men
unto me." But what completes this branch of the evidence is,
that not only was the atonement chosen out as the immediate
subject of the great standing prophecy of the Gospel under the
old dispensation — sacrifice ; but also this same doctrine is that
which was selected to form the mystical meaning of the two great
symbolic rites of the New Testament itself — Baptism and the
Lord's Supper.
Let us pass now to the second branch of our evidence-^the
necessity of the doctrine of the atonement as a raean to sanctifica
tion. "In Christ Jesus," says St. Paul, " neither circuracision
availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision ; hut faith, which worketh
by love." Gal. v. 6. Now, how is it that faith kindles up
this active affection in the mind ? St. John will tell us that is by
being exercised upon this very atoning work of the Redeemer.
" We love him, because he first loved us." And how was this
love shown ? " In this was manifested the love of God toward
us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world,
that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we
loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to he the
propitiation for our sins." 1 John iv. 9, 10, 19. " Greater
love," our Saviour himself tells us, "hath no man than this,
ihat a man lay down his life for his friends." John

74
XV. 13. "For scarcely for a righteous man will one die,
yet peradventure for a good man some would dare even to die."
" God," says St. Paul, "comraendeth his love towards us, in that
while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Rora. v. 7.
Now, look at chap. viii. 31, and raark how the sacrifice
is made the ground of all the faith, and hope, and love
together. " He that spared not his own Son, but freely gave
him for us all ; how shall he not with him also freely give
us all things ? Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's
elect ? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth ?
It is Christ that died," &c.
The great thing, indeed, in the work of sanctification, is to
have the principle of love brought to bear upon our rainds. " I
will run," says David, " in the way of thy coraraandraents, when
thou hast set my heart at liberty," Ps. cxix. 32 ; and the Gospel,
as being the law of love towards God and towards man, is em
phatically THE royal law OF LIBERTY. Ycs, love is that
great moral influence, still tending towards the centre of attrac
tion, which keeps the hierarchies of angels steadfast in their
appointed orbits ; and whose efficacy, growing stronger and
stronger, as we approach nearer to the Sun of Righteousness,
is gradually correcting the aberrations of our unbalanced souls,
and will, at last, fix them in unswerving regularity among the
glittering ranks of heaven. " Perfect love casteth out fear, be
cause fear hath torment." As we advance in love, our dread of
falling will grow less, as the danger dirainishes ; until, at last,
the great change shall be thoroughly wrought in our disposi
tions ; the habit of holiness becorae a second nature ; and fear
and danger be wholly cast out together. Then shall love, like
the fabled chain of Jupiter, be a golden bond of perfectness,
linking the new heavens and the new earth to the throne of
God himself, and uniting all creatures to each other, and to
their Lord, in the indissoluble ties of an eternal charity.

75

NOTE.

Mr. Keble, in his late edition of Hooker, is naturally desirous to rescue
his author from the suspicion of entertaining those low-church sentiments
concerning ecclesiastical governraent, which have been generally defended by
his authority. In this, we think, he has been, on the whole, unsuccessful.
But before we examine the evidence produced, we beg leave to protest
against what we shall say upon this subject being construed as a discussion of
the merits of the theological question itself, or as any thing more than a mere
literary investigation of a matter of mere literary curiosity. Whatever our
own opinions raay be, we disclaim altogether that morbid solicitude for tbe
countenance of great names, which too many of the partizans on both sides
have exhibited. It seeras pretty generally adraitted that the line of argument
adopted in the second and third books, appears, at any rate at first sight, to
favour the opinions of those who maintain the inherent mutability of all forms
of church government. But this, it is contended, arises from a confusion in
the reader's mind between accidentals and essentials — that Hooker's reasoning
really refers to indifferent ceremonies, and the circumstances of ecclesiastical
jurisdiction ; and that the phrase " a particular form of church polity," must
be taken to refer to such a form as the Puritans sought to establish, a form
exactly delineated, and circumscribed in all its minutest parts. This, we
apprehend, can appear satisfactory to nobody who has considered the context
of the pass£^es alluded to. The Puritan scheme, let it be remembered, not
only required scriptural warrant for every ceremony and constitution, but set
up a form of church govemment directly opposed to the episcopal form,
viz.:  Presbyterianism with lay elders ; and this was by far the most weighty
and important part of the discipline. In meeting it, therefore, with the general
plea of the natural mutability of raatters of discipline, as Hooker does, (for
throughout he distinguishes only between matters of faith and of discipline,
making fhe first perpetual— the second in their nature changeable)— so great a
master of reason raust certainly have meant his plea to extend to those parts
of ecclesiastical polity about which tbe question was principally concerned.
We applv the terra, form of government, in the same sense to presbytery
and to ep'iscopacy. So that to meet a claim to a jus divinum for one, by a
plea for the mutability of forms of government, is in fact to give up the
divine right of either; and accordingly, in tbe following passage be expressly
attributes mutability even to those "matters of principal weight, m which
he thinks it appears from Scripture that our Church has foUowed the practice
° «' Where'as'''' says he, "in this discourse we have oftentiines profest that
many parts of discipline or church polity are delivered in Scripture, thej
may perhaps imagine that we are driven to confess their discipline to be deli-
vered'^in Scripture, and that, having no other means '° -°"1 ';^/,^,^7 f'"" '°
artrue for the changeableness of laws ordained even by God himself, as if
otherwise, theirs of necessity should take place, and that under which we live
be abandoned. There is no remedy, therefore, but to abate this error in
them and Xeetly to let them know, that if they fall into any such conceit
he^do but a littie flatter their own cause. As for us we thmk in no respec
mey UU oui.   j^ j knowledse of it but

