fifth century is a development or a corruption Yet this has the Oxford Tract School of the Scripture system-a natural growth done. It has done more. Without, we or a cancerous enlargement? We believe hope, designing it, it has, by way of shieldthe latter; but assuredly nothing could ing the palpable contradictions and fabulous warrant us in believing the former, except legends of the Fathers from contempt, sufthe most obvious harmony between the fered itself to speak of the Scriptures in Scriptures themselves and these supposed language which cannot but tend to diminish additions to it. But it is acknowledged reverence for them, and to give no little that no such obvious harmony is to be advantage to infidelity. In one of the most found; that the doctrines contended for gratuitously offensive of the Tracts (No. are not easily reconciled with the Scriptures 85,) it is argued that if the Fathers appa-that apart from the patristic authority no rently contradict one another, so do the one would have suspected them to be there Scriptures;-if many of their statements -that there is very much at the least which are unintelligible and revolting to reason, appears to contradict them--that the tone there are many in the Scriptures which and spirit in which the relative importance are equally so. And then it is added, that of the several elements of religion are if the Scriptures are nevertheless true, so spoken of, appear to be entirely alien. One may the system dependent on the Fathers would imagine, therefore, that nothing less be true. With the accustomed suppressio than a Revelation as clear, as express, and veri, the writer has carefully concealed two as miraculously authenticated as the Scrip- essential points: the first is, that the reatures, would be sufficient to justify our re- son why we receive any apparent contraception of these additions. Can we then dictions or startling prodigies in the Scripbelieve that they would have been commit- ture, is not on account of their antecedent ted to such men as the Fathers are proved probability; but on account of the many to be, and mixed up with their acknowledg- and convincing proofs, of an independent ed errors, follies, and superstitions? Ought character, that the Scripture is of Divine not this circumstance alone to make us origin. Give us the same evidence for the suspect, that the soidisant additions to Re- Fathers, and except where they really con velation are more probable corruptions of tradict one another, (which they do very it ?* plentifully,) we will receive them too. The second is, that there is the widest possible difference between the miraculous narratives of Scripture and the idle legends of the Fathers-not less in the character of the events themselves, than in the tone and manner of the writers. These writers have gone yet further. We have seen it recently asserted, that there is as much reason for rejecting the most essential doctrines of Christianity-nay, Christianity itself *-as for rejecting their "Church principles.' That, in short, we have as much reason for being infidels as for rejecting the doctrine of Apostolical succession. What other ef fect such reasoning can have than that of compelling men to believe that there is nothing between infidelity and Popery, and of urging them to make a selection between the two, we know not. The author of Tract Number Eighty-five, calls his argument a "kill-or-cure remedy." We believe that it will kill in either case. But even in the sense in which the author uses these words, we are persuaded it will "kill" far more than it will "cure." Not a few will

The interval between the Scriptures and the very best of the Fathers is so immense, that not a few have testified that it forms to them the most convincing proofs of the inspired origin of the former; it being, in their judgment, absurd to suppose that any man-much less a number of men-could have composed such a volume as the Bible, in an age in which their immediate succes sors, many of them possessing undoubted genius and erudition, and having the advantage of their light to walk by, could fall into puerilities so gross, and errors so monstrous. We could sooner believe that Jacob Böhmen could have composed the "Novum Organum," or Thomas Sternhold the "Paradise Lost."

But the more intimate this conviction, the deeper ought to be the indignation that any man should attempt to exalt the Fathers, either singly or collectively, to the same level with the Scriptures; or attempt to divide their exclusive and paramount authority with that of a set of men on whose pages are so legibly inscribed the marks of error, absurdity, and fantastic raving.

