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were "the lights of the Church in the middle ages ;" and also Hildebrand, concerning whom our Homilies ask, "Shall we say that he had God's Holy Spirit within him, and not rather the spirit of the devil?" We ought to know who are the saints whose festivals are to be celebrated in church and on the village-green; for though at present only those in the Anglican calendar may be supposed by

the public to be alluded to, the Tractarian party shew a violent desire to enlarge the number. We only wish to know, like the blind man, where we are to rest our foot before we lift it, lest we stumble or fall over a precipice. We crave to see a map of the intended journey before we set out upon it, lest we should find ourselves at Rome before we are aware.

BISHOPS OF CHESTER AND LLANDAFF, AND THE DEAN OF

SALISBURY.

1. A Practical Exposition of the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans, and the first to the Corinthians, in the form of Lectures; intended to assist the practice of domestic instruction and devotion. By J. B. SUMNER, D.D., Lord Bishop of Chester.

1843.

2. A Charge to the Clergy of Llandaff. By EDWARD, Lord Bishop of Llandaff.

1842.

3. A Charge to the Clergy of the Deanery of Sarum. By HUGH PEARSON, D.D., Dean of Salisbury. 1842. WE take up these three publications for the sake, chiefly, of those parts of them which bear upon the Tractarian system. The subject does not diminish in importance like those errors which spread for a moment, but have no tenacity of life, and are best left to die away in silence. Tractarianism-though checked by the extravagancies of its incautious defenders, by the counter inculcation of sound doctrine, and by the reaction caused by the perversion of some of its disciples to Popery-still "maketh winged speed" among the unstable and unwary; and new facts are not wanting to keep it prominently before the public; though, as we have repeatedly declared, none of these new facts were necessary to shew its real character; for the essentials of the whole system were to be found in the early Tracts, as much as in those on "Reserve," or in Number 90, or in the "British Critic;" and we had occasion to

speak as decidedly in our reply to Mr. Newman six years ago, as we do now; though then we were accounted traducers by some, false alarmists by many, and exaggerators by most, because we pointed out the legitimate and necessary, though then unavowed, tendencies of the system. Among the "new facts," one has been strongly authenticated to us, which bears out what we from the first anticipated in regard to the legitimate tendency of Dr. Pusey's statements respecting sin after baptism. In nothing have we been more vehemently accused of wanting candour, and making out a case merely for effect, and without any shadow of probability, than in what we have so often stated upon this subject, from our early arguments with Mr. Newman, Mr. Keble, and Dr. Pusey, to our more recent remarks upon Mr. Wordsworth's discourse upon Penance. There is, we said, a coherence in other systems, re

specting the sinner's justification; but in Dr. Pusey's system there is no coherence, without supplying, what was at first attempted to be veiled in specious generalities, namely, a third sacrament, and that sacrament one of expiation by bodily inflictions, as much as in the case of a Hindoo devotee. The Evangelical system-the system of the Bible and that adopted by our Own Church-is coherent. It makes justification to be the gift of God, through the redemption that is in Christ, received by faith, and not in whole or in part by man's works or deservings; notwithstanding that good works do necessarily spring from justifying faith, as a tree is known by its fruits. The remedial system also the system vindicated by Bishop Bull, and which was in effect that of what were called the "orthodox" or 66 moral clergy-is complete, though not Scriptural. It makes justification to be through faith and works conjointly; the merits of Christ compensating for our defects, and sincerity being accepted for perfect obedience. The system of Popery also is rotund; it justifies us by the sacrament of Baptism; it continues justification by the sacrament of the altar and good works; and it restores lost justification by a third sacrament, that of Penance. The Tractarians from the first adopted the first two heads, but were at first shy of expressing the third; especially as the Church to which they profess to belong denies that penance is a sacrament. We indeed said that they must inevitably come to this ; but Dr. Pusey and other early Tractarians warded off the conclusion as long as they could. Dr. Pusey said that what constitutes "that grievous sin after baptism which involves the falling from grace; what the distinction between venial and mortal sins;" is "a very distressing question, which I would

