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Church so solemnly and earnestly prayed, by any unnecessary act or deed that tends in the least to perpetuate the schisms now rending His body; much less ought we to do so by guarding, with apparently more jealous fear than we do some of the articles of the Nicene faith, the retention of a word that, in reality, means nothing, and which is now only remarkable as a political war-cry, a thundering clap-trap to shake the roof of Exeter Hall, and as a common bond of union for sects, and parties, and faiths, and opinions, that have nothing else in common, except perhaps the destruction of truths which protestantism, uuhappily for itself, hath not yet seen the value of.

When the designation of the church in the ancient creed is changed, then, I humbly submit, it will be time enough to give new terms of designation to her clergy.

Let us not, "out of tenderness to the superstition of weaker brethren," innovate, Genevate, Germanate, nor Scotize, by introducing modern terms for the clergy; no, no more than we should think of doing so by bringing in modern doctrines and practices into the creed and worship of the church itself. I am, Sir, with greatest respect, your obedient servant, J. ARMSTRONG.

Wallsend Parsonage, Northumberland.

AFTERNOON SERMONS AND BAPTISMS.

SIR,-The substitution of a sermon for the church catechism at the time of evening prayer is perhaps to be deprecated; certainly the excellent Bishop Wilson forbade the change in his own diocese of Sodor and Man, in 1740, when it was first attempted there. Yet is not the introduction of catechetical exercises in the course of divine worship, itself a novelty, unknown in the church before the Reformation? It seems also less necessary at the present day, when the prevalence of weekly and Sunday schools furnishes the clergy with other opportunities of attending to that branch of duty. Afternoon sermons are now of so old a date in England, and form so edifying and suitable an addition to the prayers, that I see no good ground for rejecting them. With respect to the place which they ought to occupy in the service, that which has the sanction of custom may be well defended. Who has not observed how many listless persons quit our venerable cathedrals after the termination of the anthem. In like manner, we have reason to fear that many "itching ears" would depart from our churches after the preacher had performed his office, if any considerable portion of the prayers were yet to follow. Expediency may be adduced in favour of a practice which is not incorrect

per se.

As to the time of administering baptism, I would venture to suggest, that here, also, expediency should have some weight. In metropolitan and town churches, the rubric may be obeyed with satisfaction to the minister and advantage to the congregation; but there are rural parishes, especially in the great dairy counties, where the administration of baptism after the second lesson at evening prayer, at least in

the spring and autumn, would keep many of the faithful from the house of God, as the service would close at too late an hour for their needful avocations. In such parishes more good may be done by baptizing infants immediately after the conclusion of evening prayer, when also some members of the congregation will usually be found to remain.

The invidious distinction between the rich and poor, with regard to the day of baptism, is an unseemly thing; and I would earnestly impress on my brethren of the clergy, that they could do much to remove it by setting a good example in the ordering of their own families. Let their wives be openly churched on a Sunday in the face of the congregation; let their children be admitted into Christ's fold on the same holy day, and at the same instant, with the children of the poor. I know that many act thus, and with the happiest effect on their superiors in station and fortune; but I wish to see the practice universal. OTIOSUS.

CHILLINGWORTH ON THE CHARGE OF APPROXIMATION TO

POPERY.

SIR,-We very frequently hear it stated as a proof of the popish tendency of the authors of the Tracts for the Times, and of other persons who think with them, that the Romanists speak of them as drawing nearer to the Roman church, and in fact hardly differing from it in their doctrines and practices. It is not perhaps surprising that persons of little thought or knowledge should be imposed upon by this artifice, though it certainly is surprising that others, who might have been expected to be better able to judge of such matters, should have been equally blind to its absurdity. To all those, however, who are disposed to attach importance to it, I would recommend the following passage from Chillingworth, from which they will see that it is only an old artifice of our adversaries, which was long ago used by them, and with the same object-viz., to bring those persons whom they dread above all others into disrepute with their brethren :

