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ON THE

PEESEOT STATE OF PARTIES

CHURCH OF ENGLAND
WITH ESPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE ALLEGED TENDENCY
OF THE
OXFORD SCHOOL
TO THE DOCTRINES AND COMMUNION OF
ROME.

BY REV. GEO. AYLIFFE POOLE, M.A.
INCUMBENT OF ST, JAMES'S CHURCH, LEEDS,

LONDON:
JAMES BURNS, PORTMAN STREET;
T. -W. GREEN, CROSS, AND HARRISON, LEEDS.
MDCCCXLI.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR:

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ST. CYPRIAN.
THE TESTIMONY OF ST. CYPRIAN AGAINST ROME. An Essay towards determining
the Judgment of St. Cyprian, toucliing Papal Supremacy,
SERMONS ON THE APOSTLES' CREED.
SERMONS ON ASSOCIATION.
THE CHRISTIAN'S SUNDAY EVENING, containing a Sermon for each Sunday in the Year.
THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST ASSERTED, AND THE DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT
VINDICATED, in Two Sermons.
THE USE AND EXCELLENCE OF CHURCH MUSIC. A Sermon.
ON THE ADMISSION OF LAY MEMBERS TO THE ECCLESIASTICAL SYNODS OF
THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN SCOTLAND.
THE CHURCH THE TEACHER OF HER CHILDREN, AND THE PREACHING OF
THE GOSPEL TO THE POOR A SIGN OF CHRIST'S PRESENCE WITH HIS
CHURCH. Tivo Sermons.
THE PREACHING OF CHRIST IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. An Inaugural Discoursc.
STRICTURES, on " an Address delivered on occasion of laying the First Stone of East
Parade Chapel, Leeds, by the Rev. John Ely :" with an Appendix.
JOHN ¦n'ESLEY VINDICATED BY HIMSELF : An Allegory for the "Wesleyan Centenary.
Third Edition.
THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC USE OF T'WO LIGHTS UPON THE ALTAR, for the signi
fication that Christ is the very true light of the world, stated and defended.

In the press, 1 vol. Foolscap 8vo.,
THE APPROPRIATE CHARACTBR OF CHURCH ARCHITECTURE.

THE

PRESENT STATE,

&C.

There are few persons, probably, who love the church, and
who look attentively at the passing indications of her peace or
agitation, of her weal or woe, who are not made anxious, and aa
far as is consistent with a perfect trust in God's Providence,
alarmed by the present posture of affairs. The fears of many are
foreboding defection to Popery, from a very influential school in
our own church ; and there are not wanting signs that the very
masters of that school are startled into a conviction that they have
really been instrumental in placing the faith of some of their
disciples in jeopardy. The fears of many can never be despicable,
however unreasonable they may be, for they have a natural and
powerful tendency to produce the crisis which they anticipate ;
and, in the present case, though they be founded partly on mis
apprehension, yet not being wholly without cause, they may
justify a careful view of the circumstances out of which they have
arisen — and, perhaps, call for some attempt to mitigate the alarm,
where it is unjust, or disproportionate, and to suggest the proper
remedy, where there is indeed some reasonable fear.
In the absence of any who would speak with greater authority,
I venture, therefore, to offer a few remarks upon the present state
of parties in the church, with the alleged tendency of the Oxford
B

School to the errors and communion of Rome ; and if there is any
confidence due to one who has not been driven into his present
feelings and judgment by a sudden panic, or by the more noisy
expression of popular opinion, but has held them for some time,
and seen them confirmed by many passing events, this confidence
I may fairly claim.* Besides this, I know not that I can take to
myself any other credit than that of one who heartily loves his own
church, and would humbly devote to her peace and prosperity
whatever little influence he may possess.
But let me first confess a difficulty, and seek indulgence if I be
not able to overcome it : let me, at least, obtain the credit of one
who desires to avoid offence ; and if the offence must come, let it be
without the sting of intention on my own part. Feeling with the
sainted Bishop Wilson, that " faction and party names are hateful
to God and man," I have yet to speak of certain strongly charac
terized schools within the church, and to apply to them distinctive
names : and I must shortly explain what I -mean to infer, or rather
-what I do not mean to insinuate by those designations.
In speaking of one as the Eva-ngelical school, I shall only apply
to it a title which I believe its adherents do not reject : it has,
however, sometimes been applied sneeringly ; in such a sense I will
use no word of such sacred import, neither can I use it as con
ceding that those who assume it are par excellence the Evangelical.
But the term Low Church, as applied to the same school, seems
to me fairly and not invidiously to designate them by their avowed
tenets ; and I use it on that account, and not as implying either
praise or blame. They will not be very indignant at an appellation
which assumes that they grant rather less to the authority of the
* This claim upon tlie confidence of the reader seems so important that
I shall Tenture, at the hazard of being thought obtrusive, to refer to several
works of my own, extending over a good part of the time that the Ultra-church
movement has been developing its principles, in which I have expressed dis
approval, or a warning of their unhappy tendency, though the subject has
only occurred incidentally.

church than any from vchom I shall have to distinguish them : but
I can only believe of some of them, that they hold with " certain
passages that came from Dr. Prideaux in the discussing the
questions at Oxford : —
' Ecclesia est mera chimasra.
' Ecclesia nihil docet nec determinat.
' Controversiae omnes melius ad academiam referri possunt,
quam ad Ecclesiam.
' Docti homines in academiis possunt determinare omnes con
troversias, etiam sepositis Episcopis.' "*
Nor do I use the term Anglo- Catholic as assuming any praise
for those whom I thus designate ; but merely to express what seems
to be the principle which they now feel themselves called on by
circumstances most powerfully to apply: — That the church indeed
hath power to decree ceremonies, and to determine in matters of
controversy, — but tliat to the English churchman the church of
England is for such matters The Church ; and that he must go to
the records of the church universal not to condemn his own holy
mother, but to support and to confirm her authority ; and to prove,
not to question, her teaching. But I must most emphatically
declare, that I mean to question the right of none to be called
Anglicans, or Catholics, in the fullest and most beneficial import
of these terms, who are really in communion with the Catholic
Church of England.
The same persons whom I have called Anglo-Catholics I have
also called moderate churchmen, believing that their abstract
churchism must be moderated by the deep perception of their duty
to a particular church.
That the sense of subjection to their own church has been, of
late, so modified in certain persons that they do not hesitate to
judge the church of England, as if they might take, as indi
viduals, a point of observation above her on the Church Catholic
will justify, I think the term Ultra-Churchmen, as applied to them •
but I have generally called them the " Oxford School," not as
* Autobiography of Archbishop Laud, p. 136.

6
strictly correct, but as sufficiently well understood, and most cer
tainly free from any invidious application.
A just view of the history of parties in the church, so far as their
character and conduct have tended to produce the present crisis,
will best introduce the subject before us ; and to present this I must
go back to the days of all others which an Anglican-Churchman
least likes to have forced upon his recollection, — the days of care
lessness and indifierence which filled up the greater part of the last
century. And let me here observe, once for all, that in describing the
general aspect of religion in the church, either then, or at any other
time, I am far from insinuating that there were not many varieties
of character among her members, and a large body of men who
were free from the general tendency of any great revolutions in
opinion or in practice. Many who were the salt of the church in
her least spiritual days, and for whose sake, it may be, God
refrained tJien from destroying her, and vouchsafed to her after
wards a deliverance. It is the most obtrusive party, the religious
movement, and not the real body of the church, of which I speak.
We must first, then, go back to that long period of coldness and
indifierence on which the movement of the Evangelical party, im
perfect and irregular as it was, broke -with a promise of life and
health. Different as the spirit of that day was from the bustle and
excitement of our own, it has really influenced our present state
and character not a little : for it gave the force of extraordinary
necessity to the new movement, and commended it to the afi'ections
of many good men by the contrast of zeal -with coldness : and, if
we may be permitted to say so, it is doubtless visited upon us still as
one of the sins of the nation ; and it may be, perhaps, in judgment
for our former coldness, that even the instrument of God's mercy
to us has been, in some degree, a scom-ge also. A state of con
tinued life and health had required no such potent medicine, and
needed no such painful and irregular operations.
Doubtless, as in the days of Elijah, there were then manv who

had not bowed down before the image of Baal ; but speaking in
general terms of what was plainly visible, a very cold establish-
mentarianism was all the principle of churchmanship, a very
insufficient decency was all the colour of morality, and a cold,
half-rational, half-religious theology, was too much the tone of
the divinity of those days.
Then came the startling call of the Evangelical school to greater
piety and zeal. Viewing it in its better aspect, it was like a voice
of thunder calling to a valley of dry bones, — Awake thou ihat
sieepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light!*
But this school soon assumed the aspect of a party within the
church ; and, as a party, it was sorely defective : and when it
came to give a colour to the religious face of society, the defect
was perpetuated and increased. The Evangelical movement being
deficient in some main particulars of duty and of order, and being
erroneous in many doctrinal points, the more religious part of
society, in England, assumed, at this time, a character as defective
in the order — as it was before in the spirit — ofa church. Precisely
the same thing took place in the church generally, which so fre
quently happens in an individual under analogous circumstances.
A man suddenly converted by a startling call to repentance
and faith, and entering, with energies untired but untried, on the
devotions and duties of a Christian life, does not at once become
an example of all Christian perfection. His religion is ardent, but
it is deficient in the balance of regulated feeling. Taking up his
theology at hazard, and with little better proof than its appeal to
his internal perceptions of what he wants, and with no authority
but the word of him who first spoke effectually to his conscience ;
his opinions are certainly ungrounded in him, even if true in them
selves; and are most probably fantastic and disjointed. Lighted
as by a meteor blaze to a new aspect of spiritual things, and being to
himself a great phenomenon, his religion is almost necessarily sub
jective; and his vision is introverted, because the most striking
* Ephesians, v, 14.