soMahly of it. Our persuasion is, that no age ever had knowledge of it but
only ours ; that they which defend it devised it; that neither Christ nor bis
apostles at any i

onlv ours; that they which defend it devised it ; that neither Christ nor bis
apostles at any time taught it, but the contrary. If, therefore, we did seek to

76
maintain that which most advantageth our own cause, the very best way for us,
and the strongest against them, were to hold even as they do. There must
needs be found sorae particular form of church polity which God hath insti
tuted, and which, for that very cause, belongeth to all churches — to all tiraes.
But with any such partial eye to respect ourselves, and by cunning, to make
those things seem the truest which are the fittest to serve our purpose, is a
thing which we have neither like nor mean to follow. Therefore, that ivhich
we take to be generally true concerning ihe mutability of laws, the same we
have plainly delivered," S(c.. — Book iii. u. x. sect. 8.*
Elsewhere he has said that it is " those things which are oi principal weight
in the very particular form of church polity, although not that form which
they imagined, but that which we against them uphold" which are contained
in Scripture; so that he plainly intends his reasoning, whatever be its value,
to apply to these. Let it be remembered, too, that in the commencement of
tbe dispute be had chosen the term church polity, as preferable to govern
ment, because the latter did not "comprise the largeness of that whereunto
in this question it is applied," whereas " church polity containeth both go
vernment, and also whatsoever besides belongeth to the ordering of the church
in public," and that his argument upon this subject is expressly in support of
a thesis of Archbishop Whitgift's, who is acknowledged upon all hands not to
have been a high-churchman.
But Mr. Keble has another way in store of evading the apparent force of
such passages as we have just cited. " What," says he, " do these conces
sions really amount to? Surely to this, and no more: that he waives, in
behalf of the episcopal succession, the mode of reasoning from antecedent
necessity, on which the Puritans relied so confidently, in behalf of their
pastors, elders, and deacons." — Preface, p. Ixxiii. Now, really this seems to
us a little extraordinary. What Hooker is discussing is the argument that
the form of church government lokich can be collected from Scripture, must be
of perpetual obligation, whatever that form is. He answers by showing
that perpetual obligation is to be derived, not from a mere comraand,
but from the nature of the thing commanded ; and he then goes on fo prove
that there is no declaration of God's will in Scripture making that, by an ex
traordinary decree, perpetual, which is in its nature mutable and temporary.
It remains, therefore, that those who assert Hooker's high-churchnianship,
should show upon what other principle he has taken upon him to defend the
divine right of any form of church government, in the sense in which that
tenet is held by the party who claim him as an adherent. Now, it is true
that, at the conclusion of his second book, he lays it down that where fhe
clergy are numerous, a government by bishops (i. e. in general, a subordina
tion and disparity of ministers,) ought always to be maintained. But this
he derives not from the necessity of a legitimate transmission of orders, (upon
which ground alone bishops, in the proper sense, can be proved absolutely
essential,) but from tbe necessity for some superior jurisdiction for the main
tenance of proper discipline, which jurisdiction, for any thing Ihat appears to
the contiary, need not constantly reside in the same individual. On the
whole, then, he concludes, with Whitgift, that the Genevan platform, though
faulty and imperfect, is not such as to deprive the congregations which
adopt it of the character of churches. " For mine own part," sayshc, "al
though I see that certain reformed churches, the Scottish especially, and
French, have not that which best agreeth with the sacred Scripture, I mean
the government that is by bishops, inasmuch as both those churches are fallen
' In the sermon on pride, vol. iii. part ii. p. 771, he speaks of "all canons
apostolical, touching the form of church government, though received from
God himself, as positive laws, and therefore alterabie."

