indeed an unsettling one: would change the whole position of our own Church, and add fresh and yawning width to the chasm between her and those on the continent. Whatever differences may exist among us in our estimate of Romish corruptionshowever some may feel called on to entertain and express a far stronger sense of their evil than is done by others; there can be but one opinion, we think, among rational Churchmen, as to the extreme delicacy of our position in regard to the foreign churches which have retained them. Are we prepared for this

is what it comes to-to announce ourselves to continental Europe as a proselytizing Church? If not, let us never respect a proceeding which has no meaning except as the correlative of such an announcement."

Of course there are degrees of sin according to the light received and the grace resisted. But, to take only one point-is not idolatry sinful, whether it be in Italy or India? and ought it not to be repented of? If in the case either of the Romanist or the Pagan it has been committed ignorantly, that case comes under the illustration of the servant who knew not his Lord's will; but was not the Apostle Paul a penitent in regard to what he had done ignorantly in unbelief against the name of the Lord Jesus? And no doubt can now rest-even if there had been any before-as to whether Rome is idolatrous; for Mr. Sibthorp, having had experience of the fact, has recoiled from her on that very ground. Mr. Faber has placed this matter in a light so just and forcible that we will avail ourselves of his words:

"Our Reformed Church denounces Popery as a system involving rank idolatry. To the accused party this denunciation is, of course, anything rather than agreeable. Hence, while the charge itself is strenuously denied, the utmost efforts of sacerdotal ingenuity are put in requisition so to explain the practice of the Latin communion as to nullify the charge in question. On this vitally necessary point, Dr. Wiseman, for instance, is at once very pathetic and very copious; being perfectly horrified that such a charge should ever have been brought against the doctrine and practice of what he denominates the Catholic Church. Idolators!' he exclaims: Know ye, my brethren, the import of this name? That it is the most frightful charge that can be laid to the score of any Christian? Then, gracious God, what must it be, when flung as an accusation upon those who have been baptised in the name of Christ, who have tasted the sacred gift of his body, and received the Holy Ghost? Assuredly, they know not what they say, who deliberately and directly make this enormous charge; and they have to answer for misrepresentation, yea for calumny of the blackest dye, who hesitate not again and again to repeat, with heartless earnestness and perseverance, this most odious of accusations, without being fully assured (which they cannot be) in their consciences and before God, that it really can be proved.' He proceeds, through thirty-eight closely printed pages, to a laboured exculpation.

"Now the very great importance of Mr. Sibthorp's palinodia I take to be this. Relying on the fidelity of representations such as that of Dr. Wiseman, and thence believing the charge of idolatry to be without foundation, he is induced to quit the pure communion of the Protestant Church of England for the supposed still purer communion of the Popish Church of Rome. Thus, by the actual practice of the party which he joins, he has a full opportunity of testing the correctness of the explanation afforded by that ingenious gentleman, Dr. Wiseman. And what is the result? Why it is nothing less than a conscientious departure from the very society into which he had entered through a full belief that Rome was unjustly charged by England with idolatry; a departure, moreover, be it specially observed, on the avowed ground, as I have been led to understand, that he was required to pay a species of adoration to the Virgin Mary, which, after all the ambages of Dr. Wiseman, plain unsophisticated common sense told him was palpable idolatry or creature-worship. In other words, as soon as the veritable practice of the Latin Church was exhibited to him in its undisguised deformity, all Dr. Wiseman's painful explanations, and all other essays to boot of the same stamp and tendency, vanished into thin air. Mr. Sibthorp, after quitting England for Rome in the full honest belief that Rome is not idolatrous, finds it necessary to return from Rome to England on the equally honest practical conviction that Rome is idolatrous. I have designedly used the word honest, because no man in his senses can doubt Mr. Sibthorp's honesty in either movement; and this very point of his indisputable honesty it is that makes his secession so severe a blow to the Romish party.'

CHRIST. OBSERV. APP.