object is within. To him religion is feeling, and feeling is religion ;
as separated far too much from rules of action to be obeyed, and
from positive doctrines to be received and held fast. Next to the
authority of his first successful teacher, or perhaps before it, his
own sense of what is true, that is, his own feeling, is his test of
doctrine ; and hence the strength of individual opinion, and the
pertinacious stickling for the right of priva.te judgment. Throughout,
his religion is irregular, unauthorized, framed on self, and incon
sistent not only with the truth, but in its several parts. By habit
he is a churchman ; in heart and opinions a dissenter. Towards
all shades and differences of religious opinion, and to all diversities
of sects and parties he is a liberal ; if only they hold, however
combined with other things, the two or three doctrines which have
wrought most in his own mind : while against all others he is
bitter and implacable, as against so many Anti-Christs ; because
they have not received Christ just as he has. But with all this
evil, he is, however, in earnest, and anxious to please God, and on
the whole, quite as good a man as one may be expected to be, who
still bears with him the moral imperfection wrought in him by his
former sinful or careless life. As healthy as a man may be, who
has been cured of a disease which has already distorted his frame,
or preyed upon his vitals.
But his conversion is a great grace of God, and an unspeakable
blessing. And so surely, in the religious change which I have
described, we recognize, without hesitation, the hand of God :
in the agents in it we reverence his instruments ; and in its
effects we adore his grace. Perhaps the leaders in that movement
were even better adapted to the end tlien to be effected, than if they
had been more largely instructed in the truth, and more steadily
grounded in ecclesiastical, that is, in divine polity. Still they
assuredly left something to be supplied ; and this the Lord of the
church seems to have supplied, in a great measure, though as yet
but imperfectly, by the positive dogmatic reverential character ofa
school of divines, which may be. said to have originated with the

late excellent Bishop Jebb. This prelate seems first, in these
latter days, to have called the attention of the world more openly
to what was always held by the sound Anglican-Churchman,
though not so prominently advanced, — the distinctive character of
the church of England, as equally opposed to Popery and to mere
Protestantism. The view which the Bishop of Limerick so admi
rably evolved in the Appendix to his Volume of Sermons, appealed
forcibly to the hearts of many, and stimulated them to give
expression to what they felt and knew on this subject, and to carry
out their sound principles of theology in the important duties of
parish priests, while they forcibly asserted them in works which
will give them a lasting place among the standard divines of our
church. Those of whom I now speak have repudiated nothing
that is good in the Evangelical movement ; neither sneering at
spirituality, nor repressing zeal, nor denying the free and sovereign
grace of God, nor setting light by a close walk with God ; while
they have added to all this good the strength and proportions of a
sound theology : bringing out, indeed, no new thing, but reviving
and reproducing the sterling materials which were in the store
house of the sacred Scriptures, and of the church from the
beginning : — pointing, at all times, to something without us, to
laws of duty, to a visible church, to positive doctrines, to a holy
ritual, and to a sufficient authority, as objects ofa Christian's faith,
study, feelings, and obedience. And the effect thus produced in
the churchmen of the present day is most remarkable. There are,
indeed, some exceptions, and glaring ones ; but almost every where,
as a general rule, holy orders have a meaning, as well as eloquence
and piety. The episcopate and office of the bishop are now regarded,
as well as the piety and zeal of the individual prelate ; the sacer
dotal character and ministry, as well as the sermon of the preacher :
we are taught to pray with, as well as to sit under, the priest ; and
the doctrine of the communion of saints is recognized in the congre
gation of faithful men : the holy sacraments are valued, as well as
the feelings which they excite; the discipline is cultivated, as well
as the humility and holiness at which it aims : in short, in these.

10
and a thousand other instances, the teaching of the church of
England, by her living ministers, is, to say the least, brought
nearer to that of her ritual and articles.
From some cause or other, probably from the predilection of the
Evangelical school for the works of the Puritans, with whose ear
nestness they sympathized, and whose dreadful wickedness they
imputed, perhaps, to the times, rather than to the men and their
principles ; but, however, from some cause, it so happens, that
many of the doctrines and practices which Low Churchmen had
forgotten, and which the Anglo-Catholics of the present day are
recalling to their recollection, had become connected in the popular
mind with Popery. Such are, for instance, the Catholic and
Anglican doctrines of the authority of the church, " to ordain,
change, and abolish ceremonies or rites of the church, ordained
only by man's authority,"* and of its " power to decree rites or
ceremonies, and authority in controversies of faith ;"f of the right
use of tradition, and the respect due to Catholic councils and primi
tive fathers ; of the holy sacraments; of absolution ; of ordination,
and of the episcopate especially, — its divine right and apostolical
derivation. These doctrines being confused by the ignorant or pre
judiced with the Romish notions of Papal infallibility and supremacy,
of indulgences, of transubstantiation, ofthe opus operatum, &c., to
which they are, on the contrary, absolutely opposed, — the senseless
cry of " Popery" was again raised, as it had been by the mur
derers of Strafford, Laud, and Charles I.; when the authority, the
doctrines, the principles, the ritual of the church of England, were
more prominently brought forward. This was, indeed, in both
cases absurd in the extreme, and arose out of a double ignorance,
an ignorance of the real character of Popery, and an ignorance of
the principles of the Anglo-Catholic Church ; but the results were,
and may be again, worthy of serious attention, exemplifying the
words of Archbishop Laud to one Wells, a New England Minister,
who came to insult him in the tower, and upbraided him with
going about to bring Popery into the kingdom : to whom the
• Article xxxiv. t Article xx.

11
Archbishop replied, — that he was a better Protestant than he or
any of his followers ; and that he and his fellows, what, by their
ignorance, and what, by their railing, and other boisterous carriage,
would soon actually make more Papists by far, than ever he (the
Archbishop) intended.*
The Archbishop's vaticination was justified by the event, for it is
well known that there were never so many conversions to Popery,
as when the Puritan faction was at its height. Heaven forefend
that it should be fulfilled a second time ! But for something, at
least, the violence of our modern Puritans has to answer : for
partly from this, and partly also (I am free to confess) from a
natural liability of all things, however just and good in themselves,
to be driven to extremes by weak and fallible men, a modification
of High Churchmen arose, which we are obliged to recognize as
another party, differing not only in some individual opinions, (which
those who stood ready to accept their teaching, to step beyond
would scarce justify the placing them in a difierent class,) but
also in some very important principles, from those whom I have
designated as Anglo-Catholics. I need scarcely say, that I allude
to those who are maliciously nicknamed Puseyites, and who are
called, not quite correctly, yet without malice, and with convenient
conciseness, the Oxford school. Catholics, perhaps, they would
choose to be called, and, in communion, as they are with the
ehurch, far be it from me to deny the name to them, as sharing
it with them; but, as their's par excellence, and as due only, or even
chiefly, to them, I cannot use the term.
The better way to designate them will be to refer to some of thc
works in which their specific character seems to be displayed,
as distinguished from that of the Anglo-Catholic school. I have
said that the present active development of the last-mentioned
school originated with the late Bishop of Limerick; and to hia
works may be added those of Dr. Hook, Professor Sewell, and
Mr. Palmer, exemplifying the doctrines and principles by which
that school is distinguished. To these may be added the earlier
tracts for the times : but some ofthe later tracts, especially those on
• Autobiography of Archbishop Laud, p. 323.
C

12
reserve, and those on the English liturgy, and No. 90, may better
be classed together with some of the late articles in the British
Critic (those on Bishop Jewel, and on the Port Royal, for in
stance,) as characterizing the Oxford school.
The strength of this school is not numerically great ; it is appa
rently swelled by many, who will as hastily escape from it, when
they see whither it tends, as they did from the vagueness and irre
verence of Ultra-Protestantism : but still, it is a parti/ ; — (a grave
assertion, which I feel bound to make, and of which I shall, here
after, offer abundant proofs, — it is a party ;) — and actuated by a
spirit, and characterized by a principle of its own. I reserve par
ticular charges to a future page ; but I must just say, in passing,
that without having, at present, except perhaps in one or two
instances, exceeded the fair bounds of private opinion, they have
exceeded the limits within which the public expression of opinion
should be retained : and that in the principles on which theological
determinations are based, while they have not plainly contradicted
any one which an Anglican-Churchman is bound to maintain,
they have yet acted upon one, at least, which he is bound to
oppose ; — that is, they have so acted, as if the position of a
Churchman, as a Catholic, gave him a right to judge of his par
ticular church, by some so called Catholic rule, which he may
think fit to collect for himself out of the records of the church, and
to approve her, or condemn, according as this indirect exercise of
private judgment may incline him.
But before I proceed to the examination of the principles of the
Oxford school, I must justify my assertion that it has arisen, in
some degree, out of the violence of the Ultra-Protestant faction.
Let us take it for granted, at present, that the ranks of that party
have been filled from those of the Anglo-Catholics,  (which
perhaps, is not wholly false, since those of the Evangelical school
who have arrived at the other extreme, have generallv passed
through the mean) ; — we grant, then, that the ranks of the Oxford
school have been filled from those of the moderate church partv •

13
but, we add, that it nas been, in part, at least, owing to the extreme
violence of the opposition of Evangelical Low-Churchmen.
Let us consider the probable effect of such an attack upon
persons in their situation, — an attack weak beyond expression in
reason and argument, though loud and irritating enough, in the
voice of popular clamour. They are called Catholics, Sacrament
arians, Puseyites, Tractarians, Semi-Papists, Papists, Jesuists in
disguise, with other names equally opprobrious in intention, though
by no means denoting equally dangerous errors, and some of wliich
they would gladly accept in a fair sense. No wonder if they
become, by degrees, less afraid of the extremes which these names
designate, when they have begun to find the consolation of unde
served reproach in the names themselves. Their reputation and
character are associated with a party, against whom many things
are said falsely ; they are condemned together, and execrated
together : no wonder if they almost make common cause with a
foe, when they are treated as if they had already done so. And
their contest, be it remembered, is for something positive, some
thing tangible, and capable of proof. Their position is attacked ;
they cannot be driven from it by a host of negations, for against
these it is impregnable : — farther on, however, they may be tempted
to advance ; and the strength and the weakness of human reason
will be alike dangerous to them. Strong to repel the sophistical
reasonings of Ultra-Protestants they certainly are ; but they may
be weak to resist the natural consequences on themselves of the
counter-action ; and they who began Anglo-Catholics will probably
be driven from their Anglicanism, and so, indirectly, from their
Catholicism, though by a very different process from that whicii
the Ultra- Protestant expected.
Meanwhile, the position of such persons, and, indeed, of church
men in general, is made more difficult by the one-sided view whicii
the religious world takes of the present movement ; a view which
seems, in some degree, at least, even to influence the exercise of
authority. On the one side the greatest laxity of opinion is per
mitted, and even the limits of the church ritual are overstepped,

14
without danger of censure i on the other, not only occasional
expressions of opinion, where the church of England has not
spoken, are condemned, — but a rigid attention to the ritual, and a
firm adherence to the very words of her formularies, are looked on
with suspicion. The Low Churchman omits portions of the church
service, or preaches in direct contradiction to an article, or uses
some convenient expedient to shorten the eucbaristic feast, or even
(and I do not exaggerate) takes occasion from a word in the bap
tismal service to deliver, during the baptism of a child, a polemical
discourse against the doctrine of the church, and nothing is said ;
on the contrary, the voice of public opinion is loud in his praise ;
he is a zealous, pious, Christian minister : but if a Moderate
Churchman venture to approach more and more nearly, by cautious
degrees, to the real model contemplated in the ritual of the church,
and to the uncompromising statements of positive theology in the
church catechism and church service, he is condemned by those
around him, and suspected by those above him. The Anglo-
Catholic alone may have no conscience ; — none in behalf of what
is appointed, — none in behalf of what he has sworn to observe :
the other pleads conscience for private opinion merely, and his
plea is allowed, — against the observance of a most solemn engage
ment, — and he is applauded. The Anglican Churchman may not
be in love with order, without being superstitious : the Low
Churchman may superstitiously hate order, and be accounted wise
and charitable. Conscience, earnestness, submission to authority,
are denied to the one, — while to the other are permitted conscience,
superstition, and private opinion, wheresoever they show them
selves, and whithersoever they tend.
It may seem that I am dealing merely in generals, though I am
persuaded that any one who really knows the present state of
things will have examples enough crowding into his mind at each
assertion. But to exempHfy my meaning in a particular case : 
the liberty of interpretation of the formularies of our own church.
The Moderate Churchman believes that ministerial absolution has
no unmeaning or unimportant connexion with the article of the