gladly answer if I could or dared." But it must be answered upon his system, as it is by every Romanist priest in the confession-box; and it is useless to speak in vague generals of "the baptism of tears;" for to complete a system in which "sacraments, not faith, are the instruments of justification," there must be a sacrament of penance to remedy the loss of baptismal grace, and the consequent non-application of the Saviour's atonement; and the due measure of bodily infliction must be clearly prescribed, taking especial care that the suffering be not too little to be sufficiently meritorious; whereas, if it superabounds, the merit will be cumulative. In some cases a hair-shirt may suffice; in others, crawling over flint stones on bare knees may be requisite; in others, one or more scourgings are indispensable; and the infliction of bodily pain by fire may in griev ous cases be resorted to.

The

Do we romance? The subject is too serious for trifling. facts which have transpired respecting the penitential bodily inflictions of some of the pupils of the Tractarians, prove that physical torture is regarded by them as expiatory of sin and pleasing to Heaven. We said that we would mention a recent fact, well authenticated to us. It is this. A clergyman, the Reverend a fellow of a college in Oxford, and having souls committed to his charge -not one of your "lank undergraduates," Mr. Paget, "vain blockheads," and "geese;" but a graduate, a fellow of a college, and a clergyman, one of the choicest full-fledged produce of the ninety eggs has inflicted upon himself severe macerations, so as to shock the feelings of all who know him; and especially has mutilated two or three of his fingers by burning, and also one of his feet; because he was conscious that he had lost his baptismal purity; and having read

Dr. Pusey's Tracts on Baptism, he was convinced that there is no other means of being restored to grace but by such acts of bodily penance. Is such a fact incredible? From the information given to us we believe it to be truth; but even if it were not, it is truth-like. We anticipated such occurrences from the first; in proof of which we will quote a portion of what we wrote in our Volume for 1837, in reply to the letters which Mr. Newman addressed to us in defence of Dr. Pusey and his colleagues, and their publications. It is consoling to us, that, though we were thought by many to carry the matter too far, we endeavoured to give a faithful warning. Our notes, we admit, were so long and heavy, that we fear they were not generally perused; so that in quoting a passage from them (1837, p. 329334) we run no great risk of troubling our readers with what is in their recollection.

"There was no doctrine of Popery which our venerable Reformers more frequently and severely denounced, than its unscriptural classification of sins into mortal and venial, baptismal and post-baptismal; and the apparatus therewith connected, of penance and purgatory. It would take many pages to unfold at length the Papal figments; the Scriptural doctrine, as revived by our Reformers; and the points in which the Oxford Tracts follow the former, and dissent from the latter. Our settled belief, upon a careful review of these publications, is, that they are essentially Romanist in their spirit, as regards the whole question relating to man's justification and salvation; and especially in their unscriptural notions relative to the condition of baptized and unbaptized persons.-There is a large class of texts which speak such language as the following:

"For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted of the good word of God, and the powers of the World to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance, seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh.'

If after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning; for it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.' 'If we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.' 'Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of his grace?' 'When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, &c., then goeth he and taketh unto him seven other spirits, more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first.' He will speak peace unto his people and to his saints; but let them not turn again to folly.'

"Now in none of these, and scores of similar texts, is there any mention of ante-baptismal and post-baptismal sin. If a person revelled in transgression, offending against Scriptural light, and the checks of conscience, and of the Spirit of God remonstrating in his soul, his sins would be fearfully aggravated, even though he had never been baptized. His having enjoyed the privilege of baptism, whether in infancy or adult years, would of course add largely to his guilt; it would be another mercy slighted, a high privilege unimproved; but there is nothing in Scripture that places the two classes of sins, as the Papists do, in wholly distinct ranks. There is nothing that countenances the tissue of fictions, that, however aggravated may have been a man's offences up to the very moment of baptism, every stain is washed out by that sacrament; justification, till then suspended, notwithstanding there was true faith, is then conferred; that a new nature is given, in the strength of which the baptized person may henceforth live in sinless obedience, so as to work out his salvation by his good deeds, being 'entitled,' says Dr. Pusey, to the strivings of God's Spirit;' but that after that ordinance there is, in case of sin, no such plenary application of the blood of Christ; that there remains only the baptism of tears, doubt's galling chain,