* On this subject the reader will find some truly philosophical observations in Mr. Taylor's Ancient Christianity. Nos. 2 and 3. See particularly pp. 180-190.

say,

"We accept your reasoning; you are a learned man, and we will believe as you say, that you have no more to say in behalf

* British Critic, No. 63, Art. II. p. 75, 76.

of the Scriptures than in behalf of your leave darkness behind it, was natural; but Church principles; and as we see that what how it came to plunge at once from the you have to say for the last is little enough, zenith into the ocean, may well surprise you will excuse us for rejecting Christian-us. Two things, however, are clear. One ity altogether." Indeed, we fully expect is, that this marvellous rule of faith is not that, as a reaction of the present extrava- security at all against corruption; secondgances of the revival of obsolete supersti- ly, it appears that in the only experiment tions-we shall have ere long to fight over ever made of its efficiency, it instantly again the battle with a modified form of in-ended in it. Its advocates can be consisfidelity, as now with a modified form of Po- tent only in arguing that Romanism is not pery. Thus, probably, for some time to a fearful corruption, but, like the Church come, will the human mind continue to os- of the fifth century, still a harmonious decillate between the extremes of error; but velopment. To this it is coming. with a diminished arc at each vibration; until the gravitation of eternal truth shall at last prevail, and compel it to repose in the centre.

After all, the greatest enemies of those "good but greatly erring men," the Fathers, are their modern idolaters; who, by exaggerating their claims, compel us to prove them unfounded. Most certain is it, that they do not invest either themselves or the church to which they belonged, with the authority which their modern admirers would fain attribute to them ;-a point which the reader will find abundantly proved in Mr Goode's ample citations from them. Daillé has a striking passage on this point, from which we extract a single sentence: "I am firmly of opinion that if these holy men could now behold from the mansions of blessedness. . what things are done here below, they would be very much offended by the honors which men confer upon them much against their wills or if from out of their sepulchres, where the relics of their mortality are now laid up, they could but make us hear their sacred voice, they would, I am very confident, sharply reprove us for this abuse, and would cry out in the words of Paul, Sirs, why do ye these things? we also were men of like passions with yourselves!'"

6

In concluding this part of the subject, we may remark that it is a suspicious circumstance, that the authority of "tradition" did not maintain the unity of the faith and the integrity of doctrine, to secure which their writers would restore it. No sooner did the ancient Church assume that perfect form to which the Oxford theologians would assimilate the modern, than it degenerated into Popery: it no sooner became ripe, according to their notions of ripeness, than it became rotten. Of course, we have no difficulty in accounting for the phenomenon; there was continuity in the whole process. That the sun which had long been setting, should go down, and

5. We had intended offering some observations on the views propounded by this School on the important subject of "Justification," and the related topics. But our space warns us to forbear, and we must content ourselves with referring to the able discussions in the volume by the Bishop of Ohio. Suffice it here to say, that the views in question approximate indefinitely to those of Rome;-at least, if there be any important difference, it depends on the most subtle refinements and the most unintelligible distinctions. Mr. Newman's "Lectures" on the subject form one of the most curious specimens of cloudy metaphysics ever given to the public. Most unfairly is reason dealt with by this School. In general, they dispense with it altogether; when they do appeal to it, it is only to mock it with incomprehensible subtleties. Of the two, we decidedly prefer their mysticism to their metaphysics; we had rather be called upon to exercise faith without logic, than be insulted by a logic which can be received only by faith. It at least saves much fruitless effort to understand what we, after all, discover is not to be understood.

6. In addition to all this, many individual writers, and some of the public organs of this School, have put forth a variety of opinions and statements, the general tendency of which cannot be mistaken. They together constitute Romanism, almost perfect in its organs and lineaments, but of Lilliputian dimensions. We shall give them miscellaneously.

The tracts on "Reserve" openly plead for a method of exhibiting Christianity, or rather a method of vailing it, which strongly reminds one of the Romish Church. The writer contends for the ancient disciplina arcani, by which the more awful mysteries were "reserved" for the initiated; but amongst these, with a plenitude of extravagance to which the ancient Church affords no parallel, he includes even the characteristic doctrine of Christianity, and

utilitarian thus reserves his money as the writer of the Tract would reserve his Bibles. Alas! for St. Paul and his ignorant colleagues; we fear they must have incurred much guilt, and occasioned much, by proclaiming the gospel without sufficiently considering whether it would be rightly received or not. They seem to have been but poorly provided with the doctrine of "reserve" or, if they had it, they assuredly "reserved" it. It is evidently also the opinion of this writer, that it is better to leave the heathen in utter darkness than attempt their conversion by any "unauthorized" methods or irregular zeal. Men had better, one would suppose, die of their spiritual maladies than be cured empirically-had better not go to heaven at all, than go there by any other route than the Via Media. But to proceed to other facts.