15
forgiveness of sins ; and he refers to no fewer than three separate
forms of absolution in our church services in support of his
doctrine, and in proof that it is as well Anglican as Catholic and
Christian. Low Churchmen deny the doctrine of Baptismal regen
eration ; and some of them endeavour to make the formularies of
the church speak in their language. Now if it were possible to
find an unprejudiced person to whom to refer the question, I
would defy him to help seeing that Baptismal regeneration and the
doctrine of ministerial absolution are again and again asserted in
the services of the church. Yet, who is denied the liberty of ques
tioning the doctrine of Baptismal regeneration ? — Who is permitted
the opinion, that ministerial absolution can have any connexion
with the forsfiveness of sins ? If I insinuate that the man who
denies the grace of Baptism is not an Orthodox Churchman, I
am at once a bigot; and if I declare my belief that a con
scientious minister of the church of England may absolve a dying
man, to his present comfort, and to his eternal benefit, I am a
Papist. Such even-handed justice is awarded.
Now what is the natural consequence of all this ? Is it to be
supposed that men can be irritated on either hand, without being
hurried, sometimes, beyond due bounds ; and that they will always
endure, without impatience, an exercise of judgment which they
know to be unjust ? Will a set of men, with their faculties about
them, and with the weakness of human nature, as well as its
strength to stimulate them, sit down exactly where the unjust
judgment and the one-sided policy found them ; and not probably
be ursced a little farther than the truth ? While all around are
vacillating and unstable, can they alone be expected to stand firm
and unmoved ? And are they to be freely condemned by those
who have driven them into their present position, while they, them
selves, hold no position in steadfastness ?
I hope it is clear, that nothing here said can really tend to
justify a departure from sound Anglican principles, upon one's own
notions of the greater Catholicity of any party whatever. And
havino- now given some reasons why the Low Churchman should

16
not be too hasty to utter the cry of " Popery" I proceed to
enquire how far his alarm may be justified, though his judgment be
most erroneous ; to ask how far the writers of the most influential
works on the side of the Ultra-Church movement are justified in
the tone which they have assumed, and how far their adherents
are justified in the feeling which they have fostered. To determine
whether or no they have in any degree stimulated the minds of
those who stood ready to accept their teaching, to step beyond
the bounds of due submission to the church, and to seek, by an
individual act, freedom or redress ; — and whether their course of
proceeding has not weakened the barrier which stands between
the conscience of the English Churchman, and the rejection of
the authority and communion of his church.
The visible infiuence whicii they have had upon the public mind,
and many concurrent circumstances, determine the search, in this
instance, into the " Tracts for the Times" and the publications
of those avowedly connected with them.
Now there can be no question that the direct tendency of these
publications has been good. They have taught sound, positive,
dogmatic. Catholic Theology ; instead of the meagre, vague, un
authorized fancies of Ultra- Protestants : and the character which
they have laboured, not unsuccessfully, to commend, is a deep,
consistent, self-denying, exalting piety; instead of the bustling,
self-sufficient pretensions, which have too long usurped the praise
of a lowly, Christian deportment.
Bat combined with the solid gold, is an alloy, in comparative
quantity minute ; but, in its results, not contemptible : — a habit of
thought and feeling which has been embodied in many expressions
not sufficiently filial towards the Church of England, and sometimes
almost hostile to her. This, if it really existed, was most of all to
be deprecated in the instruments of widely extended chancres of
opinion : for while men's minds were being unsettled in many
important points, the attraction of the church of Eno-land as
a divinely constituted point of repose, and centre of unity, was
lessened, in direct proportion as it ought to be increased. It may

17
be difficult to believe that the spirit of those should be wanting in a
filial reverence, whose actual submission and obedience to the
church was irreproachable and even exemplary : yet it is scarce
possible otherwise to account for many expressions, such as I shall
have presently to adduce : and, at any rate, the effects of such
words on others have been manifest, and require to be counter
acted. There were many who were far more ready to catch the
spirit of disaffection, than to follow those from whom they caught
it in implicit obedience ; and, in these, it would, of course, produce
a practical neglect of the authority of their own church, and a con
duct which seemed to presume a liberty to go beyond the church in
its doctrines, laws, and observances. And this was the more to be
deprecated, because it was done under the name of an appeal to a
yet higher principle than the authority of a particular church : —
the Catholic consent of all churches, and the practice of the best
ages of Christianity. The warm and ardent followers of a school
which seemed, at least, to use Mr. Sewell's words, to " lead others
to consider themselves as disciples of the Catholic Church ; rather
than as the dutiful and affectionate children of that branch of it, to
which we immediately belong :" — to " encourage a fanciful and
even self-willed spirit, to throw them back upon a distant period of
the church, not for great truths, which we are taught by our
own church, and are commanded by her to confirm, by such
testimony ; but for habits of thought and practice, difficult to be
realized, impossible to be understood in all their bearings, unfitted,
it may be, for our own state, and powerless, for effecting the good
which is hoped from them :"* — the warm and ardent followers of
such a school, (and I believe that the school of which I am writing
is not unjustly so characterized, when a view is given of its fail
ings,) were clearly in danger of carrying principles too far, which
are questionable in their application, even by the best and wisest,
and must be dangerous when hastily applied by the rash and
inconsiderate. I do not know that the spirit of apparent disaffection has been
* Letter to Dr. Pusey, pp. 8, 9.

18
displayed more evidently (except in the most lamented exhibition
of it in Froude's Remains) than in the tract, No. 90. It is notthe
argument itself of that tract which is in the least degree irreverent
or unfilial : it is the way in which the Church of England, her
formularies and condition are spoken of in the introductory and
concluding pages. The passages in which this appears are wholly
extraneous to the argument of the tract ; and they might have been
omitted altogether, or differently expressed, without in the least
weakening the force of the whole. I transcribe the foUowing
passage as an example : —
" Till her members are stirred up to this religious course, let the Church [of
England*] sit still ; let her be content to be in bondage ; let her work in
chains ; let her submit to her imperfections as a punishment ; let her go on
teaching with the stammering lips of ambiguous formalities, and inconsistent
precedents, and principles but partially developed. 'We are not better than
our fathers -, let us bear to be what Hammond was, or Andrews, or Hooker ;
let us not faint under the body of death, which they bore about in patience ;
nor shrink from the penalty of sins, which they inherited from the age before
them."t Now does not this passage present the Church of England in
an aspect in which her heartily affectionate and implicitly obedient
sons do not like to view her? — first, because they feel that before
they can take this view ofher, they must desert their own proper
position : for it is a view ab extra, and not only so but from above ;
whereas they are a part of her very body, compacted with her
frame, and animated with her life : or if they are forced for a
moment, and by a painful effort of abstraction, to dissociate in
themselves the christian from the churchman, they feel that their
proper position is not above but very far below ; that they have to
look up to the Church of which they are members, and not to
behold her from an eminence.
But secondly, the most cordially attached sons of the Anglican
* The context leaves no possible question as to whether the Church of England
is intended. t Tract 90, page 4.

19
do not like to take the view of their Church implied in the
passage above cited, because they do not believe it to be a just
aspect of her character and condition. For instance : granting
that the articles leave many open questions, they will rather say
that at the Reformation the Church of England taught, so far as
in her articles she did teach, (not as defective in principle or
skill, but as best suited her office,) with the gentleness of a
loving mother winning children to her arms : and that where she
was less absolute and precise, it was not as speaking with the
stammering lips of ambiguous formularies,* but using the mild
and healing caution of a sound discretion and discipline. And as
to whether it were better to have spoken more sternly, and to have
defined more narrowly, and to have left fewer points undecided,
(whether against the Papist or against the Protestant recusant,)
they feel that the Church, their holy mother, was then, as she
still is, and ever must be as long as she has any being, the
authority to judge as well as to act, in all such cases : nor will they
doubt her wisdom, any more than her power or authority ; espe
cially since they will not forego the conviction, that the Holy
Spirit of God was with the Church of this land in that trying
crisis, and they will tremble therefore lest they condemn her when
she speaks, permissively at the least, as an oracle of God. Again,
if they fancy that they see inconsistent precedents, they will cer
tainly wish to think (and I know not what may be the difficulty,
for I know not where are the inconsistencies,) that the greater
wisdom which left apparent inconsistencies unreconciled was suffi
ciently justified in so doing. That principles should be but par
tially developed is, I suppose, inherent in every thing that is finite
* I have been reminded since these pages were written, that Mr. Newman
has recalled this expression. Had I been imputing to an individual specific
error in opinion, I should have felt it right to cancel this page : but I am
merely furnishing an example of a general tone of expression in a school com
posed of many individuals ; and on referring to Professor Keble's letter to Mr.
Justice Coleridge, it will be seen that what one person wrote too hastily, ac
cording to his own maturer judgment, another is found, even after particular
attention had been called to it, heartily to commend.
D

20
in duration and in moral circumstances ; — ^for every successive
day, and every new occurrence, affords occasion for some new
development of principles so extensive in their application as
those which run through the whole of true religion : the partial
development, then, which is necessary to all limited things, the
affectionate sons of a particular church will not consider a reproach ;
and it may be that after patient study of her constitution, her
liturgy, her articles, and the like, they will not think the development
of principles in the Church of England at all meagre, though it
be necessarily partial.* Thus will they " bear to be what Ham
mond was, or Andrews, or Hooker" in condition ; and not bear
only, but rejoice, to have the same mother, with (if so be) the same
imperfections ; — to love and reverence her as much as they, and
with them to adhere to her with full and filial honor, confidence,
and love.
" We are not," indeed, " better than our fathers :" I confess it
with sorrow and shame, but in one sense I rejoice in the assertion :
I rejoice in the assurance that our fathers were better than we,
and in the hope that we may be beloved for the fathers' sake : but
why should we not impute their holiness (under God) to their
diligent use of the privileges of the Church ; and labour to follow
them in this, rather than affect a sympathy with them in the diffi
culties presented by the imperfections of the church, which we
know not that they felt ? A body of deatii there was which they
bare about with them, which they fainted not under, but strove
against ; — but it was not the Spouse of Christ, but their own
sinful nature which weighed them down : nor did they reject, nor
do we, I trust, the penalty of sins which we inherit, (both the sins
and the penalty,) from preceding generations. But why suppose
that the Church is the channel in which the sins and the penalty
flow, instead of going to her ordinances and to her blessing to be
* Truly this reproach of " principles but partially developed" is most un
graciously cast upon the Anglican Church, by those who so successfully appeal
On every occasion to her expressions of high and Catholic principles in her
constitutions, and in her various formularies, but especially in her liturgy.

