have escaped the notice of those who watch the progress of public events, between this conduct on the part of the Tractarians, and that of a certain distinguished popular leader, who, having roused the passions of those whom he addresses as hereditary bondsmen,' to the highest pitch of exasperated dissatisfaction, then with much blandness exhorts them by no means to rebel against constituted authority; for that he only means to effect the regeneration of his country by the quiet influence of moral suasion."'-(pp. 13—17.)

The close of the pamphlet, in reply to Dr. Pusey's entreaty for kind words from the Bishops, is so just in sentiment and beautiful in expression, that we will subjoin it also :

:

"We want, indeed, no violent and arbitrary measures to be adopted-nor is there any danger of such. But we want a clear, distinct, and authoritative announcement, such as your lordship and others have already given, that our Church is a Protestant, and not a Popish institution-that the Bible, not as overborne, but as expressed and epitomized by her formularies, is the rule of our faith-that our Articles are not a fac-simile of those of Trent-not cobwebs which may be twisted and woven into any doctrinal network by the ingenuity of subtle dialecticians, but grave, solemn, and binding enunciations of Christian truth. We want it to be announced in serious and authoritative accents, and in a voice which may be heard of all men, from the loftiest pinnacles of our Zion, a voice at once clear and harmonious, that the Church of England is the Church of the Bible, as well as the Church of primitive antiquity-that she is a church in which the ritual is ever to be subservient to the spiritual-the circumstantial and economical to the doctrinal, practical, and essential-that her foundation is laid deep in the truth as taught by prophets, apostles, and evangelists; and that every part of her structure bears the mould and impress of the same great pervading element. Let such an announcement, calm, but unequivocal and decided, proceed from the venerable Fathers of our Church, and I doubt not that, under the Divine blessing, we shall securely pass the present crisis. The sound of strife will die away, and the arm of opposition will wither. Let the voice of faithful admonition, which seven or eight of our Prelates have already sent forth, be swollen by the concurrent testimony of the remainder, and let the Clergy of our Church, true to their solemn obligations, embody its import in their ministrations, and I feel assured that there will be a ready and cordial response from thousands of her devoted and still multiplying children-Esto perpetua.”—(pp. 38, 40.)

The third pamphlet, from the pen of Dr. Thorpe, is a stringent review of Mr. Sewell's Letter upon Tract 90, and his Treatise on Christian Morals. There is much truth and justice in its censures; for certainly a work with so much dogmatism of tone, in the midst of such gross errors and glaring paralogisms, has seldom appeared. Yet we are compelled to regret a harsh and almost satirical character in the "Review," which had far better have been spared, and which is likely to produce irritation, without advancing the cause of truth. Mr. Sewell is a most slippery and unsafe guide in theology-unsettled and wavering, we have little doubt, in his own views; but there can be no question that he is a vigorous thinker and an able writer. In such a case, language that borders on contempt is unsuitable and indecorous. His Treatise on Morals, with all its grievous errors, amounting often to gross absurdity, still bears upon it the clear stamp of an intelli

gent mind, and contains many thoughts of deep truth, expressed with singular felicity. With the exception we have mentioned, Dr. Thorpe's review is well adapted to be useful, and contains many just criticisms upon the chief Tractarian errors.

The fourth pamphlet, however, from the pen of Mr. Goode, is, in our opinion, the most useful of those on our list, from its clear arrangement, and the full summary which it contains of the Tractarian views, and which it confirms by short and well-chosen quotations; while their opposition to the teaching of the Scriptures and the formularies of our Church is placed in a transparent light. It is a worthy supplement of his larger work; and we trust that it will have an extensive circulation.