5 H

Mr. Sibthorp has recovered from his deception in another very important particular; the very particular most strongly dwelt upon by Sclater. We have seen what Sclater expected to find in the Church of Rome, and his astonishment and disappointment at finding the very contrary. He strongly dwelt upon this to Dr. Horneck. "He had been mistaken, deceived, and deluded"—such were his words-" with plausible arguments and specious pretences; and he had hopes of finding greater truth, and piety, and severity of life in the Roman Church than in our communion, which mistakes he was now sensible of." So also, in a letter to the Earl of Danby's chaplain, he says: ""Twas not gain I aimed at, but their piety, (as I was misinformed) surpassing all other communions in the world. The name of a church of that extent, pretended to be so united in all the truths of the Holy Jesus, and withal so full of piety as all their writings boasted of, methought was as glorious a prospect as this world could yield, and well it were if there was such a heaven upon earth, who would not be glad to see it? Who would not be glad to be in it?"

Such were the very visions which seduced Mr. Sibthorp. And in saying so, do we only predict after the event? If our readers will turn to our Number for last August, p. 485, they will perceive that we anticipated the disappointment which Mr. Sibthorp, we doubt not, has keenly felt. Having quoted Dr. Pusey's fervid panegyric upon the Church of Rome, in which he glowingly contrasts our cold, meagre, wretched condition in the Anglican communion, with her "holy truths and practices;" her "unity ;” her “discipline;" her "fuller devotions, works of practical wisdom, and purified and kindled love;" her "communion of saints;" her "monastic institutions, which furnish a refuge from the weariness and vanities of the world, and a means of higher perfection to individuals, which many sigh after;" and, "above all, her prayers," and the yearning anxiety of some of her members for our conversion, "remembering us at the altar night and day in the holy week, thus drawing our hearts to them, and winning our sympathies and gratitude;"'-we added :

"Such representations as the above, more than direct arguments, have allured some men of devout and tender spirit, but of weak judgment, such as Mr. Sibthorp, to the embraces of Rome. They have earnestly desired free scope to the feelings of awe, mystery, tenderness, reverence, and devotedness,' and they hope to find them as promised in the Church of Rome. But they soon discover that their new associates are not what they expected that a Fenelon, instead of being the rule, is the exception; and that the routine of formalities, to which they looked forward with so much hope, becomes irksome and unprofitable, instead of ministering to spiritual life and holy unction. Mr. Sibthorp, we make no question, has been disappointed at the issue of his experiment."

Mr. Sibthorp may have met with better specimens of the Romanist priesthood than did Sclater; and his bland and generous disposition would restrain him from caustic words even if he had met with worse; but he did not find what Dr. Pusey describes, and he found much of a very different character. The Popish priesthood is least respected where it is most intimately known. It is feared in Ireland and Italy, and it was in Spain and Portugal; but it is not, and was not, esteemed or loved. Abject credulity, and the dread of offending an order of men who know the deepest secrets of the hearts and lives of all around them, and who are supposed to possess the absolute power of absolving or condemning, and to hold the keys of the unseen world, too generally prevent the laity who have been brought up in Romanist bondage from daring to burst their bonds; but apart from hope or fear, habit and superstition, they

have nothing to bind them to their priesthood. The fathers, parents, and brothers, in those countries which swarm with monks and friars, would not respond to Dr. Pusey's glowing panegyrics upon Romanist celebate institutions; and the unknown magnificence described by Mr. Newman, ill corresponds with the advice given to Pope Paul III. by four cardinals and five prelates, or to Julius the Third by the prelates at Bononia, touching the need of reform in the church. We see by such historical illustrations, that there was nothing in the system of Popery, even when it held undisputed sway, to ensure the very surface interests of morality; but this we do not urge, nor do we accuse Romanists of being worse livers than other men; but when we are told of the exalted sanctity, either in theory or practice, which dignifies the Church of Rome, we deny the alleged fact; and we feel assured that there is far more to be found of what is really good, according to Dr. Pusey's own description, among religious persons in the Protestant churches, than within the precints of Popery. In our own communion there is not the fanaticism, the show of will-worship, the blind credulity, the dreaming mysticism, and the perpetual ritualism of external devotion, which characterise what the poetical Tractarians call "Christ's holy home," a phrase, coined rather in rhyme than reason, to designate "Rome;" but it is not true that our church does not give scope to scriptural feelings of "awe, mystery," tenderness, and devotedness." If we have them not, the fault is in ourselves, not our system; and we should not be mended by going over to Rome. We dwell upon the point, because nothing more impresses devout and ardent minds than this false representation of the spiritual advantages to be derived from union with "the mother of abominations." The second head of Sclater's recantation is, in this regard, very important; for whatever may have been the character or the motives of the man, his deposition upon this subject bears internal marks of truth, and it is corroborated by universal experience and history.