21
cleansed from the suUiage of sin, and to cut off the penalty that is
entailed upon us ?
It is almost superfluous to observe, that where the condition or
character of the Church is the result of mere external force, the
Churchman is far more at liberty to judge, and far less restrained
in the expression of his opinion by the reverence due to his spi
ritual mother. For instance : he may well feel indignant if the state
has exercised a tyrannical and treacherous influence over the church,
and forged fetters for her, by which her energies are cramped,
under the pretence of protection and support : if, therefore, it is to
this that the author alludes, when he says in the above cited pas
sage, — " Let her [the Church of England] be content to be in
bondage ; let her rest in chains ; let her submit to her imperfec
tions, as a punishment;" I suppose that no true Churchman will
object to his expressions. In speaking thus of her inviJerfections,
he must be presumed to allude to her politico-ecclesiastical state ;
for under no imperfections, moral, or theological, or dependent on
herself alone, would it be right, or even excusable, for her to rest,
•ndthout an earnest endeavour to correct them. Under the tyranny
then of political protection, she may and must " sit still," until
again being at unity among themselves, the strength of her sons is
irresistible. Then, (and may God in his good pleasure hasten the
time !) she may again obtain her own ; and, having been warned
by former wrong, hold it.*
And let me add, that I am far from denying that the very
expressions which I have least hesitated to condemn, as unadvised
• Let me not be understood as disliking the union of Church and State : I
only protest against the general view of it, which makes the Church wholly a
debtor to the State, and would have her confess as a boon the most unprincipled
aggressions of the civil power. As an Englishman, and one who loves his
country, I should most sorely deprecate anything that should tend to the breach
of an alliance, by which I believe the state of England to be consecrated, and
in which, therefore, I believe its strength to reside. If St. Chrysostom could
say with truth ^rvXog ten rijc oiKou/iEvijc rj 'EKicXriixLa [Hom. xi. in I Tim.]
we may surely believe that the Church of England is the strength of our
country.

22
at the best, are the expressions of many just and true opinions in
the mind of the author ; and that in persons of a like habit of
thought they may excite very wholesome reflections. Professor
Keble, in his letter to Mr. Justice Coleridge, says that this was
the case with him ; and does not hesitate to declare that the general
tone of this Tract, more especially of the introduction, appeared
to him very instructive, and exactly what our present position
requires ; and in the very passage on which I have made these
remarks, he saw nothing but a condensed statement of the same
facts which had been taught and illustrated in detail in a former
Tract for the Times, No. 86. But this tract too, exquisitely beau
tiful as it is, and most just in the main, had already awakened
the apprehension of many a good Churchman. For it is not too
much to say, that a perusal of Tract No. 86 left the impression
on the mind of the careful reader that the author was instilling a
habit of viewing our Church just in the way in which it is so
obviously viewed in the introduction to No. 90, — i. e.,from above,
and from without ; as if we were as much at liberty to see her
imperfections as those who are not her children ; and might speak
of them as freely as if we owed her no love and no allegiance.
Especially the terms in which she seemed to be admitted into
comparison with the Church of Rome, a comparison so con
ducted as to leave the impression wholly in favour of the latter,
did seem to afibrd ground of regret in those who longed still to
find pleasure, almost unmixed, in the perusal of the " Tracts for
the Times."
Perhaps I have been not strictly correct in referring all the
earlier Tracts to the moderate Church school, as I am just now
reminded by a reference to No. 9, in which the author, speaking
of the changes which took place in the Church services before and
after the Reformation, says : —
" Services were compressed into one, which had been originally distinct ; the
idea of united worship, with a view to which identity of time and language had
been maintained in different nations, was forgotten ; the identity of time had
been abandoned, and the identity of language, which for a time had seemed to

23
reverse the curse at Babel, could not be preserved. Conscious of the incon
gruity of primitive forms and modern feelings, our Reformers undertook to
construct a service more in accordance with the spirit of their age. They
adopted the English language : they curtailed the already compressed ritual of
the early Christiaus, so arranging it that the Psalms should be gone through
monthly instead of weekly ; and carrying the spirit of compression still further,
they added to the matin service what had hitherto been wholly distinct from
it, the Mass service or Communion.''
This passage does not indeed avow, but it clearly enough indi
cates, and it certainly tends to encourage the same disaffection in
another of its developments — a dislike to the En glish Reformation,
with a habit of looking on all its features with suspicion at the
best, and of expressing a judgment upon them with unreserved
licence. Taking into account the known reverence (wherein we
are not behind them) with which the authors of the " Tracts"
regard primitive forms, what can be more obvious than the tone of
disapproval of the following words, and the covert rebuke whicii
they convey : — " Conscious of the incongruity of primitive forms
and modern feelings, our Reformers undertook to construct a ser
vice more in accordance with the S2nrit of their age ?" Surely this
is not intended to convey a favourable, and does not convey a just
impression of the spirit with which our Reformers undertook the
task imposed upon them in the course of Providence. How is it
that we have still the services of the Church of England to witness
for a tone of theology, and a feeling in religion far remote from
the ultra-Protestantism of their times, if it was with a view " to
construct a service more in accordance with the spirit of their age,"
that our Reformers undertook their task ? They succeeded very
ill, if this was really their aim ; but not so ill, if their object was
to revive and perpetuate in the Church of England a primitive
and catholic feeling, — wherein, (though not avowedly, of course,)
they did in fact embody many features of their own primitive
and catholic character.
The arrangement of the offices of the day, so as to include all
within two seasons of prayer, is a thing on the expediency of which
differences of opinion may be aUowed ; but it is clearly within the

24
province of a Church's authority : where it has been done, there
fore, it should be so mentioned as not at any rate to derogate from
the honor of the church and of her servants in that work. And
surely this were not difficult. Why may not the plan thus pur
sued be attributed to their discretion, honestly at least if not wisely
exercised, rather than to their subserviency to a puritan or irreli
gious faction. The state of society, not as it is altered by being
irreligious, but as it is modified by circumstances morally and
religiously indifferent, would make attention to the seven primi
tive hours, (if they be primitive,) almost impossible, or at least
difficult in so great a degree as to become rather a snare than a
privilege : a cause of stumbling to the weak, rather than a means
of edification to the strong. If so, then are the Reformers more
than justified in the part which they have herein taken.
But what shall we think of the way in which the introduction of
the English language into the public worship of God is noticed ?
After having hinted, and not obscurely, a feeling of attachment to
the unvarying use of a language vernacular nowhere, for many
ages known to very few of the laity, and unknown to very many
of the clergy: — After having attributed its use -to a desire to
maintain " the idea of united worship," (a good object, if it be
historically true to refer to it this arrangement*) : — After having
singularly enough, found a seeming reversal of the curse at Babel,
in a system according to whicii one man was continually speaking
to or with hundreds in a language which they understood not ;
which will rather suggest the thought of a perpetuation of the
curse, and a binding it upon men's souls every where and for
ever : — After all this to say, that as a part of their undertaking
" to construct a service more in accordance with the spirit of the
age," our Reformers " adopted the English language ;" — Is this a
way to speak of what we might almost, if we could venture to
particularize among so many, call the crowning circumstance of
mercy at the English Reformation ? And is it possible to retain
* An object however which was never really attained, for the Greek church
never used the Latin tongue.

25
in the minds of those who are thus addressed by persons to whom
they look for instruction, and the direction of their habits of
thought and feelings, a proper reverence for the Reformed Church
of England ; whose Reformation is not so indifferent, so extraneous
a part of her spiritual being, as to be separated from the notion
which every one of her sons must have of her character and con
dition ? I do not ask, for I would not suggest bounds to the
liberty of private opinion and private feeling, whether a man may
so think, and record such thoughts in his private journal : but I
do ask whether a man may so write or so publish for the com
munity, — and that community bound, to a man, to support or to
hold fast the communion of the Reformed Church of England.
The Tract last quoted was written, I believe, by the late Mr.
Froude :* a man in whose mind there was much to admire, and
in whose character there was much to imitate ; but whose " Re
mains" were not, as almost all Churchmen painfully felt, fitted to
* I may be allowed to quote the following passage from a little tract of my
own, entitled " John 'Wesley vindicated by himself, an Allegory for the Wes
leyan Centenary," published more than two years ago. " Of Froude himself,
I would speak as of the dead, and say, ' Peace be with his ashes !' But if the
ashes of the dead are stirred by the living, to excite a destructive flame, we
may not be silent. And this I heartily hope and confidently believe ; that the
immense majority of those who are thankful to the writers of the Tracts for the
Times, for their application to existing circumstances of sound Church princi
ples, and for their deeply learned and philosophical refutation of certain Popish
errors, read the attacks upon Cranmer, and upon the Reformation in this coun
try in general, in Mr. Froude's remains, with indignant sorrow, and are ready
to avow that they feel and will act as Reformed Anglican Churchmen.
" But the cause of deepest sorrow is not that Froude should have so written
or spoken : — the impatient and intemperate sallies of a young man may be re
gretted and forgiven :— but that those whose age, learning, and high moral and
religious attainments give force to their proceedings, should publish those ex
pressions to the world, and that evidently with the intention of awakening in
others a kindred spirit. This may afford occasion of triumph to those who are
opposed to the whole character of the Tracts for the Times, and who deprecate
their tendency to revive a spirit of Catholicity in the Church ; but to us, who
confess ourselves their admirers in general, and in some things their disciples,
it is cause of regret and alarm."