and a course, as Professor Pusey expresses it, of 'enduring pains and abiding self-discipline, and continued sorrow,' so as again to become capable of that mercy; the very word 'capable' necessarily involving the idea, however much it may be disclaimed, of something meritorious in ourselves to render the sacrifice of Christ availing; and with the awful doubt still hanging over us, as is fearfully described in the tracts, that the required degree of capability may not have been arrived at, notwithstanding all the severity of our pe

nances.

"The effect of such opinions must be to drive men to despair, unless counteracted by some alleviation. The Papist finds that alleviation, first, in unscriptural notions respecting the nature of sin, and, secondly, in sacramental observances to ease its burden. The popular Romanist opinions respecting sin-we speak not of the deep experience of a Pascal or Fenelon-are not the instinctive sentiments of a scripturallyenlightened conscience, which feels that the infection of original sin remains even in the regenerate, so that the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; but rather the casuistical notions generated by scholastic distinctions of mortal and venial, antebaptismal and post-baptismal, with a variety of minute distinctions respecting days, and meats, and statutable observances; so as to merge the spirituality of religion in its externals, and to make contrition and penitence rather an affair between a man and the Church -in other words, his priest-than between God and his own soul. If, however, notwithstanding these extenuations, an offence is still burdensome, Popery has provided 'pains,' and 'selfdiscipline,' and all the appliances of the confessional, to heal the conscience, and to sign the sinner's pardon under the seal of priestly absolution.

"The Oxford Tracts adopt the spirit of this delusive system, with only a few modifications, which do not render it scriptural, but reduce it to a more refined species of Pharisaism; and as Pharisaism is not a system which can apply a suitable remedy to a wounded conscience, they leave to the most humble and sincere penitent nothing but that dreadful state of despondency which Dr. Pusey so graphically de

scribes.

"The word Pharisaism, we admit, sounds harshly; but we know of no other word that truly expresses the idea; for the system under consideration involves throughout the notion of self

justification; with the mere exception of the three or four first weeks of infancy, or whatever time elapses, up to the date of baptism. To that date every thing may be of grace, through faith; but after that date our salvation is essentially of works. There may be wire-drawn distinctions; but, reduced to its elements, the system necessarily comes to this. We might apply the matter at once to the Oxford Tract writers. What is your hope of salvation? Is it not that you were justified, cleansed, and renewed, in baptism; and that grace was then given you to work out your salvation; which grace you have not forfeited by sin; so that you are 'entitled' to the covenanted mercy of God? We say that such a system necessarily involves unscriptural notions respecting sin; that it virtually embodies those Popish doctrines which the Sixteenth Article, 'Of Sin after Baptism,' was expressly intended to oppose: for though it does not absolutely, in so many words, ' deny the grant of repentance to such as fall into sin after baptism,' it does so in spirit, by burdening the 'grant' with humanly - devised impediments formidable, that, says Dr. Pusey, it were to abuse the power of the keys entrusted to us, again [that is, after a second sin after baptism] to pretend to to admit them thus; now there remains only the baptism of tears.' Mr. Newman may urge many nice 'scholastic' distinctions, but he could never persuade twelve plain straight-forward men in a jury box, that the above is not in effect denying the grant of repentance to such as fall into sin after baptism,' in the very way alluded to in the Article. Any nice distinctions which would take the Oxford Tracts out of the range of this Article, would also exempt Popery, and prove that our Reformers wrote against a doctrine which no man holds.