vehemently denounces the "explicit" and sure that the "object is worthy." The prominent" exhibition of the Atonement.* He casts high scorn on all the present "utilitarian" methods of doing good-on cheap churches and cheap Bibles. He disapproves of the attempt to bring the church to every man's door; and seems to think that an empty church, provided it cost enough and the services be sufficiently magnificent, will, by a sort of opus operatum, be of "incalculable efficacy." In open defiance of the command to "preach the gospel to every creature," and to proclaim the truth "whether men will hear or whether they will forbear;" in equal defiance of the Apostles themselves-he assures us that it is an awful thing to make known the gospel to those who are ignorant of it, lest we involve them in deeper condemnation. We must not give a Bible, we presume, unless we are beforehand guaranteed that it will be rightly used; a plan very much like that "utilitarian" benevolence which buttons up its pockets, and will not be stow a farthing till quite

*No. 80. “Sect. 5. On the necessity of bringing forward the doctrine of the Atonement."-Its ex. plicit and prominent" exhibition "is evidently quite opposed to what we consider the teaching of Scripture, nor do we find any sanction for it in the gospels. If the Epistles of St. Paul appear to favor it, it is only at first sight." "In all things it would appear that this doctrine, so far from its being what is supposed, is in fact the very secret of the Lord, which Solomon says is with the righteous,' and the covenant,' not to be lightly spoken of by man, but which He will show to them that fear him."

"For if the erection of churches, which, from commodiousness and easiness of access are to invite, and from their little cost partake more of a low contriving expediency than of a generous love of God, is to do the work of religion, then is it more easy to win souls than Scripture will warrant us in supposing;" and he adds that we have to fear lest, rather than doing good, we be breaking that holy law which hath commanded that we give not that which is holy to the dogs."-(p. 69.)

After stating the early or original opinion respecting Purgatory, the writer of the tract professedly against the Romish doctrine says, "taken in the mere letter there is little in it against which we shall be able to sustain formal objections."

Prayers for the dead are openly justified. The practice, says Mr. Newman, "is Catholic, and apparently Apostolical."

While the Tracts on "reserve" advocate a very cautious and measured communication of religious truth, a sort of compensation is to be given in the shape of multiplied symbols. It is but the exchange of one sort of instruction for another, and effects a great economy of time, breath, and labor. As the philosophic exile found

"Sermons in stones and good in every thing," so the stupid rustic is to study celestial wisdom in a system of symbols; though, as all history proves, he is more likely to learn superstition than religion from them. The effect of the Church as a witness, though If the "Priests" are to be in a measure in a manner silent and out of sight, is something dumb"-n'importe, for the very "stones very great and incalculable, of which I would ad- in the wall" are to "cry out," emblazoned duce the following instance. Before the Reformation the Church recognized the seven hours of as they are to be with the characters of a prayer. However these may have been practi- hieroglyphical religion. A Journal devoted cally neglected, or hidden in an unknown tongue, to the sect, has given us its views on the there is no estimating what influence this may subject in an article on "The Church Serhave had on common people's minds secretly."-vice." We there find the cross called a (P. 73.) Much of what is here said may be applied "sacramental sign"-"a holy efficacious to an indiscrimate distribution of Bibles and reli- symbol.". Yet, with the exquisite prudery gious publications. We must not expect that the of the new doctrine of 66 reserve," the writer does not approve of the crucifix in churches. "Doubtless," the reader will say, "because it is so easily abused to superstition." No such thing. "We are no advocates of the crucifix, at all events in the open way in which it is commonly

work which occasioned our Saviour and his disciples so much pains, can be done by such means. We have rather to look with awe on these new dealings of Providence with mankind.. That

the unprepared cannot receive the truth,' is the

appointment of God; but our attempting to act contrary to his mode of acting may be productive of evil."-(P. 70.)