26
appear when they did, or indeed at any time, under the sanction of
the great name of their Editor.
It is not yet forgotten how much strength the apprehension
already excited by some parts of the " Tracts for the Times,"
acquired at the publication of these volumes. This appre
hension was then no longer confined to persons of any pecu
liar opinion, and especiaUy not to the ultra Protestants.
Indeed " Froude's Remains," partly from the very nature of the
work, (presenting an individual portrait, rather than a series of
abstract propositions and unapplied principles,) gave, more than
any other work had done, form and substance to the spirit which
I am deprecating. In Froude was embodied all that we have yet
seen of the habit of looking upon the Church of England from
without : — of taking or endeavouring to take a station upon Ca
tholic tradition, or primitive antiquity, as if it were one of advan
tageous observation ; and then looking down upon our church, as
a particular church, as if from the eminence of all churches, or of
the church universal : — of depreciating the progress and results of
the English Reformation, as if they derived no holiness from the
contact of the church, no reverence from their being the outward
vesture, the visible manifestations of our spiritual mother : — and
of detracting with all boldness from the conduct and principles of
our Reformers, even of that "noble army of Martyrs," who sealed
their work with their blood. The example was striking, and the
freshness and independence of Froude's manner made it fascinating
to those who think it tame to be common place, and noble to be
unrestrained by ordinary bonds. This is a common fault with
those whose minds are noble but undisciplined ; and the case of
these ought to be respected in the publication of any such work as
" Froude's Remains." Whether all the harm might not have
been avoided, and yet all that is great, pious, and holy in the cha
racter of Froude have been presented for our edification, will
scarce admit a question with those who read the " Remains," with
any thing like a just appreciation oftheir contents.
To speak with light reverence of the Doctors, Saints, and

27
Martyrs of the English Reformation, is not peculiar to Froude ;
it is the characteristic of the partizans of that school of which he
was a marked — (in some things let us hope an exaggerated) —
example. Dr. Hook observed long ago, " that while manfully
vindicating the principles of the English Reformation, in their fear,
lest they should appear to respect persons too highly, the writers of
the Tracts [for the Times] do not appreciate highly enough the
characters of some of our leading Reformers, nor make a due
allowance for the difficulties in which they were placed."* Is this
remark uncalled for now, any more than it was when Dr. Hook
* " Call to Union," &c. — Note K, Appendix. This note is so important that
I shall transcribe a large portion of it.
"¦VVhen all parties, having admitted that Church principles ought to be
carried out and uniformly acted upon, were led to inquire, ' what are Church
principles ? is any party acting consistently upon them ? — at such a time, the
celebrated Oxford Tracts made their appearance. The reputed writers of the
Tracts were men of ardent piety, who had been attached to the ' Evangelical'
school, and it was among the young men who had been educated in that school
that they created a strong sensation. Hence, perliaps, the bitterness with
which they are assailed by some of the older partizans of that section in the
Church. To those who, like the present writer, had been educated strictly in
the principles of the English Reformation, and belonged to the old orthodox
school, they brought forward nothing nevv, and though we may have demurred
to some oftheir opinions, and have thought that, in some things, they are in
an extreme, we rejoiced to see right principles advocated in a manner so
decided, and in a spirit so truly Christian. Against some of the pious
opinions supported in these Tracts, objections may occasionally be raised, for
perfect coincidence of opinion is not to be expected. I do not, myself, accord
with all the opinions expressed in them, or always admit the deduction at
tempted to be drawn from the principles on which we are agreed. I think, too,
that while manfully vindicating the principles of the English Reformation,
in their fear lest they should appear to respect persons too highly, the writers
of the Tracts do not appreciate highly enough the character of some of our
leading Reformers, or make due allowance for the difficulties in which they
were placed. I mention these things the rather, since I am sure the writers
in question have no wish to form a party ; they have no wish to check freedom
of opinion within the boundaries prescribed by the Church :— their object is
only to imbue the public mind with those Catholic principles by the main
tenance of which the English Reformation was gloriously distinguished. This
E

28
thus wrote ? What, for instance, is the meaning and probable
effect of such a passage as the foUowing in one of the notices of
books in the British Critic ? — " What does the author mean by
Henry the Second's 'jurisdiction over the clergy,' 'independence
cannot be done, unless on those principles opinions are formed, and from them
conclusions drawn ; and at the very time we may combat a particular opinion,
if we admit the truth of the principle on which it is built, we only confirm the
principle, and impress it more deeply on men's minds. I am not one of those
who would say, " Read the Oxford Tracts, and take for granted every opinion
there expressed," but I am one of those who would say, " Read and digest
those Tracts well, and you will have imbibed principles which will enable you
to judge of opinions." Their popularity will increase, since their arguments
are not answered, or their statements refuted : — they are opposed simply by
railing. And those who judge of such things only by second-hand reports,
and garbled quotations, and anonymous misrepresentations in newspapers, will,
of course, rail on. May the day come when they will be awakened to a sense
of the danger of thus violating the golden rule of charity. In the mean time,
the wise, the candid, those who are not the raere partisans of religion, but
really religious, will themselves read the Tracts, — and if they do read they will
commend. They may censure particular opinions, but they will commend the
whole. At all events, the scriptural Christian will be prejud'iced in favour of
the writers of the Oxford Tracts, on seeing the fruits of the Spirit beautifully
exhibited in their conduct, love, joy, peace, long-siiffer'tng, gentleness, goodness,
faith, ineeJiness ; it would be well, indeed, if their assailants, in various
magazines and newspapers, would remember of what emulation, wrath, str'ife,
seditions, are the signs. The temper manifested by their opponents is as impo
tent as it is too often profane. Fully aware that it is not by reviling again, that
they are to maintain the cause of a reviled and crucified Master ; fully aware
that it is by well-doing that they are " to put to silence the ignorance of
foolish men," the writers of the Oxford Tracts, when assailed as "popish
fanatics," &c., when their doctrines, instead of being refuted, are declaimed
against as " figments of the darkest ages of Papal superstition," &c., calmly
reply, ' Brave words, surely. Well and good, take your fill of them since you
choose them for your portion. It does but make our spirits rise cheerily and
hopefully to be thus encountered. Never were such words on one side, but deeds
were on the other. 'We know our place and our fortunes ; to give a witness
and to be contemned ; to be ill-used and to succeed. Such is the law which
God has annexed to the promulgation of the truth ; its preachers suifer, but
its cause prevails. Be it so. Joyfully will we consent to this compact. And
the more you attack us personally, the more, for the very omen's sake, we
will exult in it.' "

29
of Englishmen,' ' Morning Star of the Reformation,' ' spiritual
Protestantism,' ' Protestant Church of England,' and ' venerable
Cranmer?' "* Is there, then, no reality in the foundation of our
reverence for that wonderful man ? And does not such a critique
naturally encourage a flippant way of speaking of those ornaments
of our Church, the Marian martyrs, ill becoming a member of
that Church which, under God, owes more to them than to any
other men, after the Holy Apostles, the first preachers of Christ
upon these shores, and the companions of Augustine in his mission
at the close of the sixth century, f
* British Critic, No. lvi., p. 526. — I do not observe separately upon the
other alleged unrealities in this series of quotations ; nor am I defending the
logic or the meaning of each phrase, when I say that the tone of the critique
is obvious enough, and is really not becoming in a son of the " Protestant
Church of England."
On the use of the word Protestant, Dr. Hook has some valuable remarks in
note (E) of his " Call to Union :" I extract the following passage ; —
" It is certainly absurd to speak of the Protestant religion, — i. e. a negative
religion, but there is no absurdity iu speaking of the Church of England, or of
the Church of America, as a Protestant Chureh — the word Church conveys a
positive idea, and there is no reason why we should not have also a negative
appellation. If we admit that the Church of Rome is a true though a corrupt
Church, it is well to have a term by which we may always declare that, while
we hold in common with her all that she has which is catholic, spiritual, and
pure, we protest for ever against her multiplied corruptions. Besides, the word,
whether correctly or not, is in general use, and is in a certain sense applicable
to the Church of England ; it is surely, therefore, better to retain it, only
warning our congregations that when we call ourselves Protestants, we mean
no more to profess that we hold communion with all parties who are so
styled, than the Church of England, when in her creeds and formularies she
designates herself not as the Protestant but as the Catholic Church of this
country, intends to hold communion with those Catholic Churches abroad which
have infused into their system the principle of the Council of Trent. Pro
testant is our negative, Catholic our deflnite name. We tell the Papist that with
respect to him we are Protestant ; we tell the Protestant Dissenter that with
respect to him we are Catholics; and we may be called Protestant or Protesting
Catholics, or, as some of our writers describe us, Anglo-Catholics."
t On the subject of the respect due to the most eminent of our reformers, I
have already written much at length in the second number of " Cyril Fortescue,"
a series of papers in the Englishman's Magazine.

30
It is generally known, I beUeve, that the British Critic stands
now upon grounds which render its decisions far less important ;*
so that it is scarcely worth while to examine its later pages at
length. But we must ask, what is to be expected from such
articles as that on Bishop Jewel, in the number for July last, and
that on The Port Royal, in the last number ? As for the latter
article, the first page warns us indeed what we may expect, and
the man is himself to blame who is led far astray, after having
read such a passage as the following : — " Rome, with that strange
tact with which, with all her present errors in practice, she seems
to have laid her finger on what is erroneous in doctrine." — Surely,
in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird ;t and fascinating
as the Portraits of La Mere Angelique and La Mere Marie des
Anges may be to some forms of deep devotion, such a passage as
that just quoted neutralizes the poison of the sting, whicii seems
intended to instigate men to an unfavourable comparison, not
between the fashionable piety of the present day and that of
two devoted nuns (which is fair enough,) but between the means
of grace in the Roman Church and in our own, which is in the
first place unjust, and the result of a partial view of both ; and
which is also, (and this is more to the purpose,) far from con
sistent with the dutiful allegiance of a Christian to the particular
church which God has made his mother and his guide.
The last specific charge that I shall adduce against the writers
of the Oxford School, is that their language has latterly savoured
of party : has tended to prove, that with all their protests against
it, (which I am sure are sincere,) they are in the position, (driven
into it perhaps by circumstances, yet too readily accepting it,) of a
party within the Church ; a party whose designation they have
themselves chosen or adopted, when they call themselves emphati-
* I shall not be taken as asserting a fact, but only as indicating a general
opinion, when I say, that it is hinted, that Mr. Newman, not being able to keep
Mr. Mozley in order, as a contributor to the British Critic, put the editorship
into his hands. t Prov. i. 17.

31
cally Catholics. They seem to have committed, (though not I
trust without opportunity of retrieve,) the very same fault with
those who are now their most bitter opponents, and who delight to
call themselves Evangelicals ; the fault being, in either case, not
that the one school is not Catholic, and that the other is not evan
gelical, (which is a different question altogether) — but that to take
either name as an assumption of peculiar excellence, is, by imputa
tion, to deny somewhat essential to the Christian, to those whom
the Church does not permit us to treat as separated either from her
communion, or from her spirit : and if this assumption is not to be
allowed on the one hand, it must be equally deprecated on the
other. Now let me test this assertion that the spirit and the language
of party have found their way into the Oxford school, by one or
two expressions in a letter of Professor Keble's to Mr. Justice
Coleridge. First read the passages as they stand, and then sub
stitute the word Evangelical for the word Catholic, and the lan
guage of a party will stand confessed to on either hand.
" Considerate Catholics lEvangelieals'] know well, that there is, practically,
no separating the high and comprehensive views which that name imports from
any of the moral branches of education  they must
either teach Catholicism, [Evangelical truthf or not teach at all." *
" We should indeed be liable to the taunts and reproaches which now affect
us so little, were we to go on subscribing by virtue of our Catholic [Evangeli-
caX\ interpretation. I would not willingly excite unnecessary scruples, nor
cast a stumbUng-block in the way of any man's conscience ; but is it not so,
that had Convocation ratifled any thing equivalent to the recent vote of the
Heads of Houses, not only tutors, holding the Catholic [EvangeUcal] view of
the Articles, must have resigned their offices to avoid breach of trust, but no
academic whatever, of the like principles, could either subscribe afresh, or
continue his subscription."t
The very title of this pamphlet suggests an uncomfortable
thought of the position which it advocates ; " The case of Catholic
subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles considered : with especial
* The case of Catholic subscription, &c., p. 17.
t Ib. page 24.

