1816, the number of Bishops had increased to twelve, with two Deans. All this showed the steady increase of patronage from the high places of the Church. But perhaps the opposition from the body of the Church began later. Passing over, at once, to the latest report within our reuch, that of 1835, we find still enumerated at the head of the Vice-Presidents, the Archbishop of Tuam, the Bishops of Winchester, Salisbury, Norwich, Lichfield, Chester, Kildare, Sodor and Man, Calcutta and Madras, and the Deans of Bristol and Salisbury. And glancing over the names of subscribers, we find that of the most Rev. Dr. Howley, Archbishop of Canterbury. Moreover, upon collating the reports for half the duration of this society, we have ascertained that fourteen dioceses of England and Wales have been represented by their Bishops; and two others by their Deans, in the council of VicePresidents, who receive an annual vote of thanks for their patronage. If, then, Churchmen are to decide the maintenance or the rejection of the principle of authority, by the countenance or opposition showed by their superiors to the Bible Society, to what conclusion must they come? This generation must conclude, that in almost every part of England, they have been practically encouraged and exhorted by the representatives of their Church to support the Society, whose avowed object is "the circulation of Scripture without note or comment." And yet the claim to authority is to be deduced from exactly the contrary supposition!

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After these two bold attacks in form of questions, the Critic makes a thrust in tierce," which we think we can as easily parry before it reach Dr. Wiseman's side. It is as follows: Nay, to go higher, do we not read in our service, the Athanasian creed, which, whether it allows private judgment or not, clearly propounds that unless private judgment terminate in the reception of certain most definite statements of doctrine, it incurs the Church's direct and absolute anathema? Considering the assaults conducted by individuals on this creed; considering the continued struggle against what is sometimes called the HighChurch party, for a series of years past, on the ground of its enforcing one certain interpretation of the Word of God, under what impression, or in what state of mind, does Dr. Wiseman take for granted that the English Church consigns the Bible to each individual, and bids him draw his faith thence?"*

The plain meaning of which is-" display as much erudition as you please upon texts of Scripture; but recollect that you have a certain dogma to maintain, and that your erudition must

*British Critic, p. 385.

finally, by some means or other, appear to establish it. Now, I would ask any one who feels the importance of religious truth, what kind of confidence can be placed in those who, on such principles, engage in the interpretation of the Word of God?" Reader, this commentary is not ours, it is from the pen of the Rev. Dr. Turton, Regius Professor of Theology at Cambridge, and is intended as a severe rebuke upon an assertion of the same Dr. Wiseman, that the biblical researches of the Catholic must give results conformable to the definitions of the Church. This he seems to consider as a monstrous ultra-popish idea; his commentary on which he reserved for his bonne-bouche, at the end of his book, as likely to startle good Protestants. Now, therefore, stripping his remarks of that personality with which the learned Doctor so abounds, we beg to place them as a target before Dr. Wiseman's breast. We cannot suppose that Oxford will reason with him on a principle as its own, which Cambridge denounces in him, as erroneous. Nay, he never went so far as to to speak about "incurring the Church's direct and absolute anathemas."

We may, perhaps, be reproached by our readers, for extending this argument to such a length; if so, they must kindly bear with us a few moments more, while we discuss the appeal made from living witnesses to the illustrious dead. The British Critic indeed discards the Hornes, the Tottenhams, and others; but it refers the question of Church authority to the Bulls, the Beveridges, the Lauds, the Jewels, and a few other ancient divines. They, at least, prove, by their testimony, that the Church maintains its claim to dogmatical authority. It takes the trouble of making considerable extracts from their works.

We do not deny that on many occasions they seem to speak a language eminently Catholic; but we say no less, that they stood in their generation as the Oxford knot do at present, as men of one way of thinking, amidst as many or more, who maintained a different or even contradictory opinion. Laud was considered by many in the Church as little better than "a papist," and was suspected, whether truly we do not pretend to say, of hankering after the institutions, and dallying with the proferred dignities, of the Roman Church. Certain it is, that upon the Episcopal bench of his time were found some to treat with the papal agents about a reconciliation with the Holy See.+ Many other Anglican divines, the fear of the "Geneva discipline," and Presbyterian or Socinian opinions, drove to take shelter in tradition, and to

"The Roman Catholic Doctrine of the Eucharist considered." Cambridge, 1837, p. 337. + As Bishop Montague.

claim rights for their Church, upon the authority of antiquity. At any rate, before we can admit these writers to be urged against us, as representatives of the true Anglican doctrine, we must be satisfied that the body of that Church considers them such. Of this we have as yet no proof. Furthermore, before we can allow that their opinions were the same as those held by the Critic, we must have some clearer evidence than its extracts. For we find Mr. Keble's antagonist stoutly asserting, and by quotations endeavouring to establish, that the Rev. Professor's doctrine is opposed to the sentiments of these very divines. For this purpose, he cites Jewel, Archbishop Sandys, Dr. Willet, Whitaker, Davenant, Bishop of Salisbury, Prideaux, Taylor, Allestree, and others.