exhibited abroad. Even pictures of the purple or crimson upon the several saints' same solemn subject strike us as irreverent, days (except St. John the Evangelist, and and should at least be always vailed. And perhaps St. Luke,) to signify the blood of we would not hazard an unqualified objec- martyrdom; and on All Saints' days and tion even against the crucifix as an object the Holy Innocents, white should be interfor very private contemplation, under cer- mingled as a memorial of Virgin innotain trying circumstances; say, for in- cence." "We deprecate," proceeds this stance, a surgical operation. The crucifix exquisite spiritualist, "forced flowers, which openly exhibited, produces the same sort look artificial; but we believe that, with a of uncomfortable feeling with certain Pro- little management, natural flowers of the testant exposures, in preaching the mystery proper colors may be found throughout the it represents." But with equal refinement, year. It is difficult to conceive a more suitthe writer highly approves of the image of able occupation for the Christian population the cross, and he hopes the time will come than that of cultivating flowers for such a golden age!" when no English church purpose, and afterwards arranging them." will want what many possess already, the Thus the practice would be in equal degree image of the cross, in some place suffi- an encouragement to piety and market ciently conspicuous to assist the devotions gardening. of the worshipper. Let us multiply the Neither are the chandlers forgotten: same holy and efficacious emblem far and "two lights should be placed upon the wide. There is no saying how many sins altar." These," he thinks, "should be its awful form might scare, and how many lighted, else they do not so well signify the evils avert." 29* "With the cross," proceeds truth, Christus lux mundi." Truly we think the writer, "should be associated other they but indifferently express this truth, Catholic symbols, still more than itself whether lighted or not; but he does not φώναντα συνετοις. For these, painted win- press this point, though disposed to think dows seem to furnish a suitable place. it "truly Anglican." They should at all events be confined to the When we consider not only the number most sacred portion of the building. Such and variety of these proposed " embellishare the lamb with the standard; the de- ments," but the importance attached to scending dove; the anchor; the triangle; them, and the solemn tone in which they the pelican; the Ixus (fish), and others. are spoken of, it is impossible to doubt Perhaps the two or three last mentioned, as whither we are tending. If the views of being of most recondite meaning, should be such writers prevail, they must lead to an adopted later than the rest." To these the entire subordination of what is spiritual to writer is prepared to add more, when the what is ceremonial-and religion will deright time shall come. For ourselves we generate into abject superstition. No doubt whether, in our present state of de.wonder that the country is infested by not plorable spiritual ignorance, the anchor and the triangle may not prove too much for us. In the same spirit, this writer laments the absence of anointing at Baptism and Confirmation, as the "loss of a privilege ;" and rejoices in the perpetuation of the custom in the coronation service, as nothing less than an "example of providential care over the Church." Can superstition go further? He elsewhere tells us that there should be "more special decorations of the church on Festival Days; altar coverings and pulpit hangings of unusual richness; or the natural flowers of the season, woven into wreaths, or placed according to primitive custom on the altar. These should be chosen with especial reference to the subject of the Festival." "White flowers," proceeds he with infinite gravity, "are most proper on the days consecrated to the Virgin, as emblematic of sinless purity;

* Br. Cr. No. LIV. p. 271.

a few young "priests," raving about their apostolic succession; founding the most absurd pretensions on their mere sacerdotal character, though backed neither by experience nor wisdom; boasting of the thaumaturgic powers they can exert in the administration of the sacraments; contending, not for the faith once delivered to the saints, but for wax candles, altar cloths, chaplets, crosses, crucifixes, and mummery of all kinds;-at the same time, modestly consigning all Protestants out of the Episcopal pale, either to perdition or the “uncovenanted mercies;" in a word, exhibiting zeal indeed, but zeal that is utterly unacquainted with any other of the Christian graces-zeal that is not even on speaking terms with knowledge, faith, or charity.