32
reference to the duties and difficulties of English Catholics at the
present crisis." This surely seems like separating between English
Churchmen and English Catholics, and making their subscription
different. In other words it seems like vindicating to a particular
set of men the title and the character which is theirs only in com
mon with others : for really it were too much to exclude from the
terms Catholic subscription and English Catholics, the persons, and
the subscription of those who labor to be catholic not by cavilling
at the articles of a Catholic (to wit) the English Church ; but by
holding them in pious obedience, and by subscribing them ex
animo. Nor is it doubtful that a more ill-natured interpretation may be
put on the word Catholic as here used : for the history of the
letter suggests that by Catholics may perchance be meant those
who have so far outstepped their Anglicanism, as to have looked
with a longing eye on the doctrines and practices of Rome : and
indeed the tract out of which this letter arose, does certainly con
template such persons ; and that very justly, for there can be no reason
why those who have too nearly approached to Rome should be
repelled, while those who too nearly symbolize with Geneva are
admitted: but as a term of exclusive praise, or even of honourable
distinction, we can no more allow the adjective Catholic to the
one than to the other.
I have no difficulty in believing that Professor Keble is wholly
free from any such meaning in the use of the word ; and that it
has arisen only from the haste with which a polemical pamphlet is
likely to be set forth : but I am sure, and he must himself know it,
that a general tendency to assume the term Catholic as a term of
eminence, and as a party distinction, is becoming visible among the
less wise and cautious disciples of his school ; and this indication
of real party feeling in the many, should make the wise few most
careful not to concur in the use of words which may at least be
interpreted into a party meaning.
Let me then repeat, for the warning of younger brethren, that
as a matter of fact, it is assuming too much to call themselves

33
Catholics Kar'eloxnv. One who is sacramentally in union with the
Church of England, which is a Catholic Church, though he differ
from this or that school in matters of private opinion, far more than
many who would not be included in their application of the term
Catholic, is yet a Catholic, and his subscription is Catholic sub
scription, in every just and true sense. It tends directly to party
to deny this, even by implication : it tends remotely to schism, and
that more strongly than the parallel conduct of those who assume
the title Evangelical : for as the contrary of CathoUc is schismatical,
we impute a schismatical leaning to others, if we arrogate the
term Catholic to ourselves alone ; and this imputation is more
likely to irritate men to actual separation, than any vague impu
tation of false doctrine.
And now let me hastily recapitulate some part of the charge
which I have ventured to advance against the later productions of
the Oxford school.
So far as separate opinions are concerned, it were somewhat
harsh to impute to them more than the license which may be fairly
conceded to private judgment : although there are some few ques
tions, as for instance, that of reserve* in communicating religious
knowledge, and of the use of tradition,! on which they have, to
* On the snbject of reserve the opinions of the Oxford school seem to me
to be as much at variance with the primitive church, as with our own ; for it
was from the unbaptized, the uninitiated, as they were otherwise called, that
the dicipUna arcani concealed certain mysteries ; whereas any partial applica
tion of the rule of reserve in our own church, would keep the baptized, not the
unbaptized, in ignorance.
t Or perhaps it were more just to say, — the question as to what is, and what
is not to be accounted tradition. If I do not entirely mistake the Oxford
school, they would admit for tradition the unrecorded floating impressions of
what may perhaps have been taught with authority, though never clearly de
fined and ascertained; whereas the Church of England both in her own
authoritative expressions, and as she is represented by her best divines, certainly
regards recorded tradition only, as of any authority. On the value of tradition,
where the prior question (what is Tradition?) is determined, it does not seem
that there is any difference between the received doctrine ofthe church, and the
use of the Oxford writers.

34
say the least, forsaken the spirit of their own Church. Nor do I
think it possible to deny,— however unwiUing I should be to press
a particular charge,— that the combined effect of numerous and
separately considered scarcely appreciable lines and touches of such
a character, aU drawn one way, and aU tinged with one color, has
given to the body of truth around which they are grouped, a
somewhat one-sided aspect, and a complexion not its own.
To startle men's minds I suppose the writers in question would
admit to be their aim ; and I for one should grant the goodness
of the intention : perhaps they would not hesitate to say that they
would even unsettle men's minds ; and this too might be permitted,
if the centre be not removed or shaken, which must determine their
form and character when they fall again into repose, and assume
the firmness and equality of a regular system. But the burden of
the charge against them is, that they have unsettled men's minds
on most important points, and at the same time taken away this
centre : and that they have not only removed the right centre, but
substituted for it a wrong one. From their own church, which
is to them the ordinance of God, for the very purpose among others
of holding men together in a sound and catholic unity, they have
stolen, or acted as if they would steal, the affections and the reve
rence of her sons : they have spoken slightingly of almost all that
we have been taught to respect aud love, as the visible form which
the Church wears to her children ; and the Church is too high
an abstraction to appear to most men except by such manifestations
of herself. Her formularies, her articles, her Reformation, her
martyrs, her aspect, and gait, and complexion, all these things
they have thought a subject of criticism ; and they have even
instituted, or set on less qualified persons to institute, a comparison
between her and the parallel features of the Church of Rome ;
setting men by a most strange accident, or a most sinister cunning,
in the way of an unfavourable comparison for our own Church.
And then having almost suggested the question, — Shall we be leav
ing a lomer for a higher form of Christianity, if n-e forsake
England and flee into the arms of Morne 7 they have given us

35
the rule of Catholic consent on which to frame an answer : a rule
which few can apply with tolerable skill and equity ; and which is
to the individual without authority : for no individual has authority
in matters of controversy.*
And besides all this, and as if to shew that they gladly accepted
the natural consequences, whether or no they were anticipated from
the tirst, they have sanctioned the use of a name of distinction,
whereby the Catholic in England is separated from the Churchman
in England, and placed on higher ground. An assumption which
we cannot admit, without danger to the Church, as well as an
undue exaltation of certain brethren above the rest.
And why this loosening of the hearts and minds of men from
their ancient and true moorings ? It is not that Englishmen
had got to love and respect their O'wn Church too much ; and that
they wanted to be detached from her arms that they might take a
more manly range into an open province of theology. It was just
the reverse. I grant that among the least truly obedient of her
* The danger of forming a habit of appealing to primitive forms, or Catholic
eonsent, withont at least as confirmed a habit of deference to the Church to
which we belong, I have before referred to in the preface to the " Life and
times of St. Cyprian."
" While we are studying the history of a particular Church and age, for the sake
ofthe "Catholic" spirit which it embodies, we may be in danger of forgetting that
that spirit may animate very different forms; and so we may hastily condemn
our own Church, because we, in our folly and pride, deem the various arrange
ments which she has made, in wisdom and in love, inconsistent with aprimitive
character, because they are not identical with a particular primitive form.
This is a grievous error into whieh those are likely to fall, who are seeking to
catholicize the present generation of the sons of the church, by a reference to
the ecclesiastical records of any former age. But let us all remember, (and the
author of this volume feels that the warning is necessary for himself, which he
presses on others,) that if, in pretence of a catholic spirit, we touch but the
hem ofthe garment ofour own holy mother, except with the deepest reverence
and piety, we most unequivocally give the lie to our pretensions. There is no
one thing which our church can require, so long as she hath the grace of God
with her, so wrong, so opposed to all Catholic form and spirit, as the unfilial
judgment, or the imperfect obedience, of any of her sons."
I may refer also to the last chapter of my pamphlet on the Anglo-Catholic
use of two lights on the altar, for statements of the danger of going to some
other standard than the laws of our own Church, for what may seem Catholic
customs. F

36
sons, there was a sickening use of words of respect, which meant
nothing ; — that men who kicked at authority, and altered the ser
vices of the Church to their own fancy, talked ever and anon
of our beautiful Liturgy, of our venei'dble Church, and the like :
but the evil was not in their too great affection or deference
surely. The Establishment too was lauded in like fashion on mere
political conservative grounds, and our excellent Establishment
and our learned prelacy were watchwords of a faction ; and were
thus employed by men who would have hated the Church, if they
could have understood her spiritual position, and her claims to
exercise authority and to enforce discipline. Surely the remedy
for all this ^'^'as to bring forth the Church to the admiration of
men ; to make her personally visible, if I may so speak, in the
beauties of her external developments of principle ; — to claim for
her love because she deserves it, and authority because it is given
her of the Lord.
Feeling, as I do, my own great inferiority, I scarcely know how
to advise the masters of this school ; and yet, as an humble brother
in the Church I may intreat them for myself and others, to con
sider whither their course is tending, and how it may be kept from
too rapid a defiexion, and too dangerous a fall. They themselves
seem to feel that they have evoked a spirit whose extravagance
they have not sufficiently restrained. Perhaps they cannot dismiss
this spirit, but it is not too late to modify his influence. Surely
for themselves they do feel the claim of their own Church on our
allegiance; — surely they do not deny her claim upon our love.
Would they but give to their feeling the strong expression with
which they know how to clothe all their thoughts ! In place of
little sinister remarks, and sneers so acute and polished that they
elude the touch, and almost plant a wound unsuspected, would
they but sometimes exjDress the respect and tenderness which they
feel, how powerful would be the effect of such an amiable weak
ness, if weakness it be ! Would they but take occasion by the little
incidental expressions of love whicii flow from a warm heart, and
by the stringent demands of obedience upon wliich thev so well
know how to act themselves, in any time of trial, — would they thus

37
enforce and stimulate the general [irinciples and affections of fiUal
submission, — submission of the heart and mind, as well as of the
hand, — how noble would be their position ! — how great their
reward ! Witli a little modification we miglit almost address them
in the words of Dionysius of Alexandria to Novatian, and say : —
" If by the unlooked for application, or by the unforseen recoil of
your favourite principles, you have been forced to appear as leaders
of a party within, but not wholly with, the church, you will show
your sense of this by professing most energetically the claim that
she hath on the allegiance and duty of her sons ; and, if by
your personal influence, or by the force of reason, you can per
suade your companions to return to a better mind, the merit of
your success now, will overbalance the misfortune of your too
great influence before. The evil which is past will be imputed to
you no longer, and for the healing of the Church you will receive
deserved praise. But if others have been urged even beyond your
influence, yet at least return yourselves to a safer and a better
path."* If there are any who will not, in sincerity and love, return to
the filial obedience from which they have been moved, but will on
the contrary, carry their disaffection and their exercise of private
judgment so far as to dally with the claims of some sect, or of
some other church, to be accounted a better communion, — what
shall I say to them ? Whither would they go ? To Geneva and
her Presbyterian " platform ;" on which the blight of Socinianism
has fallen, as if to warn man that a divine polity cannot be slighted
without endangering the most holy doctrines ; and whose progeny,
monstrous in evil, astounded the whole earth with their inhuman and
godless deeds, even in this land, when Presbyterianism and Puritan
ism were awhile triumphant. But I will not suppose it possible that
" Ei' aiMV, i>e iprjg, -iJxOric, Se'iKeie, 't&v dvaxi^pri<Tt]g iiciiv. Koii viiv i"i k
Tr'iiyaiQ rj tidaaio Tovg dSiXipove ti'e bpovoiav iXQilv, ^ililov eorai aoi tov
afaXiiarog to Kar6pd.oj.i.a, Kca to filv oil Xo jiaOljairai, to Se iTraivcSficmTai.
Ei Sk a-iruBovvTiDV dSvvaToing, crwjuv ffu^e rriv acavrSv ^vxiiv. — Euseb'ius
vi. 45.