"The other part of your accusation strikes deeper, and is more considerable; and that tells us that protestantism waxeth weary of itself; that the professors of it, they especially of greatest worth, learning, and authority, love temper and moderation; and are at this time more unresolved where to fasten than at the infancy of their church; that their churches begin to look with a new face, their walls to speak a new language, their doctrine to be altered in many things for which their progenitors forsook the then visible church of Christ; for example, the pope not Antichrist; prayer for the dead; limbus patrum; pictures; that the church hath authority in determining controversies of faith, and to interpret Scripture; about free will, predestination, universal grace; that all our works are not sins; merit of good works; inherent jus tice; faith alone doth not justify; charity to be preferred before knowledge; tradi. tions; commandments possible to be kept; that their thirty-nine articles are patient, nay, ambitious of some sense wherein they may seem catholic; that to allege the necessity of wife and children in these days is but a weak plea for a married minister to compass a benefice; that Calvinism is at length accounted heresy, and little less than treason; that men in talk and writing use willingly the once fearful names of priests and altars; that they are now put in mind that, for exposition of Scripture, they are, by canon, bound to follow the Fathers, which, if they do with sincerity,

it is easy to tell what doom will pass against protestants, seeing, by the confession of protestants, the Fathers are on the papists' side, which the answerer to some so clearly demonstrated that they remained convinced.' In fine, as the Samaritans saw in the disciples' countenances, that they meant to go to Jerusalem; so you pretend it is even legible in the foreheads of these men that they are even going, nay, making haste, to Rome. Which scurrilous libel, void of all truth, discretion, and honesty, what effect it may have wrought, what credit it may have gained with credulous papists, (who dream what they desire, and believe their own dreams,) or with illaffected, jealous, and weak protestants, I cannot tell; but one thing I dare boldly say, that you yourself did never believe it.

For did you indeed conceive, or had any probable hope, that such men as you describe, men of worth, of learning, and of authority, too, were friends and favourers of your religion, and inclinable to your party, can any man imagine that you would proclaim it, and bid the world take heed of them? Sic notus Ulysses? Do we know the Jesuits no better than so? What, are they turned prevaricators against their own faction? Are they likely men to betray and expose their own agents and instruments, and to awaken the eyes of jealousy, and to raise the clamour of the people against them? Certainly, your zeal to the see of Rome, testified by your fourth vow of special obedience to the pope, proper to your order, and your cunning carriage of all affairs for the greater advantage and advancement of that see, are clear demonstrations that, if you had thought thus, you would never have said so. The truth is, they that can run to extremes in opposition against you; they that pull down your infallibility and set up their own; they that declaim against your tyranny and exercise it themselves over others, are the adversaries that give you greatest advantage, and such as you love to deal with; whereas, upon men of temper and moderation, such as will oppose nothing because you maintain it, but will draw as near to you, that they may draw you to them, as the truth will suffer them; such as require of Christians to believe only in Christ, and will damn no man nor doctrine without express and certain warrant of God's word. Upon such as these you know not how to fasten; but if you chance to have conference with any such, (which yet, as much as you possibly can, you avoid and decline,) you are very speedily put to silence, and see the indefensible weakness of your cause laid open to all men. And this, I verily believe, is the true reason that you thus rave and rage against them, as foreseeing your time of prevailing, or even of subsisting, would be short, if other adversaries gave you no more advantage than they do."-Chillingworth's Religion of Protestants, Preface, sections 20-21.

I am, Sir, yours, &c.,

H.

ON MR. HALLAM'S LETTER.

SIR,-Your periodical for February contains a letter from Mr. Hallam on the Council of Trent, which has been read by many as well as by myself with much interest. Having the highest possible respect for Mr. H.'s abilities and extensive acquirements, having derived also, in common with many others far more capable of appreciating his merits, much instruction and delight from his valuable historical and literary researches, and, moreover, fully subscribing to the sentiments contained in the greatest portion of his letter, I may say, without any affectation of modesty, that it is with considerable diffidence in my own judgment I venture to question the accuracy or the justice of the statements contained in the concluding paragraphs of his letter:"The speeches," he says, "reported in the newspapers as made at Exeter Hall, or in other protestant assemblies, abound in assertions which a Romanist can very easily repel," as, for an example, concerning "the real doctrine of Christendom before the Reformation." And

then proceeds in the following words:-"I shall not here dissemble, though conscious that I shall give offence, my strong suspicions, that these invectives against the Council of Trent, and against the modern Romanists, especially their supreme bishops, are designed to mask the approaches of what may be called a republican popery; of a system which, renouncing all allegiance to the see of Rome, shall still tend to revive in a greater or less degree a large portion of the theological and ritual corruptions of the medieval Latin church, with all its enfeebling superstition, all its despotic control over the human mind, all its pretensions to independence of the civil power. It would be very natural, in promoting such a scheme, to blend the most indiscriminating eulogies on the period antecedent to the Reformation, and the bitterest sarcasms on the subsequent state of religion, with the severest censure of the Romish priesthood in this kingdom, and even with a direct charge against the College of the Propaganda (in the tone of a semimaniac in the Quarterly Review) of having instigated the murder of Lord Norbury." Statements or insinuations of such a vague nature are generally entitled to little consideration; but, proceeding from the pen of Mr. Hallam, whose competency to judge in matters of historical fact is unquestionable, and whose integrity is above suspicion, they will naturally have great weight with many reflecting minds.