77
under a different kind of regiment ; which to remedy

IT IS FOR THE ONE

Uonrd ZblT thTs^h''"'^? 'T 'r""' '"^'=^' 0»""g their p^'es^^t afflic
tion and trouble : this their defect and imperfection I had rather lament in
'"-Ih Wtf-/ ^" exagitate," &C.-P. 518. Indeed, his agreement Iinhrou<th
with Whitgift's principles is most remarkable. That prelate's raain grounds
for defending episcopacy, as stated by Mr. Keble himself, are as foUows ¦—
" I. The whole church, being naturally the subject in which aU ecclesias.
tical power resides, may have had originally the right of determining how it
would be governed.
" 2. Inasmuch as the church did determine, frora the very eariiest times,
to be governed by bishops, it cannot be right to swerve frora that government,
in any country where the same may be maintained, consistently with sound
ness of doctrine, and the rights of the chief magistrate, being Christian."
Now it is upon these very principles that Hooker also defends the foreign
ordinations. " The whole church visible," he observes, " being the true origi-
nal subject of all power, it hath not ordinarily allowed any other than bishops
alone to ordain : howbeit, as the ordinary course is ordinarily in all things to be
observed, so it may be in some cases not unnecessary that we decline from
the ordinary ways." — Book vii. p. 285 ; and again, p. 284—" They whom
the whole church hath from the beginning used as her agents in conferring
this power, are  superiors both unto deacons and unto presbyters:
only such persons ecclesiastical have been authorised to ordain both, and to
give them the power of order, in tlie name ofthe whole church."*
Finally, it is upon this same principle that he defends St. Jerome's cele
brated aphorism. Episcopacy, he argues, was, indeed, instituted by the
apostles ; but, inasmuch as the church raight have altered that positive in
stitution, its permanence may be said, and said truly, to be rather from
custom, than any ordinance of the Lord's. Yet Mr. Keble is perpetually
arguing upon the ignoratio elenchi of showing that Hooker held the divine,
immutable right of episcopacy, by showing that he held its apostolic origin.
His concluding peroration is, however, less triumphant than might have
been expected ;
" At the same time it is unde'niable, that here, and in raany other passages,
we raay discern a raarked distinction between that which now, perhaps, we raay
venture to call the school of Hooker, and that of Laud, Haramond, and Leslie,
in the two next generations. He, as well as they, regarded the order of
bishops as being immediately and properly of divine right ; he, as well as
they, laid down principles, which, strictly followed up, would make this claim
exclusive. But he, in comraon with most of his contemporaries, shrunk
from the legitimate result of his own premises, the rather, as the fulness of
apostolical authority on this point had never corae within his cognizance ;
whereas the next generation of divines entered on the subject, as was before
observed, fresh from the discovery of the genuine reraains of St. Ignatius.
* In a note, at the end of his preface, Mr. Keble tells us that " Hooker
transferred this principle, without scruple, from civil to ecclesiastical legisla
tion ; and, as long as he could have the benefit of it, in support of the system
which he wished to uphold, was little anxious to dwell even upon the apos
tolical character, which he has himself elsewhere asserted, in behalf of that
systera." Call you this backing your friends? The defence is unworthy of
Hooker. But we would gladly quote, (if we had roora,) from the same note,
some sensible remarks upon Hooker's Erastian Theoiy of the identity of
church and state. For a more detailed refutation of the Erastian Theory,
the reader must consult the first and second books of Warburton's "Alliance,"
especially the last chapter of the second book, in which the objection, that
both consist of the same individuals, is anticipated and exposed.