38
on this side the lure can be effectual ; because, although the lessen
ing the hold of the Church of England on men's aflTections and
judgment does really tend as much to defection on the one side as
on the other ; yet at present their greatest enemies accuse neither
the masters nor the scholars of the Oxford school of driving their
disciples to Calvinism and Puritanism. What the result of a
reaction may be on themselves, or what the consequence on others
of the repulsive character of the extreme which they are advocat
ing, we may guess, but will not anticipate. At present, and
immediately, there seems no danger on that side.
But will he who is unmoved by the cold aspect of Geneva, yield
himself a willing victim to the more fascinating smiles of Rome ?
And what then will he seek ? — A Catholic communion ?
In England certainly he will find no such commimion out of
the Church of England : — but in Popery, as in every other form
of dissent, a mere sect ; — a sect beginning in usurpation, carried on
with base intrigue, and now existing a monstrous jumble of worldly
and religious craft ; — of loud assumption of unbending principles,
and of actual concession to the Protestantism by whicii it is sur
rounded. Let the divisions in the Church be exaggerated, and
the diversity of the teaching of her ministers be magnified to the
utmost, she will still be one and unvarying, in comparison of the
Proteus form and chamelion complexion of Popery.
But suppose for argument sake, that the Papists of England
were really a church, stOl what would be gained by fellowship with
Rome ? Is there no penalty attached to sin and guilt in a church
as well as in an individual? And will the communicant be free
from the curse which falls upon the society of which he is a mem
ber ? Is it an indifferent thing to a Christian whether his church
is or is not drunk with the blood of the saints, — is or is not, in fact
(however it be in theory,) an idolatrous church : — has or has not
in many countries and at many times, openly pandered to the vices
and errors of men : — has been a mark for the finger of scorn to
point at for her morals, or a light to the world shining to the

39
glory of God ? Is it nothing to one who fancies that the volun
tary system is so far true that he is privileged to choose his com
munion, that the one to whicii perchance his affections lean, has
deluged with blood the countries of the High Alps, of Spain, of
America, of the Low Countries, of France, of England ; whether
innocent blood or not, is no question, but shed unjustly : — that the
communion which he has dared to love, or at least to dally with,
has beheld in such a day as that of St. Bartholomew, an occasion
of solemn religious rejoicing : — Is it nothing to him that wherever
general education has not kept pace in Popish communities with
the religious instincts of the people, idolatry is grossly practised,
and shamelessly allowed ; nay, that it is encouraged by all kinds of
indirect arts of the ecclesiastical authorities, and by the obvious
teaching of the clergy ? Is it nothing that the sale of Indulgences
and pardons has been avowedly once (if it be not avowedly now)
carried on by that Church, to the contempt of the lowest common-
sense notion of what must be the wUl of a Holy God ? And is it
nothing that the morality of Rome has become proverbially low ; —
and that the proverb is being justified, day by day, no farther
from our own homes than in the Popish population of Ireland ;
where religion is still made, as it used to be in days we would
forget for the honour not of Rome only, not of Christendom only,
but of humanity itself, to justify treachery, cruelty, and murder ?
Ignorance is not generaUy the fault of those to whom alone
these questions must be addressed — and sure I am, that if they
will really answer them, out of their own knowledge of history,
none wUl be struck out as irrelevant to the subject, or of dubious
answer; but many more onthe contrary will suggest themselves
of equally fearful import. And yet Romanism is the communion
that we have had set before us of late in a thousand forms of
tender blame, almost of disguised affection and approval — as if
the Church of Rome were to bear away the palm of truth and
hoUness and purity from the Church of England. Sinful we are
and have been ; but if it be open to us to speak at all of ourselves,
sinful we have not been in comparison with her.

40
But perhaps Rome, scandalous as she has been in her coUective
character, may pretend to the formation of more exaUed saints,
among her individual sons. WUl a man seek in the Romish
communion, then, the means of arriving at a higher degree of
grace, and of forming in himself a more perfect Christian charac
ter ? That Rome affords this, is, I suppose, the inference to be
deduced from such productions as the article on the Port-Royal,
in the last British Critic. What then— just because they present
not themselves in the same form, are there no opportunities in the
Church of England of cultivating self-discipline, mortification,
charity, zeal, and piety with la Mere Angelique ? The daily need
of the poor in every neighbourhood, wUl afford work enough for
many such men and women ; and work which will not be lessened in
labor, nor in self-denial, nor in charity, nor in piety, because it is
not rendered more easy, nor made a matter of more defined and
stated duty by the habits and rules of conventual life. We may
fast and pray as much and as freely, we may sell or give all that
we have to feed the poor, without transcending (God forbid the
thought) the moral requirements of our own Church. We shall
find, indeed, a little less encouragement to convert what is simply
disgusting without being pious, into meritorious acts ; nor shall
we be so readily tempted to cry out A miracle ! when God's pro
vidence has graciously provided for our need.* We shall not
* I hoi)e I shall not be understood as wishing to derogate in the slightest
degree from La Mere Angelique's reputation for sanctity. I am only adducing
some little blemishes in her deportraent for the same purpose that the author
of this article seems to have presented her virtues ; that is to indicate the moral
character of the system which produced them : and I cannot help seeing that
I am making a much fairer use of the faults than he has made of the virtues of
the holy Mother ; for the faults certainly do arise out of the particular system ;
the virtues as certainly belong to the Church of God, without reference either
to the communion of Rome, or the conventual system. In one instance above
alluded to La Mere Angelique was superior to her artificial system ; for she
had the humility to consider an attempt, (quite within the limits of such things
as they are ascertained by the received legends of the saints,) to attribute a
miracle to her, rather a temptation and trial ofher humility, than a justifiable
homage to her sanctity.

41
go nasty, in emulation of the choicest saints of Rome ; but to as
high a frame of devotion, the rules of life and the means of grace
which are open to us, will lead us, under God's blessing. When
he has really exceeded the requirements of the Church of England,
and really exhausted all her means of grace, then let a man hasten
to a purer Church, if such there be.
But there is less discouragement among the Romanists ; and
less opposition from authority, to any attempt at holiness. Say
you so : then compare the account of Nicholas Ferrar and Little
Gidding, with that of La Mere Angelique and the Port Royal,
and say whether authority may not co-operate with a life of piety
in the AngUcan, and oppose it in the Romanist ? And if this
become a matter of circumstances, of time and place, and indivi
dual caprice, where is the gain ? Does any man believe that if,
with ordinary prudence, a clergyman of the Church of England
should seek the sanction of his Bishop to repeat the beautiful
scene at Little Gidding, he would be repelled ? I trow not. Does
any one doubt that if a few Christian ladies would form themselves
into a society, with due discretion, and under a proper superinten
dance, of which religion should be the bond, and charity the
occupation, either the laws or the spirit or the authorities of the
Church of England would hinder them ? I trow not. Individual
opinion might vary as to the propriety of the details of their plan,
but piety, devotion, discipline, and charity, they would be at liberty
to cultivate ; nay, they would be encouraged and helped to culti
vate to the utmost.
But there is a greater unity and certainty in the faith among
Romanists than with us. No, sir : you are too acute to be led
away by the sophism which compares Popery with a jumble of all
sects calling themselves Protestant, to prove that the Church of
England, which is no sect at aU, is less united in doctrine and
in spirit than Rome. What have we to do, any more than
Rome, with the differences and quarrels between Independents and
Quakers and Socinians and Methodists ? And setting aside all
these and the like, not adherents but opponents, we are not less

42
but more united among ourselves, and more uniform than the
Church of Rome. Differences of opinion among individuals
there will and must be (and what can give more liberty to them
than the Jesuitical theory of probability), and allowing for this,
which must be allowed for every society, ecclesiastical or other
wise, think you, sir, that the priest of a polite and highly cultivated
congregation in Edinburgh, where Popery is a suspected sect, —
that the priest of a poor ignorant congregation in Ireland, where
Popery is a persecuting faction, — that the priest of a church in
Spain, where the Pope was all in all, and the priest of a church in
France, where he was next to nothing,* — think you that these all
teach a more uniform system than has been taught by the most
varying forms which the Anglican clergy ever assumed, as High
Church or Low Church, as dominant or persecuted, as wanderers in
foreign lands, or at home in their own ? And what can exceed
the uniformity — the almost identity — of the faith and service of
the Church, wherever she holds communion with England ? In
Scotland, in America, besides the countries where the Church is
actually a part of ours, as in the colonies, the uniformity in our
articles, orders, and ritual, even in minute points, is really won
derful ; and chaUenges comparison, or rather disdains comparison,
with anything that Rome may present.
But, after all, the most truly practical question that occurs is
this : What course are moderate Churchmen to pursue in the pre
sent crisis ? and how are they to exert their infiuence to the utmost,
to counteract the tendency to defection, or to disaffection at the
least, which seems to have arisen ? To such persons one straight
forward and open path presents itself, and one whicii can scarcely
be called invidious against any : — to hold the Church of England
enshrined in the best affections of their own hearts, and to repel as
treason against their mother any slight upon her authority or dig
nity ; and if they are in places of rank and influence, to hold her
* If the case is now reversed in these two countries, the argument is only
strengthened by the change.

43
up to the love and reverence of those about them, and to claim
their allegiance for her, not as a matter of choice and fancy, but as
a duty. If the Church of England is truly Catholic, (and it does
not become those who minister or communicate at her altar, to
admit a doubt of it in their own minds, or to allow a question of
it to colour their teaching or conversation with others,) if the
Church of England is Catholic, then it is truly the most Catholic
course to take, to urge her claims on the duty and affection of her
sons. It is through the trutii and holiness and divine life of the
Church in which God has placed him, that each individual Chris
tian is Catholic, and one with the Church and with Christ. And
if, to maintain this union more effectually, the heart is to be moved
on the side of duty, where can there be greater incentives to love,
than those which are presented by the histoiy and present position
and character and maternal offices of the Church of England 1
How much hath Providence done for her, to mark her out as beloved
of God, and to make her lovely among men ! How soon was the
soil of this land wet with the blood of martyrs ! How soon did
the Church of this land send her Bishops to testify her faith to
the whole world ! How gracious was the Providence which sent
hither Augustine and his companions to revive the spirit of the
Church, and to erect the candlestick again in its place, when many
churches (those in Asia Minor and in Africa, for instance,) were
suffered to perish, and their light was clean put out. Then, again,
at a time when all the churches of the Roman obedience were
degraded most painfully,* she was divinely permitted to exert
her native energies, and to exercise her inviolable right to reform
herself; and through the good providence of God (and we accept
the gift as divine the more certainly from the unworthy channel in
which it flowed), she alone, in all Protestant Europe, maintained
• There is no question, or should be none, between Rome and us as to the
necessity of a Reformation, for it was confessed at Trent. The real question is
whether a particular church haa a right to reform itself, without permission or
assistance of Rome ; aud nothing but extravagant party can raise a question on
this point.