We now come to Mr. Watson's elaborate defence of Tractarianism, in his "Letter to the Laity." It belongs to the Parthian school of controversy; since the Author disclaims all direct connexion with the Tractators, and flings overboard, without scruple, the more obnoxious of their statements, that he may defend more hopefully the core of their system. We shall pass by his opening complaint about nicknames, observing merely that one who is so sensitive of offence at the name of Puseyite, should be more scrupulous about applying to his opponents the titles of Calvinists, Zuinglians, and disciples of the Genevan school. For ourselves, we would carefully avoid using any title which may be thought personally irritating or invidious; but we cannot, at the same time, see any ground for Mr. Watson's extreme sensitiveness. All Christians, even those whom he terms Calvinists, &c., would disclaim, as strongly as himself, the wish to call any man master upon earth; but so long as differences of sentiment do exist within the church, we must either practise a tedious circumlocution, or submit, in colloquial intercourse, to names borrowed from some leading divine, with whom we most nearly agree.

But let us pass to the main topics of the controversy. And here, at the outset, Mr. Watson is guilty of a very serious omission. He specifies six subjects on which he undertakes the defence of the Tractators;-Baptismal Regeneration, the Real Presence, the Visibility of the Church, the Apostolic Succession, Judgment by Works, and Church Authority. Mr. Goode, however, has given a list of twenty "strange doctrines" which they have advocated, and which sound churchmen must condemn. Among these, as we should have expected, the Judgment by Works has no place, for we know of no churchman who denies it; but there are fifteen, many of them of the highest importance, which Mr. Watson passes by in silence. If he had joined with the defence of the five, an honest and clear reprobation of the others, this would have been

consistent enough: but when scarce a whisper of blame is heard from him upon any point, and only a gentle fear expressed that the opposition of "the Genevan school," &c. may have carried some of them a little too far, there seems a want of simplicity and godly sincerity in the course which he has adopted. Among the omitted subjects are, for instance, Justification, the doctrine of Reserve, Invocation. of Saints, Sin after Baptism, the obscurity of Scripture, and though last, not least, the dishonest, and we had almost said, flagitious wresting of the Articles of our Church. Our readers, then, must understand that the "Letter" is a defence of one-fourth only of Tractarian doctrines, and a virtual surrender of the others as indefensible.

But let us examine the defence of these five doctrines, most of which, as stated by our Author, stand grievously in want of further definition. The first plea advanced for them all is the authority of great names. "If you respect the names of Hooker and Andrews, of Bramhall, Joseph Mede, Sanderson, Hammond and Jeremy Taylor, Heylin, Pearson and Bull, of Archbishop Potter, of Nelson and of Horne, you must speak tenderly on the above points, for these are opinions for which they most strenuously contended."

The argument from authority has one serious evil, not to speak of others, it is the most imposing in the hands of the least scrupulous writers. It is so easy to quote largely a list of great names, so tedious to verify their exact views upon each subject of controversy, and often even impossible, without immense labour. Mr. Goode, in his Divine Rule of Faith, has taught us a salutary distrust of Tractarian catenas and quotations, which those who have read his invaluable work will not soon forget. Now we will honestly confess, that of several of these authors we have read but little, and of Heylin and Archbishop Potter not a single page. Two of them, however, we have read throughout-Hooker and Mede and it is unfortunate that with regard to both of these we have to offer a decided contradiction to Mr. Watson's statement. In every one of the five points, the views of the Tractarians, and those of Hooker and Mede are entirely different; on some they form a direct contrast. Let us take one instance from each Author, which may be extended to the other points in debate. The Tractarians make it one main pillar of their system, that unbroken apostolical succession and episcopal ordination are essential to the very being of a true Church. But the view of Hooker is the exact opposite. Let us hear his own words, when replying to the like claim set up for the Presbyterian discipline:

"As for us, we think in no respect so highly of it. Our persuasion is, that no age ever had knowledge of it, but only ours;

that they which defend it, devised it; that neither Christ nor his Apostles at any time taught it, but the contrary. If therefore we did seek to maintain that which most advantages our own cause, the very best way for us, and the strongest against them, were to hold even as they do, that in Scripture there must needs be found some particular form of church polity which God hath instituted, and which for that very cause belongeth to all churches, to all times. But with any such partial eye to respect ourselves, and by cunning to make those things seem the truest, which are the fittest to serve our purpose, is a thing which we neither like, nor mean to follow."

Could words convey a more pointed censure of the Tractarian dogma? And yet Mr. Watson assures all those who will take it from him on trust, that Hooker "strenuously contended" for the doctrine which he openly rejects as false, and fit only for cunning and unscrupulous disputants!