Let Anglicans themselves clear up these points, and decidefirst, who are their acknowledged theological authorities, and then what these teach, and we may allow them to charge us with unfairness for not drawing our statements exclusively from them. The British Critic is, indeed, hard to please upon these matters. If Dr. Wiseman quotes Baxter, who has received the commendations of Barrow, Wilkins, and other Anglican divines, or Jones, whom Dr. Maltby has praised, it is an insult to Beveridge to place him in such company. (p. 392.) If Dr. Beveridge himself is cited, it happens to be a work written by him when a young man, and not published by himself. (p. 390.) As to the latter circumstance, people very seldom do publish their own "Private Thoughts," but rather leave them to be given after their deaths; and as to the first, we might allow the plea in matters of research or thought, but scarcely in treating of an acquaintance with the principle of faith held in one's own Church. Certes, St. Thomas Aquinas was not much, if at all, older, when he composed many of his treatises; nor do we think that either Catholic or Protestant looks to the chronology of his works, when he quotes him as a testimony of what his Church teaches and taught. And surely, that cannot be very clearly the principle of faith of the Anglican Church, which Beveridge, about to take orders, did not know to be such, and only discovered by maturer studies.

We have various other remarks connected with this topic, which we must pass over at present. In concluding this subject, we will observe, that perhaps the Reviewer may have some small right to complain of Dr. Wiseman, for not having made, in his Lectures, an exception in favour of the party to which he and

The Clarendon press, at which Jones's work was printed, is under the directionof persons appointed by the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University.

his friends belong. But to blame him, for not separating the Church of England from other Protestants, in his arguments on the Rule of Faith, is manifestly unreasonable. Let that church, as a Church, detach itself from all other sectaries in its reasoning against us, let it avow disapprobation of their principles, let it be as unanimous in its doctrines concerning tradition and Church authority-we will not say as we are, but as it is itself on the rejection of Transubstantiation, and then we will acknowledge its right to record a separate plea from the great body of Protestants, when the Catholic arraigns them together for a breach of religious unity.

*

Further, we will observe, that it is hard to make such a charge of injustice at this time of day. From Baily's to Milner's "End of Religious Controversy," from Jewel's "Apology" to Burgess's "Charges," we meet no traces of this distinction between Anglican and Ultra-Protestant. The line of demarcation is clear and bold; "the Bible alone" on one side, "church authority" on the other, defines the challenge of the combatants; the Protestant never haggles about the terms, the Catholic never flinches from his ground. "With this sword" (Scripture) says Jewel, did Christ put off the devil, when he was tempted of him; with these weapons ought all presumption which doth advance itself against God to be overthrown and conquered. For all scripture,' saith St. Paul, that cometh by the inspiration of God, is profitable,' &c. Thus did the Holy Fathers always fight against the heretics, with none other force than with. the holy scriptures." Harding understands these words in the usual "popular" sense of the rejection of all authority but Scripture, and refutes them accordingly. Nor, if we remember right, does Jewel complain of misrepresentation. If he appeals to the Fathers, it is more as a question of fact than of right; he wishes to show that they are with Protestants and not with Catholics; but he does not allow them as judges or umpires between the two.

But, after all, religion is a practical, and not merely a speculative, institution; and we think that the doctrines of a Church may best be learned from what its pastors generally teach, and its followers generally believe. And on this view, we are satis

"An End to Controversy." Doway, 1654.

† On the contrary, Professor Keble writes as follows:-" As often as Tertullian and Irenæus have false teachers to reprove, or unevangelical corruptions to expose, do they not refer to the traditions of the whole Church, as to something independent of the written word, and sufficient, at that time, to confute heresy, even alone? Do they not employ Church tradition as parallel to Scripture, not as derived from it?"Sermon, p. 23.

fied, that the Church of England, as it exists at present, must be enumerated under the general head of Protestantism, and cannot be placed in a distinct class. But its article, which declares that "the Church hath authority in matters of faith." To it we oppose, first, the doubtfulness of its authenticity, or rather the strong probability of its spuriousness, whereof we are nearly convinced. Secondly, the latitude of interpretation which we have already seen permitted in the Church, and which allows the Ultra-Protestant principle of private judgment to be publicly taught by its authorised ministers. Thirdly, the difficulties of the system to which it leads, as explained by the British Critic― difficulties which will not allow dogmatical authority to be the principle of the Anglican Church.

II. This last objection forms, if our readers remember, the second head of our general animadversions upon the system presented by the periodical organ of the High Church party. Our first exception to it arises from its evident obscurity, in the mind of its expositor himself. Take the two following passages:

"Will he (Dr. W.) reply, that the Roman church does not grant that it can decree things contrary to scripture? True, but it claims to decree points of faith beyond scripture. And this is the authority which we deny it." p. 378.

"We consider that her (the Church's) decision in such extra-scriptural matters is not secure from error; is entitled, indeed, to veneration, but has not, strictly speaking, authority, and therefore may not rightly be enforced. This distinction is made at the end of the twentieth Article: As it (the Church) ought not to decree anything against the same, so besides the same ought it not to enforce anything to be believed for necessity of salvation.' The Church must not enforce beyond scripture; it may decree, i.e. pronounce beyond it, but not against it." p. 379.

And yet in the same breath we have been told, that this is the very authority which is denied to the Catholic Church. The writer would, perhaps, reply, that it is the authority which is denied to us, and is not claimed by the Anglican Church. But, to a simple, unsophisticated reader, such a distinction will hardly occur; and we confess that we read over the paragraph repeatedly, with the conviction, that its termination flatly contradicted its beginning. And even now it leaves upon our mind the conviction, that the writer has not very clear notions of what he should deny to the Catholic Church, and what he should claim for his own.

Nor is this perplexity imaginary. The Church may decree, but it may not enforce. What, if its decrees be disregarded?