fore too much to ask of Mr. H. to give some instances of assertions made on the occasions referred to, "which a Romanist can very easily repel"? If "the speeches abound" with them, this can be a matter of no difficulty. The writer of this letter, though neither one of the speakers alluded to, nor always an approver of the things said, or of the manner in which they are said, on such occasions, has given some attention to the present Reformation movement, as well as to the principles of popery, but he has never yet met with anything in the speeches of the influential men at these meetings which could in any wise justify Mr. H.'s statements. Is it to be supposed that Dr. Croly, Dr. O'Sullivan, Mr. M'Neile, Mr. M'Ghee, Mr. Bickersteth, or Mr. Tottenham, (and these, I believe, are the most prominent, as well as the most influential, gentlemen in the Reformation movement,) would "make assertions which a Romanist can very easily repel?" Can any one believe them to be either so incompetent or so dishonest as to mistake "the doctrine of Christendom before the Reformation?" Why, the merest tyro in ecclesiastical history knows that papal infallibility, purgatory, transubstantiation, and the invocation of saints, were all established, some earlier, some later, among the tenets and practice of the Romish church before the Trent Council? And if this council is so often and so justly referred to in controversy with popery, it is because it has publicly set the seal of authority and confirmation on usages which had been gradually establishing for some preceding ages by the corrupt teaching and practice of the church of Rome. The writer has a personal knowledge of some of the gentlemen referred to by Mr. H. To say that they may, and do sometimes err in judgment, is only to say that they are fallible men; but to say that they are either so dishonest and impolitic as to misrepresent, or even so incompetent as to misstate historical facts connected with the doctrines or

practice of popery, is what Mr. Hallam himself could not easily credit, if he had any correct acquaintance with them or their principles.

I can partly conceive the surprise (a surprise increasing in proportion as we read and deliberate upon them) with which the statements contained in the concluding paragraph of the letter have been read by most of those who have given some impartial attention and observation to the present Reformation movement, or the character of the men engaged in it. We ask, can it be that a man-I will not say of any religious discernment, but of Mr. H.'s general experience, observation, and attainment, can so far mistake the true nature and bearing of religious opinions as to consider the sentences in this paragraph in any wise applicable to the principles or character of the speakers referred to? What "theological or ritual corruption of the medieval Latin church" have their principles or practice a tendency to revive? They have, indeed, sometimes been charged (whether justly or not is beside the present question) with undervaluing rites and ceremonies, but I believe never before with giving them an undue weight and prominency. The terms "enfeebling superstition," "despotic control over the human mind," "independence of the civil power," are all admirably characteristic of the popery which they denounce and endeavour to expose.

Mr. Hallam has probably not given himself the opportunity of judging of the practical influence of their religious principles, but those who have, will at once feel that if he wished to give a correct summary of what their principles have an inevitable tendency to undermine and overthrow, he would at once have said, “ Theological and ritual corruption, enfeebling superstition, despotic control over the human mind, and pretensions to independence of the civil power." Again, we say, is it expecting too much from Mr. H. to give some illustrations of these extraordinary assertions, or to inform us by what process he has arrived at his conclusions?

Mr. H. intimates that no one short of a madman could think of imputing the agrarian outrages in Ireland in any degree to the instigation of the Romish priesthood. How far the imputation may in itself be just, the writer is not competent to judge, but he would gladly learn from Mr. H. why there should be any absurdity or impossibility, or even improbability, in the charge? Not to recal the history of the Romish church at distant times, or in any remote parts of Europe, does not the history of Ireland itself, within the present century, give an air of probability to it? Is it not an admitted fact that the last open rebellion in that island was instigated and fostered by the agents of the papacy? And as the claim of that church to universal supremacy, and to what she designates "the Royalties of St. Peter," is as positive as ever, on what ground can we doubt that, if she now openly assumes a meek and pacific attitude, it is her policy and not her will that consents?

Finally, I would respectfully ask, as I presume Mr. H. admits that members, and specially ministers, of the church of England, are by that very membership and office pledged to oppose and counteract the influence of popery, how he would have them fulfil such an obliga

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