The Bishop of London, we regret to say, in his recent "Charge," has done not a little to fan the zeal in behalf of ceremo. nial. Though in great part condemning the Oxford Tractists, and severely repro

bating their most dangerous innovations, in all." One of these writers elsewhere he yet gives such space and importance to calls these and other things "uncatholic certain trumpery matters of ritual, that we peculiarities." But other and more recent are not surprised his "Charge" should writers have gone further, and almost adopthave been claimed on the whole as a tri-ed an apologetic tone. The British Critic, umph by the Oxford party. If we have after having described some of the most been rightly informed, his Lordship has childish and absurd superstitions of the expressed his displeasure that what he de- middle ages-implying the grossest idolasigned as a condemnation of that party, try-merely remarks-"Much there was should have been so misconceived. He is which sober piety cannot sanction; but let the only person, we suspect, who will feel us not forget what was holy and religious any surprise on the subject. When we see on account of incidental corruptions.' him expressing such anxiety that the Ru-well might a polite physician assure some bric should be closely adhered to-laying patient crusted over with leprosy, that he so much stress on the merest trifles-more feared he was laboring under a slight cuseverely censuring those who do not punc-taneous eruption!

As

tiliously keep to the Rubric, even in points Equally significant are the approximavirtually obsolete, than those who make tions to Romish usages and practices in unauthorized additions to it-discussing other instances. The Tracts recommend with so much gravity matters of pulpit eti- to private Christians the dedication of par. quette and clerical costume-expressing ticular days to the religious commemorahis wish that all his clergy should preach tion of deceased saints; and have furnishin white, though it appears he had enjoin- ed a model service in honor of Bishop ed those of Chester to preach in black- Ken, after the pattern of an office in the affirming that he sees no harm" in the breviary of a Roman saint. The Journalist two wax candles, provided, strange reason- just quoted goes further, and is evidently ing! they are not lighted-sagely declaring inclined to think that the saints know of his approval " of the arrangement lately our prayers, and sensibly feel the compli adopted in several churches, by which ment of commemorations. "Days and the clergyman looks to the south while places," says the writer, "specially dedireading prayers, and to the west while read-cated to the saints, are means to us of coming lessons"-it is impossible not to regard munion with them. They not only remind him as too nearly allied in spirit to those us of them, and lead us to contemplate whom he condemns. We sincerely thank their lives, but they give us a special interhim, however, for his unequivocal censure est in the prayers which those blessed spirof the most comprehensive and poisonous its offer up day and night before the throne.""" errors of the Tractists, and shall not ungraciously ask whether it might not have

come sooner.

Many of this School are in ecstasies with the riches of the Romish and Parisian Breviaries. They have also for several years But to resume. Not less significant is past furnished their followers with an "Ecthe altered tone in which these writers clesiastical Almanac," in which the minute speak of those errors of Popery, which they rules of the Romish Church are quoted, as still admit to be such. There is as great a a guide to individuals. Some of them difference between their tone and that of openly plead for the restoration of Monasthe Reformers, as between the playful tap ticism; and others have not obscurely exof a coquette's fan and the vigorous stroke pressed their predilections for the celibacy of a boatswain's lash. The invocation of of the clergy. The Reformation, as alsaints, these writers content themselves with ready mentioned, is spoken of as all but a calling "a dangerous practice, as tending to fearful judgment: we are told that the give, often actually giving, to creatures" unprotestantizing of the National Church" the honor and reliance due to the Creator is an object well worth all the hazard and alone." Of the worship of images, which bitterness which may attend the attempt; they soften into "honor paid to images," that " we must recede more and more from they say only that "it is dangerous in the the principles, if any such there be, of the uneducated, that is, of the great part of English Reformation." Mr. Fronde's too Christians." Yet they profess to be follow-famous exclamation is adopted by not a ing Bishop Hall. The Bishop of Exeter few-"Really, I hate the Reformers and truly remarks, that Bishop Hall calls the the Reformation more and more!" In perfirst of these practices "a foul supersti- fect accordance with all this, the Revolution ;" and of the second, says, "not mere↑ Br. Cr. No. LIX. p. 45.

ly that it is dangerous to some, but sinful

* Oct. 1842.