18
He did not feel at liberty to press unreservedly, and develop In all its con
sequences, that part of the argument, which they, taught by the primitive
church, regarded as the most vital and decisive : the necessity, namely, of
the apostolical coramission to the derivation of sacramental grace, and to our
mystical communion with Christ. Yet, on the whole, considering his edu
cation and circurastances, the testimony which he bears to the bolder and
completer view of the divines of the seventeenth century is most satisfactory.
Their principles, as we have seen, he lays down very emphatically ; and if
he does not exactly come up to their conclusion, the difference may be ac
counted for, without suffering any fundamental variance of judgment. It
seems to have been ordered that in this, as in some other instances, his part
should be ' serere arbores, quaj alteri sajculo prosint.' His language was to
be, fuvavTx ffvviTonriv, more than met the ear of the raere ordinary listener,
yet clear enough to attract the attention of the considerate ; and this, it will
be perceived, was just what the age required."
In touching upon Hooker's opinions concerning justification, Mr. Keble
adopts that moderate tone of conciliation which his party have of late very
generally assumed. He endeavours to prove that there is, at bottom, very
little difference between his opinions and those of Bishop Bull. But, before
entering upon his proof, he tries at any rate to secure himself, by an insinuation
which we cannot suffer to pass in silence. " Hooker's compositions upon this
subject," he observes, "are mostly of an early date, when, as has been exem
plified, he hardly seems to have acquired that independence of thought which
appears in the polity." Now really this is quite unwarrantable. The sermon
upon justification was written upon a most important occasion, under circum
stances which rendered it necessary to bestow the raost careful consideration
upon every word, was elaborated with the utmost sedulity, and transcribed by
the author himself, for the purpose of having it attentively examined by his
friends. So far from betraying any symptoms of a dependent mind, it was
composed in defence of what some of the greatest theologians of the time
were startled at as a novel and dangerous paradox ; and it is inferior to none
of his other writings in originality of conception, vigour of thought, and
energy of diction. The examples referred to are, we suppose, the two ser
mons upon St. Jude. But now, in the first place, l^r. Keble himself has
very strong doubts whether these sermons are Hooker's at all ; and, in the
second, even granting their authenticity, they are so far from being a case in
point, that they make rather the other way. For the faults noted in them are
raerely faults of style — offences against that chastened raajesty for which his
maturer compositions are remarkable. Now, from such blemishes as these,
the discourse of justification is certainly altogether free. But, suppose that
the sermon actually was written (as Mr. Keble insinuates) before its author
was quite out of leading strings, is there any evidence to show that, in this
particular, his raore robust judgment corrected the weak conclusions of his
youth ? Not a particle. On the contrary, in the very latest legacy which
he bequeathed to the Church — the Fragment of a reply to " The Christian
Letter" [vol. ii. p. 700 et seq. of this edition] — he has incorporated an
abstract of this very sermon, and repeated, almost in the same words, his
former profession of belief in ihe imputation of Christ's righteousness, and
the justification of sinners by faith only.
But, be this as it may, Mr. Keble is of opinion that since " Hooker, on
the one hand, raakes the two justifications which he insists on inseparable and
contemporaneous ; and Bull, on the other, disclaims, with all possible ear
nestness, all notion of condignity, in faith alike, and in works, and in every
thing else that is ours; it should seem that, really and practically, there is no
such great difference between them." Now, while we cheerfully acknowledge
that, as long as a man sincerely disclaims all raerit in his ow-n faith, and works,
and every thing else of his own, and relies solely upon the merits of Christ, he

79
has the true Gospel faith, and holds firmly by tbe foundation— no matter what
place he assigns, speculatively, to justification, or how grossly he confounds
' i,M '"*'™"'*".'«'''.V of faith and works ;— yet we apprehend that no true
philosopher wUI be inclined to underrate the danger of even an erroneous
forra (if that were all) of conveying a substantiaUy correct statement, espe
cially where the inspired writers have taken such pains to inculcate the true
one. Nobody who knows how much depends upon the light in which we
habitually regard those doctrines that are the great springs of evangelical
obedience, and the sources of Christian consolation, will think it a raatter
of small raoraent wheiher the light in which they are considered be the clear,
steady illumination of Scripture, or the false and uncertain gleam of human
theories. Bull's hypothesis, by teaching Christians to regard their acceptance
with God as incomplete, and suspended upon their performance of certain
undefinable conditions of obedience to some imaginary code, tends (in our
opinion) directly to substitute a spirit of fear and bondage for that gkateful
LOVE which the Gospel makes the grand motive of spiritual life ; and, by con
stantly fixing attention upon a raan's own works as the means whereby (in
some way or another) his justification is to be obtained, it is fitted to pro-
duce^in minds so prone to pride as ours — a practical persuasion of merit in
those works, however definitely such a claim may be denied in speculation.
Looking upon it, therefore, as not only opposed to the plainest statements of
Scripture, but fraught with very dangerous consequences, in a matter nearly
concerning our eternal salvation, we cannot agree to that syncretism in this par
ticular which sorae persons have been so eager to recomraend, who, never
theless, theraselves show no disposition to yield a single point in those ques
tions of discipline which they consider of paramount importance.

THE END.

Dublin : Printed by John S. Folds, 5, Bachelor's.Walk,

YALE UNIVERSITY UBRARY

3 9002 03266 2000

J