44
the form and body of a visible Church ; one in discipline and
polity, as well as in doctrine, with the Churches of ApostoUc times.
Where the influence of the prince effected anything in this change,
we can only confess that he was an instrument, albeit most un
worthy, in the hands of God ; but for the maintaining among us
of what was purely spiritual, and for the assurance of an orthodox
faith, there were many men worthy (so far as it is given to men to be
worthy) to set their hand to this work. And they maintained their
integrity through various and bitter struggles. Popery and Puri
tanism, in their turn, were iron furnaces of affliction, in which the
faith and patience of the saints were tried, and from which they
came forth as gold purified seven times in the fire. Surely we may
say ourselves, and teach our children to say, " We have heard with
our ears, O God, our fathers have told us, what work thou didst
in their days, and in the times of old."* And we may take from
the past an omen for the future, and with all confidence set our love
on a Church which the Lord himself hath so delighted to honor.
Nor are there wanting to every individual particular claims of
the Church of England on his duty and affections. She is his
Mother in Christ, and at her liands he has received Holy Baptism,
the grace of Confirmation, and of the Blessed Eucharist, with all
other means of grace, each according to his years and circum
stances, from his youth up. She has prayed beside his sick bed,
or she has blessed his marriage vows, or she has committed his
parents and his kindred to her consecrated ground, or she has
received his children into her arms at the baptismal font ; and his
own bones he has in intention committed to her charge, and con
signed to her hallowed dust, to sleep with the confessors and
martyrs, with the bishops, doctors, and all the saints whose bodies
she has committed to the earth with a blessing, and in hope of a
joyful resurrection. A mother's part she has performed and still
affords to all, who will still seek it at her hands ; and among all
the churches of God of whom we know aught at the present day,
we may declare with an honest pride that there is no such mother,
or at least that there is norie better.
* Psalm xliv, 1.

45
This affection for the Church of England, with a sense of the
duty that we owe to her, as well as of the love whicli we feel for
her, is the foundation which we must endeavour to lay in others,
and guard in ourselves, for a firm adherence to her, and, in her,
to the Church of Christ in its wider signification. And if this be
well fixed, we need fear but little the effects of any slight diffe
rences of private opinions.
But there are several occasions which will serve to test the
strength of these feelings of duty and attachment ; upon one or
two ofwhich I must be allowed to touch.
First, then, one who is attached as he ought to be to his own
Church, wiU certainly be marked by a respectful treatment of the
error, so far as it is an error, of ultra-Churchmen : for nothing
can be more contrary to the spirit of our Church, and more op
posed to her interest, than to irritate into disaffection, and possibly
even to secession, men whose very enemies confess them to be
earnest in their opinions, and conscientious and devoted in their
character. Surely they little think what is the fearful nature of
the sin of schism, whicii is the rending of the body of Christ, who
wantonly irritate men who do at least desire the peace and unity
ofthe Church, to a schismatical spirit, or to the very act of schism.
What can be more cruel, more fearfully uncharitable, more reck
lessly indifferent to the best interests of the souls of their fellow
creatures, than the dreadful hint thrown out but too plainly by the
enemies ofthe Oxford school, (and though they suspect it not, by
the enemies of the Church,) that they should at once go over to
Rome : — that they who hold schism to be wicked and dangerous
in the extreme, should commit an act of schism, and join a schis
matical faction ;— and that faction in the communion of Rome,
which their advisers seem to think accursed? They would be
shocked at the thought of impeUing their greatest foe to rush
headlong down a precipice, or to hold his hands on a chafing
dish tiU it was consumed; but they can coolly recommend not the
least worthy of their brethren in the Church to rush into what

46
is agreed on all hands to be dangerous to the soul. They would
shrink from advising some little dereliction of moral principle,
some Uttle Ue, or petty theft, but to the sin of schism they can
calmly stimulate their fellow creatures and fellow Christians.
Greatly must the heinousness of this offence have been changed
since St. Chrysostom gave so excellent rules, not for the thrusting
off, but for the bringing back of those who had somewhat erred
from the right path. Which then is really right, (for both can
not be right) — The Low-Churchman now, calling upon his bre
thren to go over to what he holds a most dangerous communion,
or St. Chrysostom who says, " Great is the charge which falls
upon a Christian Pastor, when he has to knit together again the
broken limbs of the Church. A tender of sheep hath the whole
flock following him, whithersoever he leads : and if one of them
be turned aside from the direct path, and deserting the good pas
ture, graze in barren or precipitous places, it is but a louder call
and the stray sheep returns again to the fiock : but if a man have
wandered but a little from the direct path of a true faith, the
Pastor hath need of no Uttle skill, and of unwearied patience and
forbearance ; for he cannot bring him back by force ; but by much
persuasion must he recall him to the truth from which he fell
away. Much then doth he need a generous ardent mind, that he
may neither weary in his labour, nor despair of the salvation of
those who are in error ; and that thus encouraged, he may without
intermission labour at their conversion, if it may be that God wiU
give them a knowledge of the truth, and deliver them from the
snares ofthe Devil."* The care, and skiU, and anxiety, the mix
ture of tenderness and authority, of charity and zeal necessary for
this work, did so great a man as Chrysostom account a part of the
scarcely human qualifications for the priestly office.
' JOe Sacerdotio, II. iv. The reader may compare with this passage St.
Chrysostom's declaration for himself, in the eleventh of his Homilies in the
Epistle to the Ephesians, of the extreme miseries and insults which he would
rather endure personally, than that any considerations should drive but a
single individual from the Church.

47
Surely, surely, much as the authority of Chrysostom's judgment
may be slighted, such expressions as these do read a lesson to men
who can speak, and that calmly, and with deliberation, as if they
would rejoice in the secession of their brethren from the body of
the Church. Is it possible that they really feel triumph rather than
sorrow, when they fancy that their auguries are justified by an
occasional defection ? Is it possible that they are really, as they
seem to be, looking out with intense desire for such cases ? and
that they follow with wistful eyes the movements of their brethren,
like vultures hovering over an army's march that they may batten
on the carcases of the fallen ? Can this be so with any who are
men, and who call themselves Christians ?
If it be so, little has been, hitherto, the gratification of their
unnatural appetite. One only instance that I know of has oc
curred of a defection to Popery of one whom their opponents
could affect to class with the Oxford school ; and (though it be
invidious to say it, yet for the truth's sake it must be said,) that
instance is not such as to afford a test of the value of principles :
for it is not strange that a man of tried instability (if a solecism
in language may be employed to express a singular exhibition of
character) should wander again, as he has used to wander hitherto.
Meanwhile many who verged towards Popery from Low Church
ism have been preserved by the providential intervention of a better
system ; while, on the other hand, so many have fallen into the
arms of Rome from the ranks of the Evangelical school, that they
ought at least to lament with us, instead of mocking at any.
That we are not so to act as those whom I have ventured thus
to reprove, must, I think be clear to any one who will seriously
and prayerfully ponder the matter. I think it equally clear,
that we are to hold out the right hand of fellowship most heartily
to men whom we cannot but admire on the whole, though we may
differ from them in some matters of private opinion ; and that
though we may, and should protest against what we think of
dangerous consequence in their public teaching, yet we should do

48
this in gentleness and love. That we should treat them not as
insidious foes, who desire to subvert our faitii ; but as friends in
earnest and zealous for our weal, though perhaps sometimes mis
taking the way in which they should advance it. That we should
be at least as ready and as courageous to go with them as far as we
can see and feel that they are right, as we are to point out to them
in kindness where we believe them to be wrong. This were surely
a better way to win them back, (if it be at all just to speak of
them as needing to be brought back,) or, if that be the more appro
priate phrase, to restrain their too unbridled course, before it has
issued in definable error, or in actual separation.
Very far from us be the cowardly conduct of those who would
desert the good that they actually hold, because it may have
been suspected of some alliance with an evil to be dreaded in
future. No ; let us ratlier hold our position the more energetically
for all causeless opposition, and still let us labour more and more
to commend the doctrines and discipUne of. the Church, and all
her visible manifestations to her children and to the world, by a
constant and careful attention to her doctrines, discipline, and for
mularies. A little perhaps we may be vexed, as we shall certainly
be much pained, at the bad construction which is put upon our
endeavours ; at the wonderful neglect of order in those who make
conscieiice of attacking us ; at the quickness of those to whom we
should look for sujjport in carrying out the spirit as well as the
actual requirements of the Church, to discern and to reprove the
slightest unauthorized or hasty step on our side, while the gross
neglect of those who are opposed to us, is overlooked ; — let us
not, however, be moved to leave the straightforward path of duty,
but let us still, through evil report and good report, stand at our
post as devoted sons and obedient servants of the Church of
England, — ready, in much weakness, yet in much sincerity also,
to maintain her doctrines, and to vindicate and uphold her prin-
cijples and her laws.
Immense has been the effect already, of a steady, progressive
attempt to do this ; for many of the laws, and forms, and doctrines

49
of the Church which used to be despised by almost all, are now
held in veneration and obeyed by all but the very lowest ; and
bad as the case is still, yet as compared with the carelessness, and
irreverence, and heterodoxy of Low Churchmen of the last genera
tion, their successors are in comparison sound in theologj-, and
consistent in ecclesiastical propriety. And strong as the effect of
adherence to the doctrines and ritual of the Church, with the exhi
bition of so much of her spirit as we could attain to, has been on
the Evangelical School, it wiU not be less powerful on the Ultra
Church School ; for this, if anything, will shew them that the
Church of England is really that which they are seeking for, a
Church of high principles in ecclesiastical order and polity ; of
sound Catholic theology, of primitive antiquity, and deeply
spiritual ; of an inexhaustible wealth in the means of grace ; and,
in all the methods by which a Church can be embodied to her
children, pure, holy, and beautiful. No careless service of her
priests and ministers, no lax and lukewarm assertion of her doctrines,
no meagre exposition of her spirit, will shew her forth in her
beauty ; though indeed the elements of beauty will be there, to be
brought out and embodied by some of her happier and more
devoted sons : but, if we stiU advance as we have done, her in
trinsic excellence, her visible beauty will at last be acknowledged
by all but the most depraved, and it shaU be said of her with
reference both to her inherent perfection, and to her external
comeUness, " The King's daughter is all glorious within, her
clothing is of wrought gold :"* or if tliis were to appropriate to a
particular church what is in strictness applicable only to the
Chm-ch universal, yet at any rate it may be said to her, " Many
daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all."t
* Psalm xlv, 13. t Proverbs xxxi, 29.

LEEDS :
T. W. GREEN, PRINTER, COMMERCIAL STREET.

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