Of the lapsed and returned "minister of Putney" we know not the subsequent history; but we believe that he for several years kept a day-school for boys in the parish of St. Clement Danes; and died there in the early part of the eighteenth century.

Certain Tractarians, in their displeasure at the Bishop of Chichester, (whose opposition to Mr. Williams in the matte rof the Poetry Professorship at Oxford, they have not forgiven), ask, "By what authority does Dr. Gilbert, or any other prelate, presume to add to the Church service an office for the reception of penitents?" We leave their Lordships of London and Chichester to answer the question; but as an argumentum ad hominem, we respectfully ask why Dr. Pusey, Mr Newman, and their colleagues, printed as a model, in Tract 39, Bishop Wilson's "Form of receiving Penitents," to be used "after morning prayers." No men have worse memories than Tractarians, when what they wrote yesterday is inconvenient to be quoted to-day.

We have offered no opinion upon the general questions connected with the reception of penitents, because we do not think there is any definite regulation in our church upon the subject. Signor Vignati was required to make a humble recantation before a Bishop; Mr. Sibthorp was admitted to the Lord's Supper by a Presbyter, without any public (or, so far as we know, private) recantation;-yet, if either case required it, his required it more; for he had impugned the Queen's ecclesiastical supremacy; and therefore, by Canon II. of 1603, was "excommunicated ipso facto, and not to be restored but only by the Archbishop, after his repentance, and public revocation of those his wicked errors."

He had denied that the Church of England is "a true and Apostolical Church;" therefore by Canon III.he was "excommunicated ipso facto, not to be restored but only by the Archbishop, after his repentance, and public revocation of this his wicked error." Canon V. denounces the same penalty, in the same form, for saying that the Thirty-nine Articles are "in any part superstitious or erroneous.” But then every Non-conformist is under the same censure; and yet no clergyman can without peril refuse the Lord's Supper to one who having been a Non-conformist wishes to partake of it, and conforms to our usages. No office of recantation is insisted upon in such cases. The notice to the minister, and the appearance at the Lord's table, are regarded as pledges that the candidate holds no anti-Anglican doctrine. Should it be said that the words "ipso facto," in the Canons, placed Mr. Sibthorp in a condition from which he could not be extricated but by the Archbishop; he, or the clergyman who admitted him to the Lord's Supper, might reply, that the ipso facto excommunication is equally predicated of every Non-conformist; and also that an officiating clergyman knows nothing of any ipso facto but by official monition; and Bishop Gibson remarks, "Where the Canonists speak of excommunications ipso facto, they are, I think, unanimous that a declaratory sentence is necessary." No such declaratory sentence had been pronounced; nor is it pronounced in the case of Non-conformists generally; so that an officiating clergyman has no need, or right, to demand the Archbishop's act of restoration, for there was no declaratory sentence" that an offence had been committed.