Again, with respect to the Visible Church, the Tractarians hold that Rome is "the mother by whom we were born to Christ ;" that "the Reformation is a limb badly set, and which must be broken again;" that the "Catholic teaching" of the fourth and fifth centuries must be our guide, and that in pursuit of it " we must diverge more and more from the principles, if any such there be, of the English Reformation;" in short, that the Reformation at large was "a grand rebellion of self-will against the visible Presence of Christ on the earth." Now what were the sentiments of Mede on these points, sentiments not casually expressed, but which form the main object of his writings? First, the fourth and fifth centuries to which they refer us as the standard of "Catholic teaching," Mede asserts and proves to be precise season of the Great Apostasy predicted by St. Paul; and that what they style "Catholic teaching" was thoroughly infected with "the hypocrisy of liars." Secondly, those middle ages, which they are fond of surnaming "ages of faith," Mede asserts to have been the times when Antichrist was at his height. Thirdly and finally, the Reformation, which they would brand as a rebellion of selfwill, is described by him in the simple and pithy phrase, “Judah casting away her idols." And yet, if we must believe Mr. Watson, Mede as well as Hooker "strenuously contended" for the Tractarian doctrines! We, on the other hand, assert confidently that the whole train of thought and doctrine in both these writers is flatly opposed to the vital elements of the Tractarian system; and the same we are convinced is true of Taylor, Pearson and Horne, and to a great extent of the others also.

Mr. Watson then digresses for thirty-six pages to give his own

views on the rise of Tractarian Churchmanship. Every paragraph might give great occasion to separate comment, but we shall only make two remarks. First, we are told in passing, that the Baptismal Service and the form of Absolution for the sick, &c. "may be regarded as the unequivocally and essentially Catholic portions of our public documents." Now we knew already that our Articles had been denounced as "the offspring of an uncatholic age,” and that they need severe torturing and twisting to receive what is called a "Catholic interpretation;" but we were hardly prepared for so bold an extension of the charge. We have now a further light thrown upon the meaning which Mr. Watson and his Tractarian friends attach to this useful servant of all-work, the title of Catholic. Be it known therefore, that in their view there is nothing "unequivocally and essentially Catholic" in the opening sentences of Scripture, nor in the confessions of sin, nor in the Lord's Prayer, nor in the Te Deum and the Psalms of David, nor in the Scripture Lessons, nor in the Litany and Collects, nor in that Communion Service, which is "a judgment upon us for mutilating the tradition of fifteen centuries," still less in the Articles and Homilies. All these are either equivocally Catholic or unequivocally Protestant and sectarian! When such sentiments are professed by clergymen of our church, we could almost wish to revive the prayer of King Edward's liturgy in a modified form, and say, "from such Catholicism, and its detestable enormities, may God, in his infinite mercy, deliver our most orthodox, most Catholic, and truly Protestant Church!"

But the Tractators are also praised for reviving a tone of high principle in contrast to low expediency, and for infusing into the Church an earnestness of religious faith. The following extract from a sermon of the Rev. H. J. Rose, whom Mr. Watson regards as their pattern and worthy predecessor, is given to show the high character of their teaching:

"On you, my younger brethren, in proportion to the errors of those who are gone before you, will fall an heavier responsibility. It will be your task to profit by their errors, to correct, as you may, the mischiefs which those errors are now working, and to carry on God's cause and God's designs in the world. Yours, in all human probability, if you act the part of men and christians, will be a career of such difficulty as few ages have witnessed. It will be yours to do the hardest of all works-to resist a destroying spirit, to restore old foundations, to lay new ones. It will be yours to toil, and to struggle, and few of you can hope in your generation (so slow is the progress of truth and of good,) to see of the travail of your soul, and be satisfied!

"One, and one only, way is open to you. Learn here, in these your days of quiet thought and study, the inestimable value of truth, the solemn duty of speaking it in the light, the glorious privilege of preaching it upon the house-tops, for the glory of God and the good of man, that which, by God's blessing, ye hear in the ear here. Learn here to despise, as ye ought, the