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"We repeat, that nothing but the most delusive Pharisaism can shut out despair under such a system. We wish that Mr. Newman had told us, in his own case, how he reconciles the inconsistency of uttering confessions in which, as often as we use them, we acknowledge that we have erred and strayed from God's ways like lost sheep, that we have offended negatively and positively, that there is no health in us, and that we are tied and bound with the chain of our sins; with the doctrine that a second sin after baptism reduces the penitent to the state described in the tracts. Does Mr. Newman consider himself in that condition ? Assuredly not: he speaks in his last

letter (in palpable opposition to the Ninth Article) of the state of the Christian upon earth as being most accurately described by calling it an angel's nature; and the Tracts make the believer's confidence towards God depend upon the alleged retention of baptismal grace pure from sin. How the writers reconcile these things we cannot understand. Popery says, honestly, that we are justified by faith in baptism, but we are saved by our meritorious living after it.........The Tract doctrine is Protestantism rejected and Popery spoiled. It yields the post-baptismal penitent neither the sacrament of penance, nor the scriptural appropriation of the blood of Christ.

"Much and strongly as we have written upon this portion of the Oxford Tract system, we have not conveyed the intensity of feeling which it excites in our minds. We will not take the case of a long-hardened miscreant, who has at length, through the mercy of God, been led to deep and genuine repentance, and whom these Tracts must consign to despair, plainly telling him that the ministers of the Gospel are not warranted to declare that the blood of Christ is available for post-baptismal sin, at least for more than one; and that henceforth there remains only 'the baptism of tears.' We pass over such a case-though even there the system is as awful as it is unscriptural-and we will suppose the instance of a young female as pure and irreproachable in heart and life as can be admitted by any who really believe, with the Ninth Article, that the 'infection of nature doth remain, yea, in them that are regenerated; and who do not believe, with Bishop Jebb and the Council of Trent and the Oxford Tracts, that in baptism is conveyed such grace and renewal of nature that the recipient may live all his life long without sin-for we reject as anti-Protestant and unscriptural, the distinction of some classes of sins that he may fall into, and some that he may not. This young female, we will suppose, in reading the word of God, or in the use of the prayers of the Church, is convinced of sin,' and comes to her minister for spiritual advice and consolation. How does Professor Pusey address her? He tells her that she has not slighted the voice of God's Spirit,' that her baptismal grace is still fresh; that her 'conviction of sin,' as it is called, is a Calvinistic fancy; that she has not that 'wilfulness of the old nature' which she complains of, for that it is not 'natural' to any baptized person (a direct contradiction to the Ninth Article), since every such person is in deed CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 63.

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Now, if she listen to this Syren song, she is deceived into practical Pharisaism, and becomes a self-satisfied formalist, unconscious that, with all her virtues, she is a sinner before God, and needs daily and hourly to repair to the fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness: which is as requisite for her, innocent as she is pronounced to be, with her baptismal grace fresh upon her, as for Mary Magdalen, or the thief upon the cross.

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"But suppose that she is not thus deceived, but is so 'spiritually-minded' as to believe herself to be a sinner; not, indeed, on account of gross viciousness of life or thought, but from a scriptural comparison of herself with the holy law of God. In this case how do these Tracts address her? The Bible is full of blessed promises ;-yes, but they are not to be applied plenarily to sinners after baptism. The blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin;-yes, from all sin before baptism, but more is wanting after. He who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities says, 'Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest;'but Professor Pusey interposes between Christ and the penitent, saying, 'the way of repentance must not be made so easy;' and, holding the keys, to open or shut, to remit sins or to retain them, he does not see his way, he says, to apply to a penitent after baptism the gracious words which invited those who had never known Christ, and so had never forsaken him' (as our penitent fears she has too often done); and that, in fact, these gracious words are not a communication direct from Christ to the penitent, but only a declaration that through his church'-[think of the presumption of thus thrusting the priest between Christ and the human soul]-through his church he still invites his true disciples to the participation of his own most blessed body and blood-the priest again must interpose, teaching that 'spiritual communion' with God is not coming to Christ in faith and prayer, but sacramentally; thus perverting a text which can only by remote accommodation be applied to the Lord's Supper, in order that the church' may be made-we had almost said, the mediator between God and man. Yet, even with this gracious promise before him, Dr. Pusey does not think he is to admit this 2 B

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