We have said enough to show that there is no fixed regulation; and that hence arise inconveniences and anomalies. Had the foreigners admitted to communion by the Bishops of London and Chichester, presented themselves at the Lord's table after notice to the clergyman, they could not have been rejected because they had not publicly recanted as penitents. Converted Romanists, foreign and English, have conformed silently; and the public cannot understand why some men are made to undergo a painful penance, and others not. But where a Romanist priest wishes to obtain, or a lapsed English presbyter to regain, the exercise of sacred functions in the Anglican Church, it is surely not harsh to impose some public solemnity of humiliation, to test the sincerity and repentance of the individual, and to remove causes of offence, if any have arisen. But the whole difficulty originates in the mistaken leniency which allows a clergyman to play fast and loose with his orders, so that he may go away from us, and renounce us, unscathed, and return at his convenience. But by the laws of the Anglican Church, (see Article XXVI.; Canon CXXII.; and our ecclesiastical law passim) an English presbyter going over to the Church of Rome, and à fortiori if he repudiates his Anglican orders and submits to be re-ordained in the Papal communion, ought to be deposed. There is not the slightest question that this is the law, though it has been allowed to sleep. It ought at once to be applied to those clergymen who have gone over to Rome. Mr. Sibthorp having returned and communicated before proceedings were commenced against him, stands on a different footing to the rest. We see not why our Holy Orders should be made a laughing-stock to all churches We allow men to abjure our Orders as sham Orders; and then allow them, if they please, to re-appear among us as presbyters; instead of deposing them from what they threw off with contempt, and receiving them back only as laymen, or penitent Romanist priests, not as Anglican clergymen. Why have not the Hon. and Rev. G. Spencer, and others who have spurned Anglican Orders for Rome, been divested of them?

REPLY TO TWO RUBRICAL QUERIES.
For the Christian Observer.

WE will reply to two queries propounded to us upon the introductory remarks of our review of Irish Episcopal Charges in our Number for October.

We said, "In England most persons stand during the reading of the Gospel; in Ireland sitting is very general. The Reformers, says Bishop Fleetwood, found the custom of standing, and left it as they found it; not thinking it necessary to make a Rubric on the subject.' We are hereupon asked why we are to stand at the Gospel, if our Reformers said nothing about it. The obvious reply is, that what custom had kept up, a rubric was inserted, at the last revision of the Prayer-book, to enjoin. How Bishop Fleetwood came to overlook this Rubric, we cannot tell; but even to this hour some clergymen might be supposed never to have read the Rubrics after the Nicene Creed, (where this stands) as they do not use the formula there prescribed for announcing the Epistle and Gospel. Bishop Fleetwood, in the letter referred to, was remonstrating against the practice of standing at the second lesson, when taken from the Gospels, which a Sacheverellite curate had urged at the church of St. Andrew's, Holborn, the parish in which the Bishop of Ely's London residence was situated. The Bishop says that "neither the man nor the gesture itself, considered singly, is worth the taking any pains about; but the spirit of imposing is troublesome and mischievous, and ought to be carefully watched against." He therefore advises his fellow-parishioners not to follow "new-fangled whimsies" and "oddnesses," and to remember that "the Rubric is the rule and law both to the governors and the governed." The Epistles, he said, were as much the word of God, and to be reverenced, as the Gospels. A prudent man, however, he adds, would not offend against a custom which is not evil; he would therefore stand up at the Gospel in the Communion-service, though he would not in the second lesson. But he forgot that besides the custom, there was a Rubric, which he had just said is "the rule and law.”

The other point was, that we said the clergy in Ireland have retained the weekly offertory from pew to pew; but not according to the Rubrical direction, (that is, while the sentences before the prayer for the church militant are being read) but before the sermon; and we are told that this is proper, and that the sentences ought to be used only when there is the administration of the Sacrament; and that these usual collections are not properly the Offertory. Bisho pAndrews, we understand, has been quoted in the Times newspaper, to prove that there ought never to be a gathering except when there is "the sacrifice" of the Lord's Supper. We will not open up a question which has caused much strife to little purpose; but we will quote, from Dean Comber's Companion to the Temple, a few lines which bear upon the point. The Dean says, (Part iii. sect. 6,) "The first and most natural act of charity, is to relieve the wants of the necessitous with something which we can spare; and this the Apostle adviseth us to do every Lord's day, 1 Cor. xvi. 1; and by his authority our Church invites us to give alms so often, whether there be a communion or no." But, adds he, "This apostolical and excellent custom of weekly collections is now generally, to the grief of all good Christians, omitted and wholly laid aside." He was writing in the days of Charles the Second; so that more than a century and a half ago (if not long before) the custom had ceased in England; but it has been